The 18 Month Debate
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I've seen a lot of press lately about scrubbing search records for privacy. First there was some concern over Google's records and they changed their policy to expire links after 2 years instead of 2038., then Ask removing records if you "ask". That was a great PR move. Now it's Microsoft doing it and asking for a global, uniform policy for all search engines. Yahoo has also said they would scrub their records after 13 months.
Maybe we'll get in a race between them and our data will be private after a day!
We can only hope. At least I hope so. To me, searching on the Internet should be anonymous. If someone really has something to hide, likely they're use a public forum, like a library, a free wi-fi hot spot or some other place used by many people.
I'm not sure why search data isn't anonymous as soon as I run the query? I know I often search for something, like the images for this editorial :), and realize I didn't get what I wanted, so I search again. Why does my search history help anyone except the advertisers? Just include a "I wanted xx, not this" link on the results page and let us give you feedback for better searching. Right now you don't know if the search didn't work or we found something and moved on to another interest.
I had a link to a paper on privacy recently (it's a PDF), and I encourage people to read it. Privacy is an important concept in US society and I think most other place as well. It's something that's easy to take for granted until it's lost, something that's slowly happening in the digital world.
If search engines want to really track people's habits to make their service better, I think 18, or even 13 months, is too long. I think 6 months at the longest is a good time frame. Beyond that, I'd just as soon as search not work as well if it means more privacy.
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Interestingly so much of this debate is being fueled by competitor's efforts to minimize Google's marketplace advantage. All the search history information that Google has collected is their most valuable asset. If Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask can pressure them to dump much of it then they have achieved a huge win. So let's remember these guys aren't fighting for our rights.
I agree with your concerns on individual privacy. It is a fundamental benefit of US society and should not be minimized. Where would we be if the Founding Fathers' Google search records were easily obtained by the King? "Look - Jefferson's searching for "self-evident truths" again."
Peter Shire
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Good point. I hadn't thought about them trying to compete by removing Google's advantage, but it makes sense.
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Not everything is about competing with Google. Geez! Foex, that Schneier guy doesn't care who wins the search engine wars. I'm starting to get the impression that I'm the new resident contrarian!
I tried to raise the alarm in the mid-'90s about RFID toll tags and the sensors underneath all of the overpass signage (which feed those traffic maps that everybody loves so much)... and nobody cared that Big Brother was watching you, your car, your travel routes and your velocity via the tag. Even among the audiences of the überconservative rightwing conspiracy talk shows that I called on the subject. Nobody cares who is watching them... unless they've got something to hide. [Like the idiot who is suing the online florist for tipping his wife off to his affair by accident.] People are apathetic everywhere that red light cameras are being installed in the U.S. and in the U.K. they've already got more cameras than they have humans to watch 'em!!
Pretty soon we'll be getting speeding tickets in the mail without having the hassle of being stopped by police (just like red light tickets). I wish that would've been the case when I was a cop! Let the cops go back to their donuts and coffee and let the computers issue the citations.
We cannot solve the new problems we face with tired old solutions... I love the Founding Fathers more than the next guy (I'm a founding member of the Houston chapter of the Franklin Society), but privacy is an antiquated notion that is long overdue for abolition. You won't find it in the Constitution, either. There's no such animal. The only thing protecting the alleged right to privacy is stare decisis of an old, bad precedent. (Ooh, I think I got their attention, eh?!) Everybody wants traceability and accountability in elections, but you can't have that with a secret ballot system!!
I've had The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? by David Brin on my "To Read" list for a long time... and unfortunately, it will probably languish there for a lot longer. My preconceived notion (based on the teachings of Scott Adams wherein there is no such thing as free will -- but that's a jihad for another day) is that in order to cure the ills of identity theft and voter fraud (among other weeevils), we must give up our silly, antedeluvian notions of privacy.
The secret ballot is the bastion of cowards and union members.
