The Wall Street Journal just broke this news: Google and other advertising companies have been bypassing the privacy settings of millions of people using Apple's Web browser on their iPhones and computers—tracking the Web-browsing habits of people who intended for that kind of monitoring to be blocked.
The companies used special computer code that tricks Apple's Safari Web-browsing software into letting them monitor many users. Safari, the most widely used browser on mobile devices, is designed to block such tracking by default.
Google disabled its code after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal.You can read all about it here.
This is kind of tacky on Google's part. Recently, the corporation has done a lot of marketing on how open and transparent they want to be. If you use Google in some way you may have been sent an e-mail or viewed a disclaimer about how important it is for you as an Internet user to know what's stated in the privacy policy. We think all the recent privacy talk from Google and other corporations is one attempt to self-regulate and keep Washington out of their hair and everyone else's hair.
It's unclear this evening how people will react to this news but we suspect there will be a small kerfuffle in the news cycle and ordinary human beings will stop being concerned about it - that is, if they ever start.
When we say ordinary human beings we mean people who don't have that much at stake if Google checks out their browsing habits. What are the harms associated with Google monitoring the places you visit on the Web? Our hypothesis is few. We're going to ponder what those harms could be over the next few days, framing the conversation with the following assumptions:
1. Google won't tell anyone outside of Google Inc. what you look at on the Web.
We're not certain of what Google is required to report to whom when using algorithms and computers and such to skim over your browsing but we assume the corporation keeps that info in-house. That is, to say, all the data collected on the browsing of individuals is not shared with institutions outside of Google for any purpose. This is an assumption that needs more research but we're about to go to sleep, so we'll get back to that later.
2. Employees at Google Inc. are bonded.
We're pretty sure that Google Inc. employees aren't allowed to blab or reveal anything about individual users. They probably only see that information on a "business need-to-know" basis and even when they do view it, it's probably data about vasts amounts of persons, firms, and organizations. There's no singling anyone out with names. If they were ever to break this vow of silence, they may be subject to termination or criminal inquiry. Again, this is another assumption that needs research.
3. Google's intent when checking out browsing habits is to find a way to make money or improve user experience, not to embarrass, expose, or spy on individuals.
Google is a business among other things. They made or bought stuff (like Blogger) to provide some kind of good or service to individuals, firms, and organizations in order to earn money. If one has insight into what these groups do, it might be easier to find out what business strategies would result in increased profitability. You know what doesn't sound profitable? Invading or circumventing the privacy preferences of these groups in a public way that could result in reputational risk. We assume it's in Google's best interest to keep user information private. Too much fear privacy invasion could rattle users' confidence in the corporation and their services, which could come back and bite them in the moneybag.
More on all this later...
Word of the Day:
"This is the risk that real and perceived errors and lapses in information technology compromise the customer’s trust in the accuracy of their account records or the thrift’s ability to safeguard the confidentiality of those records."
-K&C
