Google and the Privacy of the Cloud

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There has been a bit of an uproar about a recent quote by Google CEO Eric Schmidt.  While talking to CNBC, Schmidt remarked that, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines–including Google–do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

Not surprisingly, the familiar pro-surveillance slogan of, “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” raises the hackles of privacy advocates, and especially so coming this time from someone like Schmidt who has, theoretically at least, more access to users’ information than just about anybody else in the private sector.  And Schmidt is not the first Silicon Valley executive to say disturbing things about privacy in the digital age, as the former Sun CEO ScottMcNealy once said, “You already have zero privacy. Get over it.”  While not disagreeing with the current state of the situation, noted security expert BruceSchneier despairs of just this kind of attitude, that clashes so strongly with his own principle of how privacy corresponds with fundamental human rights, preserving internal domains from prying eyes, even if nothing nefarious is occurring.

What makes the question of privacy, user tracking and data collection so complex currently is the daily, almost constant exchange that occurs between users today and the service providers that make up the backbone of the web ecology.  Every time we search on Google, use Google Apps (where this post is being written actually), visit a site using the Chrome browser, click on a friend’s link viaFacebook , etc. etc. we are being “paid” in a sense via these services for the data we provide to the companies.  They of course collate all that data in order to sell it, manipulate it, exploit it, what have you.  It is precisely that data that has turned Google into a giant of 21st century business and will likely be the eventual route to revenue for innovative companies likeFacebook and Twitter and many more.

Is this exchange, surrendering our data (and ultimately our privacy) for services a fair balance?  Who is coming out ahead?  Do users deserve more compensation for their online footprints, or at least have more control over who gets the data and what they do with it?  What are the implications of an entire Chrome OS built upon this notion of exchange?

As we continue to examine the immense promise of cloud computing and online digital services, we should always keep these kinds of questions in mind, if only to be at least aware of what we are giving up, and what precisely we are getting in return.

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