Google trying not to cross 'the creepy line'
Real-time satellite imagery of lunch at the Googleplex would be "creepy," according to CEO Eric Schmidt.
(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)Google is trying not to be creepy.
That's according to CEO Eric Schmidt, who told Fox Business Thursday that "we're trying not to cross what we call the creepy line" when it comes to the data it gathers. As an example, Schmidt said Google only publishes satellite data that is a month old, indicating that Google would consider it creepy to publish real-time satellite data.
Google is quite used to facing charges that it has become a little too Big Brotherish in its conquest of the Internet search market. In response, it emphasizes that Google users have control over the data the company collects on them, most recently introducing Google Dashboard as a way of letting users see all the personal data the company has assembled in a single Web page.
That will likely never be enough to satisfy the hardcore privacy advocates of the world, but the general public--and the government--are also starting to get a little uneasy about Google's unparalleled reach across the Internet.
In the interview, Schmidt also said that Google had to avoid the "mistakes" made by Microsoft that led to its prosecution by the U.S. government. But Google also has to be wary about how aggressively it courts favor with the Obama administration, he said: Schmidt is a technology adviser to the administration.
"You don't want to be too close to any particular administration, and they don't want to be too close particularly to you," Schmidt said. That drew a dry retort from Fox Business' Neil Cavuto, who said, "Well, take it from us here at Fox, that's not a worry."
Don't forget, CNET is scheduled to interview Schmidt next week, and if you have questions for the CEO, leave them in the comments below or on this page.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
It just shows how dumb and blind the average American is. We have completely surrendered to what will become a great evil for us all, Google.
Google controls our privacy, our email, our Internet, soon 100% of our computers. Up next will be the Google bank account and the Google health plan... just watch!
We give WAY too much to Google! We NEED to STOP being BLIND SHEEP!
I hear Google is able to read your mind while you sleep-- that's where the aluminum foil hat comes in.
Given that they now blur out people and certain activities, it aint all that "creepy".
You completely missed the point!
it is not about reading one's mind, it is about controlling every damn thing!
Privacy, email, Internet, pictures - and they just keep taking control...
But I guess it will only bother you when they link your name to how many turds you make a day - in which case I hope that aluminum hat helps you out there buddy!
Er, excuse me...I have to answer this new Gmail on my Android phone that I just installed Google Voice on and that has GPS running full bore so those wonderful folks at Google know where I'm at 24/7. I hear they're working on a supreme app that allows me to link all the web and security cams in my house straight into the servers down in Mt. VIEW. I don't need to worry about those pesky folks in Redmond at all, thanks to Google. Isn't technology grand?
What's the difference between a picture of your house on street view and someone standing in front of your house looking at it? The real answer is "nothing at all".
Now, Google isn't driving by and spying in your window like a peeping tom, but according to you, they could if they wanted to. Just because Google says "we aren't evil," doesn't mean we can let them do whatever they want, even if we fully believe them.
Your home phone number is probably in the phone book and anyone can call you if they have it, but if I posted it on the front page of a major website and everyone on the planet started calling you every minute of every day, would you still say "What's the difference? Nothing at all." ??
When I order a pizza, I give Domino's my credit card number, but does that give them the right to hand it over to the phone company if I miss a payment?
In the 80s, the supreme court rules that I can make a mix tape for a friend and not be arrested for it, and they ruled that I can record shows off TV and keep them for myself or give them to a friend who missed the show without having to pay anything. So Napster and the The Pirate Bay must be perfectly legal, right? You are ignoring the question of scale and reasonable expectations.
That's how a "Big Brother" works: it takes the reasonable public grants that we as individuals expect (to be "people-watched," to occasionally take unsolicited calls, to check our neighbor's mail for them when they're on vacation) and grants them to a larger organization on a massive scale, often with no evil motive at all.
"What's the difference," you ask? Please, wise up. There is something in law called "expectation of privacy." and it applies directly to Street View. When someone moves into a sleepy neighborhood, they know perfectly well that anyone could just wander up to the edge of their driveway and look around, but they shouldn't be expected to know that the contents of their open garage might be posted on the Internet, nor should they be expected to keep their garage closed all the time and their window shades drawn 24/7 in order to prevent it. Nor, for that matter, should they be expected to have to tell Google not to post pictures of them online.
