Are Privacy Issues Still Plaguing Google?
July 31, 2011
It’s hard to believe that Google is continually putting consumer privacy in question, you would think they would learn. While I’m all for a good Google roast, this is borderline overkill. TechSpot’s Matthew DeCarlo’s article “Goggle’s Street View Cars Collect Locations of Wi-Fi Devices” is an interesting look at what looks like Google’s latest troubles.
Google’s Street View Cars collected information about the Wi-Fi locations of many European users and their “previous locations”. We learned:
“For instance, someone could use the data to show you were at a specific place during a specific time, and that’s something you might not want to share with the world.”
What I don’t get is how this is any different than the check in applications that millions of people are already utilizing on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. It’s also no different than the hundreds of millions of social media users that post their whereabouts on statuses and feeds worldwide.
In order for users to cry “privacy infringement” the data should have been private in the first place. But it sure looks as if privacy issues, whether grounded or not, are an albatross around Googzilla’s neck. It is tough to search if one cannot connect in our opinion.
Leslie Radcliff, July 31, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, an outfit which published my new study of enterprise search and a chapter that provides some of my analysis of the Google Search Appliance.
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