Flexing their Internet muscles, Google sent a warning to Facebook users last week who wanted to connect their profiles with their Gmail accounts – as you can with many email accounts – in order to check and see if friends were on Facebook too. Google boldly stated, “Trap My Contacts Now” and your information Facebook retrieves is permanent.
However, with 2/3rds of the world using Google as their Internet Search Engine actively creating 2 billion searches a day, we may have come to discard our sensibility for false security. Since we tend to input questions, inquires and information requests on a variety of subjects, including such information we wouldn’t share with our closest friends.
Majority of us believe we are anonymous and that the data we input is irrelevant. Perhaps its Google’s clean interface and box of crayon’s logo that we have succumbed trust to its simplicity. Unlike other search engines which bombard us with self absorbed advertisements, Google users may tend to feel more like the search engine is user driven and perhaps less threatened by outsiders since their initial display is focused on Google itself.
What may be disturbing to some might be the following excerpt from the e-mail Google sent to Facebook Users:
“Although we strongly disagree with this data protectionism, the choice is yours. Because, after all, you should have control over your data.”
Sounds thoughtful, harmless and even considerate, right?
What if Google stored all of your search data? And that even though they state that they only retain your data for roughly 18 months, Google can’t guarantee it?
Unfortunately, it’s true.
The information you input into their search engine may even lead people back to you or the people you inquire about using this search engine giant. We practically give them a key to our front door. How? By allowing Google to opt-in to various places we visit on the Internet.
Wait? Isn’t that what Facebook does with its users? Yes, indeed it is.
What is even worse is that the information searched using Google does not fall under the 4th amendment, since it is a third party, which means that Government can ask for information about you that Google stores, that it can be upheld in the court of law and it has and continually will.
This does not make Google evil; it is only a testament of our lack of privacy on the Internet as an entirety. Nor is it simply a Facebook issue, although, Facebook has brunt the backlash of the Internet’s false sense of security, which every person who chooses to go online should remain cautious on any site when it comes to their data. However, Google seems to want to keep your attention of deceit on Facebook, even when your data is just as valuable to them and less noticeable to you when you give it away.
Smells like Hypocrisy.
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Other Stories You May Like:
Facebook Giving Users more Control: An In-Depth Look
Searching For the Future (Episode 57)
How To Disable YouTube’s “Next Video Auto Play” & “Gray Bar”
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Except that Google give you control over what information it holds https://www.google.com/dashboard
Hi Bill
Facebook does as well with one of their latest Dashboard roll-outs – you will be able to see who you have connected to, when they last used your information, as well as what information was used and you will be able to opt-out. It really boils down to us as Internet Users to be more weary about the privacy on sites, social or not, we take part in. It is uber important to stress that everything has a price – if the currency is not money than it’s information. Thanks for your feedback!
Socially Yours,
Erin Ryan
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