Google Puts Your Data in a Corner

Facebook is still feeling the heat over its Hotel California data policy, which hordes users' private information even after they try to desert the site. The Times' Maria Aspan has been all over this story, and her latest article reports that media and user pressure is forcing Facebook to finally let people completely extract themselves from the site. The company says this is a "technical" challenge, talking up codes and glitches. But the real motivator is money, of course, since social networking sites are in the business of monetizing the social graph. That means people are traffic and personal information is content. As Adam Cohen explains in The Times editorial section, Facebook has not exactly friended "privacy rights":

It's no secret why Web sites like to spread information of this sort: they are looking for more ways to make more money. Users' privacy is giving way to Web sites' desire to market to their friends and family. Technology companies are also stockpiling personal information. Google has fought hard for its right to hold on to users' searches in a personally identifiable way. What Web sites need to do -- and what the government should require them to do -- is give users as much control over their identities online as they have offline. […] Protests forced Facebook to modify Beacon and to ease its policies on deleting information. Push-back of this sort is becoming more common. No one should have personal data stored or shared without their informed, active consent.

Amen. I advocated a similar proposal in my recent feature on Facebook:

A simple way to address one of Facebook's privacy problems is to ensure that users can make informed choices. Taking a page from the consumer protection movement, Congress could simply require social networking sites to display their broadcasting reach prominently when new users post information. Just as the government requires standardized nutrition labels on packaged food, a privacy label would reveal the "ingredients" of social networking. For example, the label might tell users: "The photos you are about to post will become Facebook's property and be visible to 150,000 people--click here to control your privacy settings." This disclosure requirement would push Facebook to catch up with its customers. After all, users disclose tons of information about themselves. Why shouldn't the company open up a bit, too?

Debates over privacy and social networking often slip into variations of "blame the victim," especially when older luddites scorn young users for abdicating privacy and responsibility online. But these ongoing Facebook disputes reveal how companies can use technology to mislead users and preempt people from making responsible choices. And even with good information, it's still complicated. While Facebook is fighting to prevent users from fully removing their information from the site, other digital rights can run in the opposite direction. Web expert Danah Boyd recently stressed how millions of people trust companies like Google to store tons of vital information, but what happens if your digital identity is "disappeared"? She recounts how a friend lost his entire Google account and was told he had no recourse by customer service. After all, there may be no contract or back up files available:

When companies host all of your data and have the ability to delete you and it at-will, all sorts of nightmarish science fiction futures are possible. This is the other side of the "identity theft" nightmare where the companies thieve and destroy individuals' identities. What are these companies' responsibilities? Who is overseeing them? What kind of regulation is necessary?

Good questions.

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Photo of campus poster: Inju Flickr

Comments (29)

1. Inju Flickr: ....especially when older luddites scorn young users for abdicating privacy and responsibility online...

   Not at all....I invest/ed in some `fad-type' tech companies based a lot on "young users"....like data storage outfits EMC or social/women's network iVillage before it got bought out.....if `members' want to spill their guts out and think it's all wonderful and FREE, then those business plans have succeeded......I certainly did not include "older luddites" wearing dentures or using dial-ups as my path to stock gains.

   Posted by Happy at 02/18/2008 @ 3:13pm

2. Well said, Ari.

   This thread on Liminal States describes several recent Facebook "disappearances" with next to know warning [talesfromthe.net] of people participating in the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton discussion groups.

   jon

   Posted by JonPincus at 02/18/2008 @ 3:26pm

3. Well, call me one of those "older luddites" scorning but...

   who owns Facebook and Google?

   Are they a "public trust"? A "utility"? Is membership VITAL to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of an American citizen?

   Mr Melber, keen on everything "Internet", seems to think that it's a public domain, where operators like Facebook and Google are "the electricity company" or "the garbage contractors" and under some obligation like a utility to operate in a some manner of public interest.

   They're not. They're privately-owned services and a LOT of people have little or anything to do with them, and have just as much career success, ability to store data, and POLITICAL POWER (a-hem, back to "netroots") as those who are part of those services.

   If you don't like them...you leave. If they "keep your data on file", well, caveat emptor. Any of you "youngsters" who thought the Internet was about privacy...weren't paying attention.

