He writes
Luckily I’ve mostly resisted the siren call of the Googleverse aside from their search engine. But I guess I’m starting to think that I should be more careful even there. Am I just being paranoid? Or should I start using some kind of add-on to prevent Google from tracking my activity? What says the hive mind?
Maybe there is something I am missing here but Google tracking my – and everyone else’s – activity seems awesome.
Now, when it comes to the government I can grant that there are some grand issues associated with privacy and the potential of authorities to abuse that information. Though, if we were to be honest I am not sure this is a serious practical concern.
Not, to be sure, because I don’t think the government would spy on us at every chance if it could. No, instead because for most practical purposes the information in collects is of little value.
My guess – and again I welcome Julian Sanchez to say why I am wrong – is that this extends from a basic instinctual drive for privacy which in turn extends from concerns about being ostracized from the larger group for abnormal behavior.
However, in modern America this is not really a threat. There is virtually no odd behavior that does not have an associated MeetUp.com group.
Now that being said there are particular types of information that will be potentially hurtful or embarrassing unless or until we readopt an extremely strict set of social conventions.
However, if Google breaks that information open my guess is that you will indeed see a re-emergence of conventions that explicitly quarantine vice from the rest of professional and personal life
In any case my core point is that its not possible to have a society in which the majority of people have their privacy regularly and publically violated. Such regular violation will simply alter the terms on which people judge each other and therefore what is meaningfully private.
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Wednesday ~ January 25th, 2012 at 8:52 am
Terry Mahoney
Having been part of the apparatchik, let me just tell you that the government is incapable of a wide ranging nefarious conspiracy. It’s a combination of collective incompetence and the human desire to brag.
Wednesday ~ January 25th, 2012 at 9:23 am
rjs
as google tracks you, it learns what you’re thinking & only shows you results consistant with that…so it tends to close your mind’s loop, and hence you get less & less access to new ideas…
Wednesday ~ January 25th, 2012 at 9:29 am
Terry Mahoney
Or, if you Google “Catheter” one time due to errant curiosity, it assumes you are an incontinent senior and bombards you with catheter ads.
I’m beginning to feel that Google is approaching the government in its ability to conspire.
Wednesday ~ January 25th, 2012 at 11:16 am
swuesquire
“Now, when it comes to the government I can grant that there are some grand issues associated with privacy and the potential of authorities to abuse that information.”
I’ve never understood this sentiment. It seems like a private company is much much more likely to spy and obsess about my private life than the government is. The government doesn’t stand to profit and can’t afford to try to micro manage all of us. The private company would, at the very least, stow the data away either to analyze later or sell to someone else for analysis.
Wednesday ~ January 25th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Wednesday links: leaving money on the table | Abnormal Returns
[...] Google ($GOOG) knows you are and its going to tell the world. (WSJ also Modeled Behavior) [...]
Wednesday ~ January 25th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Why Google Tracking You is Nothing to Worry About | Floating Path
[...] About Posted on January 25, 2012 by Nick Should it bother you Google knows which sites you visit?Karl Smith over at Modeled Behavior doesn’t think so, even if things are starting to get a bit more personal:He (Kevin [...]
Wednesday ~ January 25th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security « Amazon Bestselling Books
[...] What Does Kevin Drum Have to Hide? (modeledbehavior.com) [...]
Wednesday ~ January 25th, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Privacy vs. Technology « azmytheconomics
[...] recognition On Google. FBI uses facial recognition to register non-criminals into a database. Social mores adjust to fit the level of privacy we expect. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. from → Political [...]
Tuesday ~ January 31st, 2012 at 2:45 am
Jeff
Is it really true that you can’t imagine any harm coming from this? That’s a bit hard to swallow. What about applying for a job with a company, e.g., Google (but really it doesn’t have to be Google, it could be any company that uses Google, or buys information from Google), and the hiring manager finds something they don’t like about you. It doesn’t have to be remotely relevant to the job, and they don’t have to ever say anything or acknowledge that they even looked at this information–they can just say they thought someone else was a better ‘fit’. That’s a really easy example; it’s really easy to think of a dozen others.
As for the government tracking people, like swuesquire, I don’t really see the problem. Granted, I see the problem in China, or Russia, or Iran, but we don’t have a totalitarian government, and despite the paranoid ravings of the tea party, we’re not about to either. Frankly, I don’t think the government is capable of pulling off a comprehensive monitoring program on American citizens. To the extent they try, it seems to be looking for child predators, drug smugglers, and terrorists. These are things I support, but the government seems to have only modest success, unfortunately.