In this weeks reading of Googlization of Everything, author Siva Vaidhynathan explores the issues surrounding the amount of control Google has on the Internet. Vaidhynathan shows that Google’s settings allow for a massive collection and documentation of data throughout the Internet. This can lead to an issue of people’s privacy in the digital realm. Google can store harmful information of people allowing strangers to access it at any time. As Vaidhynathan argues, “Google always gives the victim of exposure the opportunity to remove troubling information from Google’s collection. But the system is designed to favor maximum collection, maximum exposure, and the permanent availability of everything.”
The dangers with Google arise from our desire to share and create material on the Internet. Google makes copies and files this information away in its database for anyone on the Internet to interact with. Google claims that these databases are collected to help spread information, but in reality all of our activities that we enjoy are being stored each time we search, leading to an invasion of our privacy without our consent. The extent of the information available is compounded due to how many features Google offers, but Google doesn’t keep a close filter on the content being displayed. Their privacy policy is very weak with the majority of the privacy efforts being placed on the users to manage what is put online.
Stephen Colbert took a stab at the invasion of privacy that flourishes on Google. In his witty take on the matter Stephen brings about many points that are eye opening to the general public. He shows that the information placed on Google is invasive and costly for people looking to enter the workplace since there may be inappropriate pictures posted online. Imagine Googling your name only to find drunken Facebook pictures. This is one of the concerns, that Stephen points out, because Google now uses a feature to scan unlabeled online photos and match them based on facial recognition. This allows for any type of photo to be loaded into the search engine for anyone to see. On top of this Stephen shows how Gmail tracks our friends and family as well making it even easier for companies to do some digging to find information out about us. Clearly this upholds Vaidhynathan’s argument of the invasion of our privacy and shows how Google is looking to gather and collect information for its own financial gain. Unfortunately, inappropriate images can easily be placed online with essentially no protection from the company. As CEO Eric Schmidt states, “ If you have something that you don’t want someone to know maybe you shouldn’t do it in the first place.” This is a lazy approach of protecting the users who are essentially the product of the company. Since some of the content may be posted without our own permission, Google’s blind eye approach leads to a surveillance of nearly everything in our lives. This will only increase with time and technology as things become more and more advanced our protection of our rights may become weaker and weaker.
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