June 14, 2007 1:46 AM
Personal data privacy - is Google guilty?
Most research & development organizations use empirical data to evaluate their findings. This empirical data is collected in real-life situation analogous to paid-surveys, the participants in the study are either organization employees or public who agrees to participate in the study. Without this type of evaluation the research results cannot be deployed in the real-life situations. Most of the market research reports are also prepared by active participation of public. The participants are informed about what data will be collected and the purpose of data being collected. Recently I read some articles on Highly Dynamic Systems (HDS); HDS are systems that provide the contextual data to dynamic customers. A very simple example is Global Positioning System that provides the map of surroundings at the current position. As technology advances higher utility HDS are being built with integration of RFID, Semantic Web and Mobile Communication. I wrote a summary of the articles I had read, these are influenced by my own thoughts: Private Data Security in Highly Dynamic Systems and Data Usage Control System.
Google is in news for breaching privacy laws. The privacy laws in the United States and Europe are different, Google has agreed to delete the collected user data after 18 months. There justification for collecting user data is that they need it for research and security. Google privacy laws mention that they do collect personal data through forms and cookies, they track the user search behavior, all of this for audits, security and research in order to provide better service.
In a HDS, if I search for a product on http://mobile.google.com and Google can tell me the nearest store with best deal it will save my search and travel time. For this Google must know about my current location (privacy ??). If I had been searching for a product in many areas and have not found my deal, what a pleasant surprise it will be when Google will send a SMS suggesting that I have my deal in this area when I am visiting a new place. For this Google will need to know about my previous search patterns.
Ironically I had read about Metro Group Future Stores (HDS) in Germany.
I am going to be blogging live from a couple of days of the 
1 Comments
No, I don't think Google is guilty. Google needs those information, to analyze user needs. The internet public should realize that Google or any other search engine, or the whole internet is vast database of information. And for any database to be effective in giving what information a user needs, it needs some form of personal data about the users.
The only fault of Google is the fact that it does not clearly dislose to users that such data are stored in Google's system for a long time.
But then, does it really need to?
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