Robert Kuttner, Google, and cookies
Robert Kuttner needs to learn more about computers before he spouts off in a prominent newspaper about how they work. It is true that Google uses cookies, but they are not Google’s “whole business model”. Their business model is based on the idea that someone searching for cheese is likely to be interested in an ad for cheese. It is not based on cookies.
Kuttner writes, “Herewith an idea that I am putting into the public domain, which could make some computer-whiz a billionaire: One of Google’s competitors could guarantee users of its search engines that all data keeping track of searches will be permanently discarded after 24 hours.” I don’t think anyone will become a billionaire off this one, herewith, or anywhere elsewith. As anyone who can open “Preferences” on their browser can learn, you can refuse to allow cookies to be stored on your computer. Furthermore, even if Google does record your search history when you let them, you can defeat this through even a weak attempt at anonymization. We don’t need a competitor to Google to do this. We just need to turn off cookies.
If you turn off cookies, it is unlikely that Google could track anyone behind a firewall doing network address translation. At Chewonki, for example, Google couldn’t tell the difference between me and anyone else with cookies turned off. They could tell that we were coming through an ISP in Portland, Maine. And that’s without even trying to hide. Anyone who really wanted to hide could use a web proxy, or an onion router like Tor. It would be slower, but what kind of complaint is that? “I want anonymous browsing with a lightning-like search engine now!” Stop whingeing!
On top of all that, Google is a private company providing a useful service in exchange for a chance at your attention. Robert Kuttner is 100% free to not use Google, ever. Near the end of his article, Kuttman mentions (but does not link to, so I used Google to find it) Robin Sloan’s dystopian vision of the future, where “it’s almost impossible to differentiate journalism from junk.” I think that time has already arrived, and Kuttner is the one blurring the distinction.
The real concerns I have about Google are how they will be forced to invade my privacy by the US government. I think it would be more fair to call that a concern about the US government, rather than about Google. For example, in their privacy policy, Google makes a distinction between “personal information” and “sensitive information,” where the former is your name and email address, the latter your politics, race, sexual orientation, and so on. Google says that it will not record or use that sensitive information for purposes other than the purposes listed in their policy, which are basically running their services and targeting ads at you. That seems reasonable to me. They don’t need to connect, for example, your political affiliation to your social security number and address, to target ads at you.
Google knows that if they are careless with their users’ private information, they will be rejected in the marketplace, like Gator was. If Google screws up by releasing private info when they shouldn’t, a Google anonymizer will spring up in a week. (A Google search reveals that in fact, it already has.) I’d love to see laws that codify levels of personal information that web services record and force companies to comply with them. Truste sort of does this already, but they only enforce the display of privacy policies, not actual levels of privacy.
If we had a few well-known levels, I could decide easily “Oh, this is a Level X site, which means that they will destroy their records of my personal information within 1 day of me receiving whatever I buy from them. OK, I’m willing to business like that. But I don’t want to do business with that Level Y site even if they are cheaper– they keep my information forever and sell it to spammers on a monthly rotation.” That’s what people should be writing and worrying about; unlike Google’s cookies, our federal laws cannot be turned off.