In practice, I don't really have any problem with Street View (it's usefulness far outweighs any real-world privacy concerns), but we can't start giving Google or anyone else carte blanche to do whatever it likes based on an abstract theory that ignores scale, or based on the fact that we can't really imagine Google having any reason to abuse such an awesome power.
The credit card example is not relevant, as giving your credit card info to Domino's is a PRIVATE business transaction, not a public affair.
The phone book is published by the telephone company, so again, it is not public since the phone lines belong to the company. But if you decide to spray paint your phone number onto the street, or onto the garage door where people can see it from the street, then they have every right to take a picture of that and post it on the internet. The picture with the number (not the number itself) has become public, and there are no legal measures to be taken. Again, you could always go to the police with harassment charges, but not for privacy issues.
"if you decide to spray paint your phone number onto the street, or onto the garage door where people can see it from the street, then they have every right to take a picture of that and post it on the internet."
What if the number is written on a piece of paper I have in my hand and Google takes a picture of it?
What if I put out a sign advertising my 10-year old's birthday party to the neighborhood, and Google posts it online? By putting out that sign, I didn't give Google permission to inform the entire world that there is a 10-year old living in my house.
What if I'm on vacation in another city to attend a protest, and Google takes a picture of me carrying a political sign? Did I give Google permission to let the government agency that I work for know that I was part of that rally?
Do we need to wear masks everywhere we go to ensure an expectation of privacy? Do we need to make sure that any personal information written down on a piece of paper should be completely hidden from view when walking outside? Do we need to keep my shades drawn 24/7?
In your example, I've demonstrated my intent to advertise my number. you say it yourself "if you *decide*". But under no interpretation does opening my garage door demonstrate my intent to have its contents posted online. In your scenario, I have to go to extreme and unprecedented measures to ward against invasions of privacy.
Again, you ignore the scale of it, and what's worse, you seem to think that there is one set of rules that can be applied to all situations, of all types.
Again, that's now Big Brother works, by exploiting technicalities.
"What if the number is written on a piece of paper I have in my hand and Google takes a picture of it?"
First off, really? That is not the greatest example I think you could use. You could easily say that that piece of paper was never meant to be viewed by anyone other then yourself, which would be Google invading your privacy.
"What if I put out a sign advertising my 10-year old's birthday party to the neighborhood, and Google posts it online? By putting out that sign, I didn't give Google permission to inform the entire world that there is a 10-year old living in my house."
You posting something outside your house (or on a street corner) seems to state that you want everyone to know about your sons birthday. Any number of people could drive by that sign and would thus know about whatever it is you are talking about on it.
Now if it's a sign simply letting people know that this is the house you were telling them about, that the party is at, is completely different. But I doubt you would need to post anything about your son being 10 years old in that type of situation.
"What if I'm on vacation in another city to attend a protest, and Google takes a picture of me carrying a political sign? Did I give Google permission to let the government agency that I work for know that I was part of that rally?"
It would be no different then if a major newspaper took a picture of you and plastered it on the front page talking about the protest you are at. You are out in PUBLIC protesting something, you obviously want as many people to know about it as possible.
"In your example, I've demonstrated my intent to advertise my number. you say it yourself "if you *decide*". But under no interpretation does opening my garage door demonstrate my intent to have its contents posted online."
Nor does having your garage door open say you want anything inside hidden from anyones view. If you did then you wouldn't have had your garage door open to begin with, now would you?. Now if Google went in, looked under a tarp you had over something and took a picture, that would be different.
What you don't seem to get is that being out in public means BEING OUT IN PUBLIC. Any number of people could see you doing whatever it is you're doing. You seem to be complaining about Google just making things more easily acceptable to a bigger amount of people (aka, the public).
Now, a question for you. Lets say the city you lived in had to shut down the nearest major road near you and had to re-route all the traffic through your neighborhood (I know, completely impossible, but just hear me out) and you had a sign stating something about a child of yours being born (I'm not sure if people still do this nowadays but humor me for a second). If every person in the city saw this because they had to drive by your house, would you complain to the city about privacy issues? Do you honestly think the city would care and wouldn't laugh you out of the court system if you tried to do something about it?
