Google storing searches a question of ethics

Stan Beer
Sunday, 13 August 2006 20:50

Opinion and Analysis

In light of the recent AOL fiasco, which compromised the privacy of hundreds of thousands of users, one would think that Internet companies would think long and hard about making statements about how safe the data of its users is. Not so with Google.

According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the search leader will continue to store the search inquiries of its users. What's more, Schmidt does not even give an unqualified guarantee that the same thing could never happen at Google (you can never say never, he said).

Thus, we have the leader among search engine giants admitting that the data of search queries could conceivably be compromised by some mishap. This is in itself bad enough news for law abiding users who believe that they should have a right to absolute privacy when they go online.

However, Schmidt, in his amazingly and refreshingly frank discussion with the media last week, has added a further dimension to the threat to the privacy of online search users. Schmidt has raised the spectre of governments threatening the privacy of search users.

Google won much praise from privacy advocates when it successfully fought a demand from US Justice Department to hand over search requests of its users as part of child pornography investigation. Regardless of the merits of the US Government's request, it goes without saying that the demand was potentially a frightening invasion of the privacy of the predominantly law abiding individuals who search the web for information.

The fact that Google won its battle in US courts gives little cause for comfort. Whatever one may think of the US, no one can deny that it is one of the places on this planet where privacy and the rights of the individual are placed on the highest pedestal and are values firmly entrenched in the national psyche. Even so, as was demonstrated, the US Government sometimes tries to force its hand and fortunately gets put in its place.

Unfortunately, however, the same cannot be said for many other places in the world. Thus, when we hear of Google storing search queries on servers in other parts of the world where governments do not respect the values of privacy and human rights, we must wonder about the ethics of such actions.

No doubt, Google and the other search providers have much to gain in market intelligence and improving the efficiency of their search technology by storing user search queries. However, is the potential cost of such actions to users, worth the potential gains?

In some - perhaps many - of the countries that Google and the other search companies operate, they may be one day be forced to hand over search queries if they wish to comply with the laws of the land. Google and the other search companies have already defended censorship of searches in places like China on the basis that they must operate within the laws of the country.

What happens if search companies are ordered to hand over data that could finger dissidents? Do they then break the law and refuse the order or remain good corporate citizens and help the authorities track for incarceration people who have done nothing more than speak their mind.

The whole issue could be avoided if the storing of user identifiable search queries by search providers was made illegal.

Is it time for countries of the free world to make a stand and take the decision out the hands of corporate entities who are tempted to put profits ahead of the values that enabled them to be created in the first place?