The price of using Google Products and protecting yourself

Is Privacy, Ethics and Security Part of the Google Equations?

Google: Collecting data

    I am going to put myself in the shoes of the executives at Google and say I do not mind the fact that Google pulls data from millions every day. On the surface, I believe Google feels it is their job as a company to provide information and to do a thorough job of who is visiting their website or other platforms. Google prides itself as one of the leading technological companies in the world. They are constantly pushing the proverbial envelope and innovating new ways to use their free platforms. As a marketer, I want to know what my consumer base is looking for and make that product or service accessible to them. A large part of navigating the market landscape is researching how the consumer thinks and acts. This is part of what Google is doing when they are collecting data on their millions of users. If they are not collecting data, they most likely are not moving forward with new ideas that reshape the user experience.

    Should the user be concerned about Google and its data collecting habits? I think there are times when users may feel their privacy is violated. For example, when a user is typing in a search, Google AdWords is tracking that particular search. The user may be surprised to find the same product they searched show up as an advertisement in their continued search. I am not sure the user should be overly concerned, but when a user feels their privacy has been breached, that could raise a red flag for certain people.

    The government and the American Antitrust Institute have taken notice in past years. Several members within these agencies believe Google has abused their power as the dominant search engine tool. In 2011, Robert Birge, Kayak’s chief marketing officer said, “We believe there’s a very compelling case that Google is abusing its dominant position in search to stifle competition and to extend its control over how information and commerce flows over the Internet.” Greg Reback, an antitrust attorney added, “The allegation is that Google brings its own results up to the top of the search results, making them more visible and more valuable than competitors who actually would score higher on the normal relevance tests Google uses to rank search results (Gregory).” 

     I am not a lawyer, but one part of me says, if this was in fact true, Google should play fair with the results that rise to the top of their search engine. On the other hand, part of me says this is Google’s search engine and why wouldn’t they want to make their own products and services more visible. I think we forget Google is free to all users and this could fall under the category of ‘price of doing business.’ As I explained in my previous blog, there are many search tools out there and different aggregating systems that cost money. Overall, I think we as a society are fortunate to have a search service for free. It beats using an Encyclopedia! 
   
Google: Ethics, Privacy and Security

    After digging around the Internet for ethics, privacy and security issues associated with Google, I found many stories that are very critical of Google’s practices when it comes to these issues. When researching for anything on Google, it is hard not to think about how much actual ‘privacy’ a user really has at his or her disposal. I typically approach my searching methods with the premise that I am not alone in my use of Google or any other search engine. I would not consider myself as paranoid, but very self aware of my surroundings. A long time ago, if started thinking about the privacy issues when my searches started triggering similar advertisements to my search. 

     For example, if I am searching for a certain brand of shoes or boots, it is not uncommon for that same brand to appear on the right side of my screen as an advertisement. This should raise a red flag for any user. From that point on I always worked on the computer as if someone was watching my moves. In a sense, it is kind of sad to really think about ‘big brother’ always watching over your shoulder, but reality and history show, we leave a cyber footprint with every online action we make. 

    Many web users do not recognize the importance of privacy and security, a problem destined to become much worse before it gets better. On the surface, it seems rather innocuous, intended merely to give Google permission to transmit your data across various networks onto all sorts of mobile devices. However, Google demands extremely broad rights from users (Kringsman). In a sense, the question users have to ask themselves is: Are they willing to hand over their own property? I suspect and hope privacy issues have improved over the years with Google (and other search engines), but the weary side of me says, individuals should always be mindful of ‘who’ else is monitoring their web searching habits. If a user is second guessing their privacy/security and whether or not to publish or search a certain item, they should probably error on the side of caution and not publish.     


Security: Google Play

    While I am not personally a big user of Google Play, I am aware of the portal for apps and massive amounts of downloads. Last year a Columbia University student presented a paper about the security issues associated with Google Play. One of the points the presenters made was what gets put into Google Play? The students’ contention was that very little was known about what’s there at an aggregate level. To do this, they developed PlayDrone, a tool that uses various hacking techniques to circumvent Google security to successfully download Google Play apps and recover their sources (Evarts). This story was very telling because the two students discovered all kinds of new information about the insecure content in Google Play. Their findings revealed developers often store their secret keys in their apps software, similar to usernames/passwords information, which could be used by anyone to steal user data or resources from service providers (i.e. Facebook or Amazon).   


Practice Vigilance

    Stories such as the one above underscore the necessity for online vigilance – especially when using social media platforms. There have been many stories well documented throughout the years about people posting inappropriate subject matters and suffering the consequences for their actions through job loss or worse. It bears repeating, when in doubt about the contents of a particular post, it is a good decision to not hit send. This link is a short video of how to set up privacy settings for Blogger. It may run counter to some of the things I have discussed, but the Blogger Manager presented a few good options: http://bit.ly/1FfSTX3.

    If you are a person who is paranoid and do not want anything viewed, you may want to heed the advice of government whistleblower, Edward Snowden. Snowden advised viewers to get rid of Dropbox, and to avoid using high-profile online services such as Facebook and Google if they wanted to protect their privacy in the ever-more-informed Information Age (Mejia). That advice is fairly cut and dry through the lens of Mr. Snowden, but it can be difficult if you need to search and use the largest search engine. 
 

References

Gregory, N. (June 27, 2011), Is Google Playing Fair With Its Search Results? Retrieved from:
    http://n.pr/1FAnK46
Kringsman, M. (July 11, 2011), Google Plus: Is Privacy an Issue? Retrieved from:
    http://zd.net/1AjC8dJ
Evarts, H. (June 18, 2014), Crucial Security problem in Google Play: Thousands of Secret
    Keys found in android apps, Retrieved from; http://bit.ly/SVmJh0
Mejia, P. (October 12, 2014), Wary of Privacy Issues? Ditch Dropbox and Avoid Google, Says
    Edward Snowden, Retrieved from: http://bit.ly/1s7ovsH