   Posted by Mask at 02/18/2008 @ 4:06pm

4. Posted by MASK 02/18/2008 @ 4:06pm

   they do provide a "free" service...and there ain't no such thing...so...

   the cost is biggiantmarketing corp using your info to bombard you with stupid crap you just ignore anyway.

   although an alternative for those who want real privacy (kind of an oxymoron considering the subject) could be some company that CHARGES for its services...

   but we all know that the typical little mary jane rottencrotch and dingdong schwingschwong college kid lookin to score aint gonna want to pay up front for their twentysomethin' version of the teen booty chat line!

   just as long as the internet is kept largely free and unconglomerized being assaulted by obnoxious hucksters is something to which us americans should by now have built up a numb tolerance.

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/18/2008 @ 5:13pm

5. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/18/2008 @ 5:13pm

   And as I said, until Facebook or MySpace or whatever are declared "public utilities"...and nobody is FORCED to join them...they can do what they want.

   Mr Melber's view of both the POWER and PURPOSE of the Internet is quite mistaken.

   Posted by Mask at 02/18/2008 @ 7:12pm

6. Mr Melber's view of both the POWER and PURPOSE of the Internet is quite mistaken.

   Posted by MASK 02/18/2008 @ 7:12pm

   a very powerful tool used to find this:

   Current Top Searched Phrases:

   1. Valentines Day 2. Debbie Clemens 3. American Idol 4. Danica Patrick 5. Si Swimsuit Issue 6. IRS 7. Top 10 Tax Tips For 2008 8. NASCAR 9. Oprah Winfrey 10. Hi-5 11. Northern Illinois University 12. Edison Chen 13. Britney Spears 14. Natasha Henstridge 15. Limewire

   Current Top Searched KeyWords:

   1. healthcare subsidy 2. lohan 3. knight rider 4. younoodle 5. zoomer [what is that!? the nerve!] 6. larry sinclair 7. cvs 8. widget 9. angelina jolie 10. edison 11. noelia 12. edison chan 13. games 14. obama 15. bakbone software

   http://www.cwire.org/current-top-15-internet-searches/

   Posted by frosty zoom at 02/18/2008 @ 7:49pm

7. 3. knight rider.

   see, it has a purpose.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 02/18/2008 @ 7:49pm

8. Then, not long ago a 1hr video on the Federal Reserve was #1 on Google Video. (Featuring Ron Paul.) Scientific publishing, disputes among legal scholars, and of course I can be certain I have no grasp of what there is to find, but what I have found is priceless. And I as a non-congregating hermit depend on facebook for any contact with a marvelous circle of friends from a former life. The threat I feel is in the restriction or loss of my contact with the world and its occasions. (I was once known for my part in visceral, confrontational theater and its social whirl.)

   But the deeper issue of secure space from all reports is very much not going away. A few years ago I was chatting with a friend, an experimental filmmaker living in an arts co-op. He described how the security-camera installations were spreading there, and he spoke of it nonchalantly, with approval. He could easily foresee a future in which there is simply no privacy as we understand it, and his attitude was ‘why not'. This is a person whose intelligence and insight I respect. Then there's the ODNI umbrella... My rationale for a palatable future under such circumstances if they are inevitable is that for surveillance to be a tool of power it must be one-way. If we can see the watchers and have our open lines of communication maybe it will be possible to carry on, democratically. This adds force to Ari's call for explicit privacy options. My fear is that open circuits of information will be manipulated in the interest of invisible control. It is after all perpetually the overriding means and motive for tyranny.

   Posted by felixculpa at 02/18/2008 @ 9:18pm

9. 14. Natasha Henstridge---Posted by FROSTY ZOOM 02/18/2008 @ 7:49pm

   FOURTEEN!?!?!?!?....damn, that's disappointing.

   heheh

   Posted by Mask at 02/18/2008 @ 9:26pm

10. Posted by MASK 02/18/2008 @ 9:26pm

    search away, masker.

    i'm sure you can bring up her standing!

    (whoever she is............)

    Posted by frosty zoom at 02/18/2008 @ 9:41pm

11. Posted by FROSTY ZOOM 02/18/2008 @ 9:41pm |

    the man destroying and breeding hot alien in that awful movie...species...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/18/2008 @ 10:35pm

12. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/18/2008 @ 10:35pm

    well, i'll do a search and see if i can bump her up to 13............

    click, click, scroll.................

    hey, she's a newfie!

