Are Google & the CIA in partnership? Without a doubt says Former CIA agent Robert David Steele.

While I’m reluctant to sign on to such an extreme accusation without further evidence, I think it highlights some real concerns about the potential abuse within a company of Google’s magnitude.

Do No Evil

The trust we have for google is steeped in the “Page/Brin” public face, and their Orwellian “Do no Evil” slogan. Personally, I trust those two guys, but board members, stockholders, employed CEO’s - These are people I have no reason to trust (and every reason to distrust).

It’s nice to have a personable trust with your friends, but when we have:
•All our emails
•Chat logs
•Private information/Logins
•Calendar details
•Documents
•Spreadsheets
•Search history
•& Personal website stats/analytics.

…all overseen by Google, I want to see this trust written in law, and want to know how they will be held accountable if that privacy is not upheld 100%

It’s happened before (as we are all to aware) and it will happen again. Each time the amount of information leaked grows exponentially as the technology matures, but I don’t think people will even comprehend the kind of cross referenced information google keeps on their servers until it leaks.

Benevolent souls

People should also be aware of why google offer all these nice services. They are primarily an advertising company. They are able to target people with pinpoint accuracy because they have an unmatched & incomprehensible amount of cross referenced information at hand. The kind of information people have avoided handing over to telemarketters and market research surveys for years, people have started blindly handing to the likes of google and myspace.

They operate essentially as information farms to deliver consumables to consumers. It’s a very cynical point of view, as google also offers very useful services, but there’s a real truth to that notion. There’s no doubt that analytics, for example, is designed to get internal stats to better hone their search, and context ads - akin to TV set top boxes, “free” coke fridges, or the dealer who offers you a “free trial” of his greatest brown sugar.

It’s never nefarious to begin with, but it can be abused. Already you get profiled spam, or personalised telemarketting. Already people are judged and put on trial based upon fitting “criminal profiles”. Google possesses the kind of cross referenced information that make up the wet dreams of Governments, criminals and marketters (as if there’s a difference!)

It’s dangerous territory - we’re not there yet, but the biggest mistake we could make would be to ignore the phenomenal amount of information a company like Google actually has. I love to see the innovation that comes out of google, but it’s important to keep their motives in check, and ensure that someone is accountable for their legal and ethical oblications to maintain & encrypt privacy - not to ‘keep mum’, but to actively encrypt and prevent human eyes from ever seeing this data.