How is Google Using Our Data?

Security experts are sounding the alarm over privacy issues and how Google uses the data it collects from users. Should we be afraid that our privacy is at risk?

In a three-part article entitled “Google Has Your Data: Should You Be Afraid?” on the CIO.com website, writer Jack M. Germain explores the issue of the popular search engine’s use of the data it collects. Germain says “corporate Google is bent on monetizing every user through keeping a careful watch on every Web page users access and every file users open on local machines,” and that could open up users to a host of privacy issues.

Germain says Google’s search capabilities allow it to catalogue listings of hard drives “for near-instant searches for local data. In addition, Google reads users' private e-mail sent through its Gmail service and private e-mail stored on users' hard drives through its desktop-search software.”

Among the topics Germain tackles in the series include: the lack of laws regulating how companies like Google can collect, store and use personal data; the issue of fair disclosure; Google’s privacy policy; what users are agreeing to when they consent to sign up for a Google service; who owns the data; if the data is at risk; and the issue of user trust.

Germain also speculates as to whether or not new laws are needed to ensure users’ privacy, and if those laws would actually work in practice.

To read Part One of the article, click here: www.cio-today.com/news/Google-Has-Your-Data--You-Afraid-/story.xhtml?story_id=101003DZY30I

To read Part Two of the article, click here: www.cio-today.com/news/Google-Has-Your-Data--You-Afraid-/story.xhtml?story_id=102003F7G9DC

To read Part Three of the article, click here: www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=37801