Google's Invasion of Privacy Analysis Essay

The Google company is known for collecting data to improve the Google search engine and other various Google products. In 2014, Google faced a lawsuit against a student where they accused Google of scanning their email illegally and for the company’s own gain. Although the case regarding the student and Google ended because a federal judge declined to certify the class, the company is now facing similar cases from four students and a former student from the University of California - Berkeley. 

Despite these accusations, Emma Brown stated “thousands of K-12 schools and universities -- and more than 30 million students and teachers -- use Google's Apps for Education, which the company provides to schools free of charge” (Brown). As the number of people worldwide use Google, more people are growing concerned over the amount of information Google invades and what the company really does with that information. Despite this, Google has grown to dominate other search engines and has convinced its consumers that the privacy they are robbing is being used to benefit them.

In 2016, Google’s vice president for public privacy and government relations wrote a letter to Senator Al Franken D-Minn, stating Google has not used information from K-12 students for advertisement purposes. As of 2016, this has been the only time Google has addressed whether the company collects data from K-12 students despite the distress over the question brought up by their consumers. People who questioned how much information was taken from K-12 students now questioned if Google had previously obtained information and if the policy regarding the students was recently changed. Although Google claimed in the letter to Senator Franken D-Minn that information isn’t taken from K-12 students, they didn’t deny the fact that information is taken and is just not used for advertising purposes. Senator Franken D-Minn wrote back to Google  CEO Sundar Pichai, believing Americans have the right to privacy including access and knowing how the data is being used, claiming that “it’s important for the privacy of our students” (Brown). 

Many people including Nate Cardozo assert that besides the Google search engine, the company is using other means to obtain information which the Google company hasn’t denied. As a Dover High School student, there have been numerous times where the school distributed laptop doesn’t allow students to access certain apps, including Google Maps, one of the websites Cardozo claims is being used to obtain student information. Students not being able to use websites that can be deemed as beneficial not only limits the student's ability to complete assignments but when regarding Google Maps, it also limits a student's understanding of the geographic information around their school or location.  Google has attempted to dismiss this accusation by insisting that information regarding students is only allowed access with parents' consent and the company states that “administrators have the authority to decide which apps students use” (Brown). The Google company then stated that ads catered to K-12 students are turned off by default and in 2014 the company took an additional step. This additional step consisted of Google posting a blog post after facing a lawsuit against a student claiming that the company is harboring information illegally through the student's emails. Regarding this additional step, Privacy advocates claim that it was a “tactic admission that the company had indeed been scanning student emails in order to target ads” (Brown). Despite these claims, The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed with the Federal Trade Commission and stated that Google is obtaining information about everything that students are doing when signed into their school Google account. 

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that Google must allow consumers to request information to be taken down off of the company’s search engine. In Italy, a woman used her “ right to be forgotten” and appealed to the company that information about the murder of her husband should be removed from Google’s search engine. When the “right to be forgotten” was first passed it was declared controversial but regardless, the company agreed to remove the information. People found the “right to be forgotten” controversial because the information Google would be asked to erase from the search engine would be “legal, factual and already in the public domain” (Engelhart). There were many uproars about the ECJ’s decision, critics declared that the ECJ was “heralding the death of the free internet in Europe” (Engelhart). Many questioned the aspects of this new right. Google, one of the main critics of the “right to be forgotten”, held a conference and a few critics declared the conference as a “PR stunt that was held to try and make people believe ECJ’S decisions were messy and to bring people to oppose them” (Engelhart). Within Google’s conference, the company asked people who were against The European Court of Justice and “the right to be forgotten” to speak.  David Jordan, director of editorial policy and standards at the BBC was one of the ones to speak up at the conference. Throughout the conference, Jordan questioned who would be considered a public official, and Evan Harris, a previous British MP, added onto this idea by questioning if the information removed regarding those running for office was considered against the public interest. A second discussion brought up was involving criminals and if Google would remove information concerning the criminal's crime and if the removal of information would be different if the crime were committed by a minor or an individual with mental illness. Concerns were also brought up regarding the ECJ’s lack of definition regarding the terms “inadequate, irrelevant or excessive” data. The lack of definition resulted in Google having to personally decide which requests to remove information would be accepted or ignored. This led to the company having to now be the “decision-maker” and since May of 2014, the company has had to remove 58 percent out of the half a million request websites. 

Google has released numerous different products which are used worldwide. One of those products is Gmail. As more users changed their email addresses to google Gmail addresses more concerned consumers came to light. When a Gmail account has first been created an agreement with Gmail’s privacy policy is prompted. People usually skip over this agreement and click agree but more people looked into the agreement and found out that “within Gmail’s privacy policy, information from the accounts of users are stored on Google’s servers and are accessible even if the email was terminated” (Gale). Consumers grew weary about the agreement and that if they wished to terminate the email, their information was still accessible to the Google company. In 2010 a new Google product was released which the company called Google Buzz. When Google Buzz first launched Google Gmail, users found that they were automatically signed up without being asked to join. The company gave a bonus to the fact that you were compelled to sign up for Buzz which was that every Buzz user with a Gmail account was able to have their contacts from Gmail synced to Buzz, and because of Google deciding to add this bonus, all of the Gmail users’ accounts contacts were now visible to everyone. Despite the backlash that the company received, the visible contacts also imposed a large security risk with individuals. Key factors to avoid certain life-altering crimes include being careful and even minimizing the information that is shared publicly online and with the contacts of every Gmail user now broadcasted online, users could have been in serious danger.  As more individuals grew greatly concerned about how they were forced to join Buzz, Google released a statement. The company ensured users that “their Buzz friends list could be edited at any time and that they were welcome to opt-out of the service at will” (Gale). Regardless of this ability, consumers feared the amount of information shared online. 

When Google released the product Street View which was a part of the Google Maps service, consumers were worried about the invasion of privacy when Google Street View cars took photos. Street View offered a “panormaic view of streets around the country” (Gale). To make this possible, Google hired drivers to continually photograph streets as they traveled using the camera-equipped cars the company provided the driver.  The hired drivers captured various images involving private properties and people which was seen as an invasion of privacy. When it came to private property, people believed Google was going too far by not obtaining the consent of the private property owners. In addition in 2012, people started believing that the Google Street View cars were collecting data from open Wi-Fi networks. Google at first denied these claims but later admitted that only some information was obtained. Google did verify that collecting personal data from open Wi-Fi networks was against company policy and was only done by one of the workers. After Google admitted to taking information from open Wi-Fi networks the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stepped in and investigated Google Street View and its protocols. Google stood behind its product and remained promoting and expanding Google Street View.