Google gets “worst” privacy rating

Disclaimer: I worked at Yahoo! and a large part of my responsibilities as a member of the security group included protecting privacy for consumers.

The news from the BBC on search engine company privacy practices should not be underestimated:

Google has the worst privacy policy of popular net firms, says a report.

Rights group Privacy International rated the search giant as “hostile” to privacy in a report ranking web firms by how they handle personal data.

Google naturally put their legal team forward to fight back, rather than a senior executive or a founder. Personally, I have been inside Google several times, have met with senior Google security staff, and I would not trust my data to their systems. Then again, that’s just me and I might be a Paranoid, if you know what I mean.

Privacy International placed Google at the bottom of its ranking because of the sheer amount of data it gathers about users and their activities; because its privacy policies are incomplete and for its poor record of responding to complaints.

“While a number of companies share some of these negative elements, none comes close to achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy,” read the report.

Responding to the report Nicole Wong, general counsel for Google, said in a statement: “We are disappointed with Privacy International’s report which is based on numerous inaccuracies and misunderstandings about our services.”

Endemic threat to privacy? I guess it’s not just me.

Ironically, Google is extremely private about its services. They might argue that this is a defensive tactic to ward of corporate espionage, protect their IP, etc. but the bottom line remains that consumer privacy is threatened and their love for opaqueness simply adds to the danger as evidenced by the rippling results of disclosure laws like California’s Shine the Light, AB1950 and SB1386.

Why do I mention the legal versus founder difference in the public message? Because I worry that this is a leadership issue more than one of legal wrangling. Remember when Yahoo! originally tried to make a statement that they had no choice but to abide by local laws of a country they operate in? It had to do with a critical decision moment when they were involved in the conviction of a Chinese reporter. Yeah, the “we’re just interpreting the law” went over like a lead balloon and today they have a new message:

“Yahoo is dismayed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political views on the Internet,” the company said in the statement faxed to The Associated Press, which asked Yahoo to comment on Shi’s lawsuit.

The Internet company, based in Sunnyvale, California, also said it has told China that it condemns “punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression.”

However, Yahoo added that companies operating in China must comply with Chinese law or risk having their employees face civil or criminal penalties.

Naturally, it gets confusing when a company tries to comply with a foreign law and gets sued domestically as a result. I do not think the problem is easy, nor do I propose that I have the answers. More importantly, I think it shameful that we have to wonder about the moral fiber of companies, especially wildly successful global companies with armies of lawyers at their disposal, who refuse to stand stand up for freedoms and the people who fight for them.

Yahoo! is doing the right thing now both economically and philosophically speaking, albeit maybe not politically, by trying to influence and disrupt consumer constraints in the market in which it wants to operate (e.g. more freedom of speech = more/better flow of information online). Perhaps Google will follow their lead…again.

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