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I would prefer a hardware or browser solution that would "anonmize" my presence when surfing unless I give it explicit instructions for a specific website where I want to be identified. It would need to work in such a way as to not be identified as an anonmizer but just the same as any unsecured browser would. Even if it gave false information. At my workplace, we are set up to block the use of anonmizer browsers to prevent anyone from doing something against corporate policy. This opens the door to other problems like law enforcement not being able to easily trace the bad guy but it does protect my privacy from those that would like to steal it.
I don't mind ads in the margins as the price for using a search engine but I don't like focused ads for my local area because Google got a hold of my zip code some place and now uses it against me whenever I search for something that falls into some parameter of theirs.
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A little off subject but years ago Anchorage tried Photo Radar in school zones using a portable radar/camera set up. It was operated by a contractor who sat with the equipment when in use.
You knew you were had when you saw the flash go off when you drove by it.
It was a good idea especially since it was limited to school zones. But Alaskans are an independent lot and raised a big stink about it to the point a referendum was put on the ballot making it against the law for a non sworn in police officer to issue a ticket. This also came at the same time that parking tickets were also being issued by a contractor. This was about 10 years ago and it prompted two lady citizen "parking fairies" to wear tu-tus and walk the downtown streets feeding meters for people caught short. They owned a gas station and people would stop by and drop off coins for them to use. The battle was eventually won. A few years ago one of the ladies passed away due to cancer. Today, a new downtown parking facility is being built next to a new convention center and was just named in her honor.
Only in Alaska do we name parking structures after fairies.
The end result was the cancellation of both programs and the mandated use of police officers to do parking meter duty instead of other duties like locating the best fresh coffee and doughnuts in town. Excuse me, we have modern cops, that's lattes and bagels.
I advocate for red light cameras. The cops can't be everywhere.
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You're kidding yourself if you think that you're "anonymous" anywhere inside the intertubes... if you ask for something and it gets routed back to you-and-only-you, you're about as far from anonymous as you can get. Just because the search engine vendor has promised not to keep too many records for too long, doesn't mean that nobody can or is.
Why do you feel like personalized marketing is information being "used against you"? The marketers are doing you a favor in not presenting you with advertisements for Las Vegas establishments (far outside your locale)...
When I was in the dot-com world of real estate, there was a sliding scale of how much an advertiser would pay for the level of specificity to a given profile that we could be for the ad impressions. Home Depot would pay a pretty penny for each impression that we could deliver (via magic) specifically to a homeowner who owned a dishwasher that was about to die and need replacement.
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Arizona and other places have been using automated speed cameras for tickets for years. All we need to do to bring renegades like Texas and Alaska in line is to withhold federal highway funds unless and until they get with the program and install robotic law enforcement. Say hello to ED-209.
My dad told me a story about his ticket on a Florida tollway back during Vietnam (1969-1970 for him). It was based on the timestamp of the toll ticket. He was fined because it was self-evident that he'd been cruising too fast to have gotten from Tollbooth A to Tollbooth B at the posted limit. No computers were harmed (or utilized) in the assessment of the fine.
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Let's not get started on Stop Light Cameras. Steve - please consider a future editorial on the misuse of technology.
I'll only take a little shot here.Police in Winnipeg, Manitoba claimed that right-angle collisions had dropped at 12 camera intersections, from 37 in 2003 to 15 in 2004 and 12 in 2005. The city sent in an auditor who compared the police claims by checking insurance claims for the same intersections. The findings: Collisions increased 58 percent after camera installation. No rash of fender benders, either; injuries rose 64 percent, property damage claims jumped 60 percent in the under-$5000 category and 113 percent in the $10,000-to-$15,000 bracket. Moreover, camera sites worsened at a rate greater than in the rest of the city, which saw a seven-percent increase in crashes during the same time.
