Brazil wants Google's Data Now

If Google were to be shut down in Brazil, what would be the point in paying the fine? Anyway, I hope GOOG don't cave over this - otherwise I'll be purging all my data from Google as fast (and as much is) possible.

That's what this demonstrates quite clearly once again. We've seen it before, of course: the Chinese government, the German government, the US government, North Korea, Singapore, Iran etc. - all blithely involved in censuring the Net and voicing demands re user data across the board.

More recently, it was AOL deliberately spilling the beans, now it's the Brazilian government believing this data is up for grabs.

Hopefully, this will help silence the crowd who keep ranting about granting Google (or any other major SE for that matter) the benefit of the doubt. Because Google's company ethics aren't at issue here anyway: If such data is accumulated at all, no matter by whom and to what originally benevolent purposes (even if genuine, which more often than not is highly doubtful by default), it constitutes a time bomb for everyone involved.

Of course, as long as people keep harping on credit card data and Social Security numbers alone, they're simply missing the point by breaking it down to a mere fraction of the overall nasty issues actually at hand.

Just like anything encrypted can be decrypted sooner or later, depending on how much effort you're prepared, willing and able to throw at it, any such treasure trove of personal/traceable information is bound to attract if not breed all sorts of unappetizing covetousness, be it commercial, administrative, political, or otherwise.

If nothing else, that's the way Big Brother scenarios will inevitably be spawned to full physical manifestation, as if they didn't exist already ...

It's not a Google issue, it's a search engine and data collection and privacy issue. Google is simply at the tip of the spear for their size and influence.

The thing that frustrates me is that more people aren't nervous about this. If the government access stories are too removed from our daily lives for the average man on the street to relate to, the AOL debacle should have shaken up at least a few more people than it did.

I don't assume that something bad WILL happen. Only that something bad COULD happen. And most likely, not many people will care about this unless and until something bad DOES happen.

"If only we had paid more attention..."

All this data will eventually end up sifted through by the feds, its as good as done. In fact, I give it three years.

Just think about how easy it would be to say "Sorry, all our user level data has been destroyed".

even if they say "all our user level data has been destroyed" it won't really, truly be ALL of it. there will always be segments ranging from "today's hot searches" to "under special study" to some starving geek in the back room porting it to his super-mega 8TB sandisk mp3 player and selling it. top that with the fact that this is some really valuable stuff marketing-wise and it'll feel like erasing the corporate savings account. i don't see how you can expect profit-driven entities to do anything but circle the wagons. it's going to take a gov legal mandate to get those disks wiped and i'm not sure the gov wants to mandate that.

gov look at banking "privacy" if you want to see the parallel.

it's going to take a gov legal mandate to get those disks wiped and i'm not sure the gov wants to mandate that

For certain scenarios and in certain circumstances, depending who owns Congress at the time, I can even envision a mandate for the SEs to keep all of the data as it's something certain segments would really like to have access to.

don't log in
flush your cookies
change your IPs often

Most DSL lines are PPPoE accounts and it is very easy to switch IPs. If you have a cable line you will need to use proxies to get the same effect. For the real paranoid there is tunneling, but then you better trust the company providing the service.

Ues plainjane user agents.

There comes a point, even in a "democratically-represented" society, where it's pertinent to ask, who do you trust with your personal info and don't you think we, as your representatives, at least should know what, and how much of your info is out there and who has it?

Who wins your trust over the other: Google? Or your Govt?

ThePost

A man is standing at the Gates of Hell, except there are two entrances, not one. Over the first a sign reads "Live in your house while it's being remodeled." Over the other; "Burn in hellfire for eternity."

Satan, who is standing behind the damned, shrugs and says "Pretty much a coin-toss, isn't it?"

Nor can they be impeached. But to all practical purposes, that's a purely academic distinction anyway. Some coin-toss, indeed.

And yes, caveman: people don't mind, don't care and simply can't be bothered. After all, you can't smell, see, feel, hear and taste information (only the consequences of its being used against you, but of course that'll be too late anyway). Seeing that most people seem to be totally out of their depth intellectually when confronted with current life in general and state of the art technology in particular, it's hardly surprising, really, to see them stick their hands in the sand most of the time.

top that with the fact that this is some really valuable stuff marketing-wise and it'll feel like erasing the corporate savings account. i don't see how you can expect profit-driven entities to do anything but circle the wagons.

Couldn't agree more.

And at the risk of becoming the perennial club bore I'd like to point out again for the umpteenth time that what people really should start to realize is that search engine companies (Google foremost, but they're certainly no loners on this score) aren't about search at all: they're all about data mining because that's where the real money lies.

Whereas governments love schmoozing with them for the very same reason: because data is where today's political power lies. And they're not even going out of their way in hiding or whitewashing the fact - a clear indication that we're right at the start of a major development where the bodies involved are still subscribed to a certain degree of naiveté for want of serious opposition.

Which, I guess, is a pussyfooting way of saying that the worst is yet to come ...

people really should start to realize is that search engine companies (Google foremost, but they're certainly no loners on this score) aren't about search at all: they're all about data mining because that's where the real money lies.

Why is this so hard to understand? Google even tells us its about the information.

http://www.google.com/corporate/

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

offer translations from corporate speak to real life terms? From Bill Gates's notorious "informmation at your fingertips" (once you've typed them to rags, that is ...) to this hypocritical trash, all it boils down to is: we want YOU - your MONEY, your IDENTITY, your DATA, your ASS, your SOUL. (For short: MIDAS beats AIDA anytime in long tail terms.)

When companies started selling cell phone calling histories, the data mining thing hit home for many congress people. It was a scary thing... because they had trusted the privacy of their cell phone records. They don't trust the privacy of their data networks and they haven't for some time.

Of course the market responds, and there is an underground industry in anonymous cellphones. And yes, the government tries to stop that as "terrorism".

So how many of you still say "if you have nothing to hide, why are you afraid?"

THAT's when it's time to get afraid!

"If you're not advertising Casinos, why are you afraid?"
"If you're not listening to Al Franken, why are you afraid?"

From the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's 2001-2002 Annual Report:

...privacy is a pretty abstract concept. Like our health, it's something we tend not to think about until we lose it - and then discover that our lives have been very unpleasantly, and perhaps irretrievably, altered.

But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy - the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us - is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being.

If someone intrudes on our privacy - by peering into our home, going through the personal things in our office desk, reading over our shoulder on a bus or airplane, or eavesdropping on our conversation - we feel uncomfortable, even violated.

Imagine, then, how we will feel if it becomes routine for bureaucrats, police officers and other agents of the state to paw through all the details of our lives: where and when we travel, and with whom; who are the friends and acquaintances with whom we have telephone conversations or e-mail correspondence; what we are interested in reading or researching; where we like to go and what we like to do.

A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.

The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.

If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.

the what? Who? Never heard of him.

Oh, and that bit about romantic partners? That'd be banned here in the ole US of A. Tsk tsk no naughty bits please.