US Government asked Google for user data 4,601 times.
I came across the above article from a dashboard from The Filter Bubble website, where different contributors share their thoughts on the ideas discussed in the book, The Filter Bubble, by Eli Pariser, and this article by Matt Maiorana caught my attention.
Maiorana shares and explains to us on what happens after, to the ginormous amount of data collected by Google to make “relevant search results and news” for its users. Apparently Google provides its users with a transparency report that shows ‘a detailed look at who’s asking for data and how much Google gives up’ and how the US Government has ‘asked Google for user data 4,601 times’ in a six month period alone. Scary! Not only that, our information even seems to travel out of the US, with Google providing our information to countries like France, Brazil, the UK and India to name a few. Why? I can only wonder.
Well yes, it is great news that Google shares with its users what else they do with our information and who they provide it to, and maybe profit a lot from. However, that does not settle my heart that information about me is going around, making its rounds, oblivious to my knowledge. Just because, Google is showing the entire world, every step they are taking, does not mean that the action they are doing is justifiable. I may be going off topic, by this is an exact replica of ‘the cheating boyfriend’ story, where the boyfriend expects his girlfriend to forgive him for cheating on her, because he told her the truth. Does not make sense, right? Just by putting up stats on a nicely arranged (its actually pretty plain) website, and letting its users know what they are up to, does not justify their actions. It is wrong of them to even share our information that they, in the first place, collected without our consent, or tricked us into giving. Google should not be able to get away with this, just because they are playing the ‘nice guy’ card.
How do you feel about this?
Well, you at least know how I feel about it.
While I understand where you are coming from and have felt the same way, I feel that Google is maybe the most progressive corporation to come from the information age. Your concerns are well justified when you realize the scale and rate at which Google’s power and influence is growing. Especially the issue of trust.
The information Google is able to obtain is an unintended consequence of the information age. As the actions of our daily lives begin to take place and become more and more integrated with the digital world where everything is systematically logged, these problems become inevitable. It’s the nature of the beast. And just like in the real world, as according to the world-system’s theory, an information power vacuum was created. Google is the necessary evil; a digital hegemon.
I believe Google’s approach and concerns towards corporate values and business ethics is a step in the right direction. The weight of the ethical and moral responsibilities Google has to uphold that comes with the immense power they possess as a leader of the digital age is heavy. I may have bought into Google’s ‘nice guy’ image as you put it, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take considering the possibilities of who could have had that power.
I think the real issue here is who can we trust with our information. For me it’s not the with who or what they’re collecting and sharing but the why and how they will use that information.
I didn’t mean to make that whole comment a hyperlink. I’m very bad with computers.
Wow, 4,601 is a big number than can make anyone uneasy. Personally, this article makes me think what the government needs so much of our information for. Tracking down criminials? looking for terrorists? seeing who’s getting pass the IRS? I honestly don’t know; but it also makes me think how valuable Google user’s information is. And also, the implications behind such a vast amount of information. Like the government, we all dependent so whole heartedly on technolgical innovations, that in years past we did fine without. I mean what does the U.S government really need to know from Google that they can’t figure out on their own. Like the government, we are allowing these technologies to handicap and debilitate us. I’m not advocating that the government impede our personal information without Google because I am definetly not for that. Nor am I saying that we revert back to the stone age. But we need to realize that they are honestly spending extra money for information that they could potentially function without. And in most of our lives, we can probably agree that we also spend money frivolously on technologies that we don’t really need.