Ariel Waldman

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.

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mrgan:

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt answering CNBS’s question, “People are treating Google like their most trusted friend… should they be?” Why are you people not shitstorming about this.

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timoni:

Because it makes perfect sense. What should I be shitstorming about: the part where he was right or the part where he was also right?

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arielwaldman:

It doesn’t make perfect sense at all. As danah boyd often points out, tech people are often in privileged enough situations to be super public and force others to “deal with it”, but often forget to take into account other roles in society. Teachers can’t be whoever they want to be online because they’re constantly navigating different worlds (e.g. can’t be sexual or drink around young people, but those are acceptable activities as an adult). Further, to tell someone to simply not use a service because they care about privacy is absurd - unlike kicking someone out of a city, there is only one internet.

I would highly recommend downloading and reading Daniel J. Solove’s essay on ‘I’ve Got Nothing to Hide’ and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy for further discussion on the topic.

Posted 2 years ago — 37 notes