The Privacy issue

By Matthijs Rotte on 14 June 2010

,,Google is watching you”, is a phrase you hear more and more often. A lot of people tend to get more and more afraid of Google. Reason? They know what you search for, if you have a Gmail account they know what you are emailing about and so on. Google logs your data in order to improve their service to their customers. We all want better service, but we are afraid of giving information to Google. There is an option to opt out though.

Can you imagine what would happen if KPN (Dutch phone company) decided to put all phone numbers, names and addresses of their loyal customers in a big book, with a paid option to opt out. All kinds of organizations would cry ,,wolf!”, because this would clearly be a violation of privacy. However we all accepted that the phonebook is a service KPN(back then the PTT) offered us and most of us were very happy that the PTT provided such a service.
What has happened to us and to the world that we’re so keen on our privacy? The thing is, we want to complain, we don’t trust people we don’t know. Ofcourse you are not stupid and you sealed off your facebook page so no one can see your personal details. But consider this; how many people in your Facebook friend list do you really know?
In a way people tend to scream from the top of the roofs that THEY(janedoe56, Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands, two kids, hobbies: cooking, fishing, origami, just broke up with her boyfriend, liberal, 33 years old, 2 brothers and a sister, 1 dog, 1 hamster, iPhone, favorite food sushi, ps3, xBox, Idols(,,Oh my god! Did you see that dress she was wearing?!”) IP: 85.453.443.22, university of Utrecht) are FED UP with Google saving their search entries, and we need to stop them and facebook. But by giving this information our lives become easier because we can find stuff so much faster then before.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t be critical about the way some companies hold our information. But we have to take our own responsibility. Still a lot of people think that the internet is a private place where you can discuss everything. It can be, but you have to know where you’re saying stuff. Bottom-line;keep your private conversations private. Opt-out for datacollection. And keep in mind Google is watching, but only if you let them.

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

tagged with: google, privacy, facebook

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