    Posted by frosty zoom at 02/18/2008 @ 10:55pm

13. Posted by MASK 02/18/2008 @ 7:12pm

    and he's probably a facebook "playa" at the twenty-something teen booty chat line...

    good for him!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/19/2008 @ 10:19am

14. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/19/2008 @ 10:19am

    Maybe, but seriously, Mr Melber who THINKS he knows the power of the Internet ("netroots"), really doesn't seem to know much about the STRUCTURE of the Internet....i.e. blogs, chatrooms, etc.

    You go on, you roll the dice and take your chances. Again, it's not a public utility and not the old "telephone company" where they are forced to "act in the public good" or abide by the "social contract"...never has been.

    If he wants to TRY to make it so, he faces a fight...probably from some of his friends! Get the Fed involved in blogging and the inevitable call will come for "no harassment legislation" which means just about ANYTHING anybody WANTS it to mean...and a pile of litigation Everest-high.

    The Internet is the "Wild West"...and sometimes "Butch Cavendish" runs the town, not Marshal Will Kane.

    Posted by Mask at 02/19/2008 @ 10:36am

15. I know this is hard for some people to understand, but if private corporations want the protection of the public's courts and police, if they want the privilege of doing business in a public, legal manner, then they have to accept some manner of regulation. The quality and quantity of said regulation is what is at question, oh free marketeers, and the "Internet as Wild West" metaphor is old, old, old. The modern Harvey Girls have arrived and Teddy Roosevelt is making a comeback, so to speak, so it's time to civilize commercial practice on the web and preserve personal privacy in the face of corporate greed.

    I have no desire to limit free speech on the net; on the contrary, I stand with the Family F***ing Research Council in supporting Net Neutrality to ensure that all net users have equal access in logging, searching and being found on the net. But I would rather bend the net and its corporate denizens to the privacy rights of individuals than flush hard won liberties down the tube so that we can continue Grover Nordquist, Karl Rove and George Will's project of re-building the Gilded Age.

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/19/2008 @ 10:53am

16. Posted by CKA2ND 02/19/2008 @ 10:53am

    What have Facebook and Google done that's "illegal"?

    Posted by Mask at 02/19/2008 @ 12:07pm

17. Posted by MASK 02/19/2008 @ 10:36am | ignore this person

    sure, i agree. just as long as it's not cable-ized, time-warnerized, and murdoched, i'm not too concerned.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/19/2008 @ 1:11pm

18. Posted by MASK 02/19/2008 @ 10:36am | ignore this person

    time warped response! see above.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/19/2008 @ 1:11pm

19. Posted by CKA2ND 02/19/2008 @ 10:53am

    What have Facebook and Google done that's "illegal"?

    Posted by MASK 02/19/2008 @ 12:07pm | ignore this person

    I didn't say they'd done anything illegal, although if you dig long enough under any corporate rug...

    In any case, something doesn't have to be illegal to be uncivilized or to impinge on one's privacy rights or free speech. I'm sure many of the practices that led to Roosevelt's formation of the National Parks system weren't illegal, but that didn't mean the land didn't need protecting. Commercial practices on the net have raced ahead so far and so fast that our long-fought rights to privacy, "to be left alone," as William Safire and many others have noted, has taken a beating. It is time to reign in and regulate some of those practices and even make some of them illegal.

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/19/2008 @ 2:11pm

20. Posted by CKA2ND 02/19/2008 @ 2:11pm

    CKA, don't you think it's a BIT odd to argue "privacy rights" about a service that is VOLUNTARY and as part of the service (in Facebook and MySpace) the CUSTOMER PROVIDES the information with no intimidation or threat made to do so?

    It's like saying "I have a right to privacy at a free-admission nudist resort built in Central Park, NY and if the resort doesn't build a 50 foot high wall and a gauze roof, I'm going to call in the Federal Government and MAKE them build it!"

    Where the simple answer is...."Don't go 'nekkid' in public".

    This is more "It's on the Internet...I think websites are public property....I want it (or something about it)... and I want the Government to make somebody give it to me (or change it for me!)!"

    Posted by Mask at 02/19/2008 @ 2:28pm

21. "Don't go 'nekkid' in public".

    Posted by MASK 02/19/2008 @ 2:28pm

    oops.

    thanks for the advice!

    Posted by frosty zoom at 02/19/2008 @ 2:56pm

22. Here ya go, FROSTY [en.wikipedia.org]!

    Posted by Mask at 02/19/2008 @ 4:22pm

23. imagine the mosquitos...........

