Big Brother Google

After reading David Strietfeld’s article from the New York Times entitled, “Data Harvesting at Google Not a Rogue Act, Report Finds” I found myself becoming increasingly paranoid and angry about technology and the internet. These days, one hears a constant stream of news reports about companies using/selling the personal information they receive from internet users to make money, collect data, etc. This case of Google, however came as a surprise to me. Google really is the leading search engine service online and makes about $10.65 Billion in revenue per year, so there shouldn’t be a reason for them to be harvesting information from unsuspecting users. The problem with the harvesting scheme at Google is that it was covered up and a long-maintained lie about it being the “work of a rogue engineer” has since been disproved. It was discovered that Google knew about it all along and knew that the data being collected was of a personal nature. While I can see the data being useful to create programs and make Google itself a better search engine, I cannot rationalize theft of personal information. There are some who may say, “Well, if you want privacy, don’t use the internet.” but it’s really not that simple. The world we live in requires knowledge of how to use a computer. Between email, social networking and online shopping, one must have at least a basic understanding and because of that, the Internet is really inextricable from our lives. We can only hope that policy and morality will help regulate what is being taken from us as we click, search and communicate over the web. -Susanne Makosky http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/technology/google-engineer-told-others-of-data-collection-fcc-report-reveals.html?_r=1&ref=technology