It's a Changing World

So I don't have time for a huge post in that I have a class in 18 minutes, but I think that it's time I at least mention this stuff. In the news recently there has been a lot of complaints about Google's privacy stance and the sharing of information. Most of these complaints have been filed by people that I generally relate to being "old-fashioned." These are the people that aren't used to the world that the Internet has created. The enormous amount of information sharing that is possible today makes it so that no longer is your public activities in San Francisco (for instance) no longer restricted to just that city, but to the entire world. A tourist snapping photos of a public park may take those photos and later post them on the web, where literally millions of people can see them. Every photo and word that I post on this blog is just as public as the Google.com website is. People are forgetting that any average Joe can become the next world-star, just because they were caught doing something in public that was photo-worthy. I'm not here to complain about this. I'm here to support it.

A good article on Google World

Privacy issue with Google Street View

Article on Google's Privacy Policy

Google's Response to Privacy Issue

As Google's data collection stands right now, I don't have any problems with it. All the data that they're getting I could actually get myself, if I wanted to. Also, the services that all of this information provides to users, whether organizations or individuals is invaluable. The fact that some of the information is what people would want to keep private is not Google's fault, in my opinion. I've always held the stance that if you want privacy on the Internet, don't use it. If you want to use the Internet and keep your information private, learn how to do so. The Internet is an extremely powerful tool that can be used to save you time, and money, or make you lose time and money. Using the Internet is comparable to driving. Even kids can drive small toy cars without worry for health risks (comparable to basic web surfing), but put a kid behind a semi or just the family car and dangerous events will take place (comparable to email, web development, blogging, posting images, posting on forums, downloading, etc.). If people are having privacy issues about what is available on the Internet and Google grabbing it, that's their own fault.

As far as images that Google collects with their Street View project, that's a little more complicated. People are complaining that the pictures reveal to the world their nasty habits or private information. What they conveniently forget while suing the billion dollar corporation is that all of the images were taken from public streets with an average camera, which I can purchase a better version of at WalMart. Any average Joe walking (or driving) down the street could take just as good, or many pictures of these people and their houses, and then posted them on an internationally read blog. The only reason people are getting upset is because it's Google, and instead of people having to fly 3000 miles to watch you smoke a cigarette, they just have to pull up their browser.

The Information Age is expanding with each bit of data that Google collects and while the consequences of that growth are hoped to be mostly for the better, the "underage driving" of the Internet in the past has put out a huge amount of data that shouldn't really be public, and is only being discovered as harmful now. People are spending millions of dollars to try and lock down information on the Internet and make it harder to search for, but what that money should really be spent doing is locking down that information more securely so that it can't be searched for. There are systems in place and that have existed for a while that will allow you to not have your information searchable by Google (or any search engine, really). This even covers having pictures taken of you. It's as simple as this, folks: If you don't want people seeing you or your information, don't make that information available in public (i.e. Smoke inside, password protect valuable information, don't upload pictures of private content, etc.).

I'm sorry if this rate seems a bit long or unprovoked, but I've been reading the news and talking to a lot of people that sometimes forget that the Internet extends behind that screen in front of them.

Thank you for you're time.

Peace, Love and I dare you to Google for "Google,"
Tar