Google Privacy Stumbles Over a New Hurdle
November 28, 2018
Out of the frying pan and into the fire for the world’s biggest search engine. The more Google tries to grow, the more it seems to stub its toe on privacy issues. We were treated to the latest episode of this soap opera recently when we read a Next Web story, “Google’s Ethical Black Hole Swallows Deepmind’s Best Intentions.”
In short, healthcare startup, Deepmind, was sold to Google. Despite Deepmind’s promise that client info would not be sold, experts are not convinced that they can trust Google yet.
“There’s good reason for privacy advocates to be concerned, but perhaps the news would be received differently if Google hadn’t spent all year destroying the consumer trust it’s cultivated over the past decade…DeepMind, for its part, says the private data won’t end up connected to Google accounts.”
Additional criticism of Google appears in Fortune Magazine’s “Google Is Accused of ‘Tricking’ Users Into Sharing Location Data Under the EU’s Strict New Privacy Laws.” The magazine reports that a document prepared by the Norwegian Consumer Council explains some of Google’s more interesting methods of obtaining information about a user’s behavior. The tracking vector makes use of Android, Google Maps, and some technical ornaments.
If you want to read the full report, navigate to this link. Fortune included many ads in its short write up, but managed to leave out the link to the source document.
Ah, modern “real” journalists. Ah, Google, always eager to give users control and ways to improve one’s experience.
Patrick Roland, November 23, 2018
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