As we have noted several times before (click here, for example), we are not very much in control of our privacy when online. And the steady beat of new stories on this topic gets scarier and scarier.
Consider the latest from the Wall Street Journal, as reported by Amir Efrati:
“Every hour, an active Google user can generate hundreds or thousands of data ‘events’ that Google stores in its computers. These include when people use Google’s array of Web and mobile-device services, which have long collected information about what individuals are privately searching for on the Web. It includes the videos they watch on YouTube, which gets more than one billion visitors a month; phone calls they’ve made using Google Voice and through nearly one billion Google-powered Android smartphones; and messages they send via Android phones or through Gmail, which has more than 425 million users. If a user signs in to use Gmail and other services, the information collected grows and is connected to the name associated with the account. Google can log information about the addresses of Web sites that person visits after doing Google searches.”
“But there are signs Google is feeling increased pressure to calibrate how much emphasis it puts on user privacy. Scarred by a small number of past user-privacy missteps that generated global controversy, and under increased regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe, executives are engaged in wide-ranging internal debates and in some cases slowing product launches to address privacy concerns, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Click the image to read more from Efrati.
Photo by Associated Press
And take a look at this article too: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/01/us/nsa-surveillance.html