Pay for Your Privacy - The Google Conundrum

How much is your privacy worth?  $10 per month?  $25 per month?  Would you just give it away for free?  All of your private data?  Information about what you like?  Your shopping lists?

Giving it away for free is exactly what you're doing when you use Google's products.  Now some people may not care all that much.  Maybe you think it's okay if Google and other big companies know everything about your online activities, but businesses and especially governments need to think again.

Image via CrunchBase

Think this is a whole lot of to do about nothing?  The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) doesn't.  They filed suit against Google on February 8th to try to prevent Google from combining data from across Google's services in to a single profile, making all of your data available to all Google services.  In practice this means that you may see advertisements customized based upon the content of your Google searches.  You may also see advertisements when looking at your photos on Picasa based upon the contents of your e-mail or Google Talk chats.

Picture this: a friend is getting a divorce and asks you to recommend an attorney.  You do a Google search for "divorce attorney."  Later, your spouse goes to read your shared G-Mail account and is presented with a slew of advertisements for divorce attorneys.  Awkward questions ensue...

Another example with photos and instant messaging: you're having a discussion about good times at college with a buddy on Google Talk.  You mention playing drinking games and going to clubs of ill-repute.  Later that day you're sitting with your 5-year old looking at family photos on Picasa and a pop-up ad is targeted at you for Viagra (or something worse).  Mommy, what's Viagra?

privacy (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

So let's talk about Google Apps.  Google says that Apps' education, business and government customers are safe and that they won't use their data for advertising.  Apps isn't quite free, but it is a very low cost service.  Where is Google making their money then?  Is it from subscriptions?  Really?  I don't believe Google cares whether people use Apps or not... they're counting on creating new Google search customers.  Even if they aren't directly using the data that organizations store in Google Apps the 900 less-well regulated applications that you use when you're a Google Apps customer aren't covered by their privacy policy.  Don't tell me that Google isn't going to use information from those other apps to choose ads to display to users.

It's a slippery slope.  Get a discount on your cloud e-mail, file storage and sharing but be aware that there is still a cost for using Google's services.  It's your information... your privacy.  That's how you pay for low-cost and free services from Google.

So, am I going to stop using Google services?  This blog was published with Blogger.  I used Google search for some of the references and related articles.  I don't plan to stop any time soon either.  But am I going to trust customer's data to a company that makes 97% or more of their revenue on aggressive search advertising?

Not a chance.

Next time: is Microsoft a better choice for cloud e-mail services than Google?  See you soon!

Related articles

• Q&A: Google to dig deeper into users' lives (msnbc.msn.com)
• Are You In the Dark About Google's New Privacy Policy? (chikg33kstekntoyz.wordpress.com)
• Clock counts down as Google privacy change looms (news.cnet.com)
• Last Ditch Efforts to Halt New Google Privacy Policy (searchenginewatch.com)
• Developments related to Google privacy initiative (seattlepi.com)
• EPIC Files Emergency Appeal Against Google (webpronews.com)
• Google's new privacy policy takes effect (goerie.com)

Gigabit Google - Kansas City Event Summary

This evening I attended the IASA Kansas City quarterly event and their topic was "Google Fiber and Kansas City."  Rachel Hack, the local Google Community Manager for Kansas City spoke about their plans for our area and had lots of good information.  Some of it I've seen other places and some not.

Here's a summary of what I heard and thought was notable:

1. Google is running fiber in to homes, not businesses.  They have no timeline or significant plans to run it for businesses, even small ones.  So, if you want Google fiber for your business buy a house in Kansas City and start a home office!
2. Google wants to enable everyone in the community with high speed internet access, especially those currently without it.  This means they like the diversity of Kansas City's neighborhoods.  They like that they can find lots of places with the wealthy and the financially challenged literally within sight of each other.
3. They're interested in municipal buildings like libraries and schools and hospitals.  I heard the word "free" although I'm guessing I heard wrong.  It's an interesting idea though... put in free internet in public places to encourage communities and neighborhoods to work with Google on the rollout.
4. The installation will be in Kansas City, KS and Kansas City, MO proper ONLY at this point.
5. There are no current plans to go to other cities.  Rachel was asked about this several times and stayed with the company line: this is just about Kansas City right now.
6. Rachel was asked about whether this was just a short-term test or if Google was in Kansas City for the long haul.  She said that the cost to deliver fiber to the home is significant and Google plans to make their investment work.
7. Google will be evaluating neighborhoods based upon demand.  In neighborhoods where lots of people want Google fiber, they'll be higher on the list.  She said that Google will factor in neighborhoods where there aren't a lot of highly educated people that know to raise their hands and ask for the service.
8. I asked about whether Google plans to give network preference to their own services over those of competitors.  I specifically asked about Microsoft's Office 365 products versus Google Apps.  She said that no, Google isn't planning on preferring anyones services over anyone else's.
9. Someone asked about privacy over the fiber connection.  She said that Google takes people's privacy very seriously and will consider that.  By the way, it's harder, but not impossible to tap fiber than it is older copper wire infrastructure.  It should be somewhat more secure just because of the medium.
10. Rachel mentioned that Kansas City, KS. schools give their kids laptops and that the lower income kids didn't have internet access at home to take full advantage of them.  Google hopes to remedy this and enable everyone.
11. Google doesn't plan to open a local office anytime soon and is doing all their work with local contractors at this point.  There is one open position in Kansas City though for a "Technical Project Manager, Google Fiber - Kansas City" listed on the Google website.  if you've got lots of experience with fiber and project management this might be a job for you!
12. Google is planning to encourage local entrepreneurship through partnerships with organizations like ThinkKC and the Kauffman Foundation's StartupWeekend.  The next Startup Weekend will be in April and Google may be a sponsor or partner of some sort.

I'll do some analysis on the event later.  The one thing that really surprised me was that Google doesn't plan to make their fiber available to businesses anytime soon.  Rachel really stressed that this move was about homes and helping bridge the digital divide.

Thanks to the KC IASA chapter for putting on the event!