Nettlesome Google Story Won’t Die
April 1, 2008
Rumors about Google’s cooperation with US government agencies come and go. In the last week, more details percolate about the tie up between the search giant and the intelligence community.
An interesting recycling of the current crop of rumors appeared on April 1, 2008, in the Times of India‘s Web site. The Times‘s unsigned article states:
In the most innovative service, for which Google equipment provides the core search technology, agents are encouraged to post intelligence information on a secure forum, which other spies are free to read, edit, and tag-like the online encyclopedia Wikipedia .
Beyond Search has no information to prove or disprove the assertions in the Times‘s article. If true, a public relations dust up can add to the increasingly negative stance taken toward Google for its loss of key staff to Facebook.com and its seemingly weakening grip on online advertising.
Stephen Arnold, April 1, 2008
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2 Responses to “Nettlesome Google Story Won’t Die”
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The U.S. intelligence services have admitted to leveraging ‘web 2.0’ technology to improve information / intelligence sharing, using a system of blogs and wiki’s to facilitate this. IF this system uses Google appliances to provide its search, so what ? Why would this cause a public relations dust up for the company ? As a European I would be way more worried about Googles general stance on privacy.
I agree with Jed. The Google search appliance “box” is available to any company that cares to pay for it. I don’t think a government’s use of this tool is any sign of Google scurrilousness.
It was apparent from a quick search of my feeds, that Intellipedia has drawn a good deal of attention as a “success story” of Enterprise 2.0.
http://billives.typepad.com/portals_and_km/2008/02/the-us-intellig.html
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/30/google-powering-americas-first-line-of-defense/
http://marklogic.blogspot.com/2007/11/space-social-networking-for.html
Whatever one’s feelings about the US intelligence community, it seems like an improvement from a regulatory, technical process perspective to be a significant improvement. If Intellipedia keeps bone-headed intelligence analyses from being carried out, so much the better.