When you need any information at all, you turn to Google. Whether you are researching for a paper or just looking things up for curiosity’s sake, Google’s search engine is almost always your first step. Google’s reach has become so widespread that its name has become a verb common in our vernacular: You “google” for information. In fact, when you tell someone your e-mail address, you are likely being judged as old-fashioned when it ends with anything other than “@gmail.com.”
If you have a Google account (including Gmail users), Google automatically saves everything you do on any of its products, such as Google Maps, Gmail and Google Search. This information is saved on its servers, often referred to as “the cloud.”
All of this information can be useful and amusing to look through. For example, my most popular search at 2 a.m. is “sushi.” But it also sheds light on how much information Google has on each of us. As Fox News put it, Google is “a corporate behemoth that has amassed more sensitive data about its users than most personal diaries.” This eerie fact can have negative ramifications and needs to be regulated.
You can find out what information Google has on you by visiting Google Web History. For me, Google has recorded 8,630 web searches, 20,591 e-mails, 101 documents, 540 contacts, 2,824 chat conversations, and two years of my personal calendar. Web History displays your search queries graphed by month, day and time of day. If a person recorded my daily activity, personal communication and curiosities, kept that information forever and analyzed it all, we would call them a stalker. But if a friendly-looking corporation with a fun name does it, it’s OK for some reason.
We tend to think of Google as a group of do-gooders that is only advancing technology because they are great people. But we have to remember they are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re a company seeking large profits, said John Richardson Jr., who teaches a seminar titled “Just Google It.”
So what is the big deal if Google has all of your personal data?
It is important to note that while Google’s informal motto is “Don’t be evil,” the line between “evil” and acceptable is often blurry, as Google China censors its politically sensitive search results as demanded by the overzealous Communist Party of China. But that is more or less OK because it is happening in a far-away land.
Here in the United States, we are not communists, so our government does not require censored searches. Here, we should be worried about government and spy agencies’ ability to acquire all of our personal information.
Richardson said he can see a situation in which Google could predict behavior based on search history, which could lead the government to do something along the lines of the plot of “Minority Report,” in which the government arrests people before they commit crimes because they can predict criminal behavior.
Todd Presner, who taught “Googlization of Everything” said that he could imagine “a state of exception” that would allow invasive technologies to be harassed by the government, like in the movie.
Our last “state of exception,” according to Presner, was the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Many civil liberties were compromised: Bank and library records could be easily obtained by the government, and the National Security Agency collected phone records of tens of millions of American citizens.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Google, in order to receive help in analyzing recent cyber attacks from China, has turned to the NSA, a spy agency.
The possible ramifications of this partnership conjure up images of a Big Brother government that knows everything about its citizens. This also makes “Minority Report” less of a science fiction and more of a prophecy.
To stop this from happening, the onus is on three groups: users, Google and lawmakers.
Users can choose to turn off search history tracking through Google’s account settings. I just learned of this option recently and I have been addicted to Google for years. If users choose to opt out of this tracking, they also lose customized search results and ads.
For Google’s share of the responsibility, they need to have systems in place to restrict unwarranted access to personal data from the government. And in this regard, Google has been good thus far.
“We have a legal department focused on civil liberties,” said Mike Yang, senior product counsel of Google’s legal department.
According to Yang, Google successfully sued the U.S. Department or Justice when asked to release search trends in 2006 to protect users’ data.
But at the end of the day, Google is “required to follow U.S. law, and we do so, even if we don’t like it,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in an interview for the Council on Foreign Relations in 2008.
To that end, Congress must ensure citizens’ privacies are protected. Companies today have never had so much recorded personal information that can be and is thoroughly analyzed. Congress needs to define what personal data can be kept, how long it can be kept and in what cases government agencies can subpoena it. While the government sometimes needs to track people, there is a line, and it needs to be clearly defined.
E-mail Ramzanali at aramzanali@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.