The cameras did help produce 317,385 tickets worth $17,661,636 (Canadian dollars) in fines while allowing the police to cut 46 officers from traffic patrol. That’s great news for any local government looking to raise revenue and reduce costs. Redflex Traffic Systems is the corporation behind 80-90% of the growth in this public scam. You can read more about this at my source for this info: http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/11185/fish-stories-from-the-operators-of-traffic-scameras.html
So bringing this back to the issue at hand. Google has a treasure trove of info on your past internet searched. How long until some faceless corporation issues you a ticket for illegal internet search on behalf of your local government?
Peter Shire
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Peter, what makes you think that use of Live.com @ Google by an employee wouldn't result in a fine (or worse) already today? Heh.
For those of you privacy nuts out there, you've gone and done it. The end is nigh. Doom is coming. I can hear the four horsemen galloping hither...
Scholars Push For Search Engine Regulation
As soon as the gubmint gets involved, the "tubes" are going to become clogged and useless very soon...
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Wow, more responses than I expected.
I think privacy is important. Maybe the definition of privacy needs to be changed and maybe our idea of what to expect should be altered, but I think we all fundamentally should be able to have some secrets, be able to live our lives away from some amount of scrutiny.
Something like public cameras/traffic cameras are different. Privacy the right to break laws. Interesting to hear about extra accidents with cameras. An intended consequence, but it's short term. People will get used to them and just drive more appropriately.
Your computer is different. Where is it private/public? Lessig's books are interesting in talking about to what extent our personal PCs deserve to be private.
Definitely we need to amend laws to handle the digital world AND the changing analog one.
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I have huge problems with the automated camers. It leaves out due process. After having had to prove 4 tickets for red lights on a car I no longer owned, I am going to fight for it never to become acceptable to have a computer issue tickets. Even if I owned the car, if they can't prove I was driving it a ticket should not be issued to me (Plano, TX, uses camers from the rear).
In this country it is up to the goverment to prove that I am guilty, not the other way around.
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Anders,
I guess I'd disagree on this. You should be allowed to go to court, but the film and record of the camera is evidence. I think you're responsible for your car. So if it wasn't you, you'd need to identify that it was someone else. To me it's the same as an officer ticketing me. I'm not guilty. I can fight it, or I can just pay it.
Also, if you've sold the car, the license plates are still your responsibility. Can't let them go.
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So, is he supposed to let the buyer drive away in an illegal car with no plates? That's silly, Steve. If you ever bought a used car, you'd know that's not how it works... The plates are transferred from the original owner to the buyer based on a notarized sales receipt -- and it's the buyer's responsibility to retitle the car.
FWIW, I had the same problem with a handgun that I previously owned which was later used to kill an HPD officer. I had sold the Glock 27 (.40) to an large but unscrupulous gun store in 1992 that later sold the pistol which I used to own out the back door without recording the transfer along with the AK-47 which was also used in the crime. Fortunately for me, the HPD detective assigned to the case knew that I was former law enforcement and called to ask if I still owned the piece (knowing that I didn't), so I explained that I had the bill of sale to the gun store... which is when he said, "Huh. That's where he got the AK from, too. I wonder why they didn't record it." Scary, but less intrusive than a speeding ticket since I never had to show up in court for that one...
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What if the Stop Light Camera is broken and issues hundreds of improper tickets as happened for months with one camera in DC. Most people just pay the ticket and less than 10% wind when they fight. It took months for the city of DC to correct that one camera.
I agree with the National Motorists Association, perhaps the toughest critic of the cameras. They are a national driver advocacy group and they claim that re-timing yellow lights — often for less than one extra second — is more effective than installing traffic cameras.
"Putting up a camera only rewards a city for poor engineering," spokesman Eric Skrum says.
They should tune the red lights and spend the money on cops not cameras. Don't reap revenue from a broken system that then causes more accidents. Until you've driven in a city w/ Stop Light Cameras you haven't experienced the "stop light camera panic stop!"
Peter
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