The Search for Privacy, and Google makes some changes

September 25, 2008 · Filed Under Recent News

Privacy is one thing; privacy at the expense of usability is quite another thing. Even SE giant Google is feeling the pressure.

Google recently announced that they intend anonymizing the IP addresses stored on their servers sometime after 9 months in the system. For privacy advocates, this will no doubt be seen as a triumph. For the vast majority of people out there, they just couldn’t care less…From Google: “Today, we’re announcing a new logs retention policy: we’ll anonymize IP addresses on our server logs after 9 months. We’re significantly shortening our previous 18-month retention policy to address regulatory concerns and to take another step to improve privacy for our users.”

The main problem is, over time, limiting the amount of data Google (and other related companies) can keep about their users will seriously impact on the kind of next generation applications they’re developing which will rely heavily on historical data — the very same data they’re getting rid of to sooth privacy advocates. It’s a real paradox of usefulness and convenience, versus a (mostly) paranoid userbase who believes Google can take IP addresses and surfing habits and use them to take over the world.

The fact is, even smart software (search engine related) has to have data to guess accurately about our needs, and without long term data, these would be simply educated guesses, and the software would lose accuracy and meaning.

Don’t get me wrong; privacy, in many forms, I believe is important, and too many companies get away with too much still in this area. But privacy for privacy’s sake at the expense of utility down the road where it wouldn’t harm users or violate their space very much isn’t a good thing, IMHO.

Why not give users the option of choosing what level of “privacy” they are allowed, as long as Google and other companies are clear about what they’re collecting, and using the info for? An opt-in button of sorts. This way vital data that future utilities may need to make them useful isn’t destroyed needlessly, just to quiet the squeak of the wheel in a select few cages.

Share!