    Posted by frosty zoom at 02/19/2008 @ 10:13pm

24. CKA, don't you think it's a BIT odd to argue "privacy rights" about a service that is VOLUNTARY and as part of the service (in Facebook and MySpace) the CUSTOMER PROVIDES the information with no intimidation or threat made to do so?

    Posted by MASK 02/19/2008 @ 2:28pm | ignore this person

    But what was the purpose for which the person originally provided that information? Was it for social networking, over which I might exercise some control and informed consent, or to provide targeted marketing data so that I can be swamped with unwanted e-mails or phone calls? And why should a company get to keep my data once I withdraw from the site, i.e., once my social networking has ended? Sure, there are trade offs as these companies have to make a buck in order to provide the service, and yes, people should be more restrained in what they put on-line about themselves, but a nudist resort is not a public sidewalk, and neither is the internet.

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/20/2008 @ 10:36am

25. But what was the purpose for which the person originally provided that information?....why should a company get to keep my data once I withdraw from the site.....people should be more restrained in what they put on-line about themselves....

    Posted by CKA2ND 02/20/2008 @ 10:36am

    By this day and age, anyone signing up for something on the net, even free email accounts, have to click on "I Agree".....like everybody, likely you too, I don't read them....but is it a stretch to assume `FREE' comes with strings and caveats?

    Every business keeps customer records, get used to it if this is "News" to you....just as I assume, your membership in some Lefty organization is kept in perpetuity even if you drop out....again, get used to this if this is `News' to you.

    And finally, you get credit for recognizing common sense, "people" are voluntarily choosing to go online whether it's public or not!

    Posted by Happy at 02/20/2008 @ 11:54am

26. As Ari said, and as I've said, if the consumer has to get used to having different expectations on the web, then why shouldn't the business community as well? And, also as Ari noted, why shouldn't commercial interests share information that doesn't come close to rising to the level of trade secrets? Adam Smith's free market was based, in part, on the consumer having free access to information. In the modern age, that idea seems to have been sacrificed at the alter of corporate profits amid moralistic cries of "Consumer Beware, Informed or Not!"

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/20/2008 @ 2:52pm

27. "but a nudist resort is not a public sidewalk, and neither is the internet."---- Posted by CKA2ND 02/20/2008 @ 10:36am

    No, it isn't. Websites like MySpace and Facebook (where people GO on the Internet) are private enterprises. Unlike the "public sidewalk", no Government funds is used to construct them nor public trust invested in them (like power utilities or the old phone company).

    They are privately owned. A privately provided SERVICE and using the service is VOLUNTARY.

    Again, I know you're a socialist and consider almost EVERYTHING to be public domain and in need of public (i.e. governmental) control....but by that rationale, MY personal website would have to fall under government oversight to "protect the unsuspecting".

    Posted by Mask at 02/20/2008 @ 9:32pm

28. Mask, respectfully, I don't think you're reading what I wrote closely enough (not that I expect the attention of a Talmudic scholar). I may be a commie pinko red, but I've tried to cite conservative or capitalist writers and reasoning in my postings on this issue. And I've noted time and again that private corporations make a deal with the devil in getting a public charter allowing them to do business legally; in exchange for the public's protection of their business, they have to accept some public regulation of said business. This is hardly heavy-duty Trotskyism, here, but basic Business Law 101.

    If you sell something on your personal website, then you are subject to the laws of the state. That probably means you can't sell poisons without a liscence or ship guns to New York City, among other things. All I am saying is that the era of the "Internet as Wild West" when it comes to commerce, personal privacy and consumer rights should be over, just like the era of the Wild West as the Wild West eventually ended. Sure, I'd love there to be a socialist revolution, but I'm willing to settle for some regulation and a restoration of everyone's privacy, at least a bit, while I hold my breath.

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/21/2008 @ 4:57pm

29. By the way, MASK, just to make clear, I certainly do not want the government - or the Party (!) - controlling everything. I want the government out of the bedroom, am opposed to gun control, favor the decriminalization of drugs, prostitution and gambling (though no damn corporate subsidies for f***ing casinos!) and think that the best social program is a well-paid job (raise that minimum wage, baby!) rather than busy body social workers snooping around families imposing the latest psycological theory or drug on adults and kids alike.

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/21/2008 @ 5:08pm