This is no different then what Google is doing, simply making public knowledge more accessible to the public. You don't want that, don't do stuff in public that you might think might not be viewed as being good, or you could go buy a thousand acres somewhere, build a house right in the middle of it. Then you could probably do something about people taking pictures of it without your consent.
Scale has no meaning here. A majority of what The Noble Robot is complaining about is information that ANYONE can access because it is out in the public, public knowledge. Go to any government agency in the city in question and you can more then likely find out more information then what Google is providing. Google is merely making public knowledge more easily accessible to the public.
What you seem to be implying is that as long as the knowledge isn't easily seen, you don't care that it isn't publicly available? But as soon as said knowledge is made more easily accessible to the public you have a problem with it? Anyone else see anything wrong with this picture?
To quote a comment left by hockeymass for this article-
"If someone really cared, they could find out a lot more information about you with a trip to town hall or a google search. Except they won't, because you're not that interesting or important. Get over yourselves."
No, because I had fair warning about the traffic reroute and had the chance to take extra precautions. You know that you're making my point for me, right?
"You posting something outside your house (or on a street corner) seems to state that you want everyone to know"
No, I only want the people who live in my neighborhood to know, and I should be able to expect not to have that information spread beyond that context. You're not living in the real world. What is "public" is not a question of "all or nothing." It's not either totally public or totally private. Just because it's easy for anyone to take a picture of my house and put it on the internet doesn't mean that it's not something we should worry about.
"It would be no different then if a major newspaper took a picture of you and plastered it on the front page talking about the protest you are at"
No, it's COMPLETELY different. Certainly I knowingly accept that risk by going there, but it should be a "risk," not a certain expectation! By your logic, you're saying that 24/7 surveillance and publishing of everyone's activities is no different than being caught in the background of someone else's family photo at Disneyland!! Do you not see the difference??
"Google is merely making public knowledge more easily accessible to the public."
Yes!! That's the point! There's nothing wrong with Street View, really. But where does it end if we don't define limits?
"But as soon as said knowledge is made more easily accessible to the public you have a problem with it?"
Yes, exactly!! If I want to keep something private, I will take the effort to do it, but I shouldn't have to hide myself from the sun in order to be a private citizen. I shouldn't have to wear a disguise in public to play hooky from work to go to a job interview. I shouldn't have to close my blinds to hide from the Internet (no one has countered that one yes, BTW).
"Any number of people could see you doing whatever it is you're doing."
You're basically inviting Big Brother to watch you do everything because hundreds of separate people already see little bits of you every day. There's a difference between being seen in public and having one entity monitor and publish your activities or information.
Should I be expected that everyone *will* and *should* see what I am doing?? How would you like it if someone took pictures of you all day every day, but only when you "were out in public?" Google is not doing that of course, but your logic gives them the right to do it to everyone any time they want to!
Google is not evil *now*, but what's stopping them? The only thing that stops them is their internal policies. What kind of protection is that??
We can agree that it's "stalking" if one person does it to another person, but somehow it's okay if Google (or the Gov't or someone else) wants to do it to everybody??
Google the new big brother from 1984....
I completely agree with others who don't understand the problem with Street View - It's an incredibly useful tool, and I don't see how anyone could suffer as a result of it's existence or use. Those paranoid individuals who do feel they have something to lose from being on there, have the option to have themselves removed.
Google do an amazing job of making information available to everyone. It's such a shame that some people are narrow minded enough to call them "evil" for doing it, as eventually this will start to impede Google's (and therefore everyone on the web)'s progress (Google books, for example, has hit many hurdles).
We can only hope common sense will prevail.
And to think that spam is protected by the constitution.... rats.
would this allow me to watch a storm? like a hurricane? or an earthquake? or a battle in war?
i guess things always have their pros and cons....
privacy vs mass information
"Or spot the pizza delivery driver on the way to your house?"
That could lead to a lot of funny/weird situations. I for one would totally do that though, lol.
Hmmm... wonder if there's an app for that?
We forego information/privacy about ourselves to obtain services. If you don't want Gmail with contextual ads - don't use it, it's as simple as that.
350 million people have told a website about who their friends are, their email address, location, hobbies - even their relationship status. They did this because they see value in sharing and (as an extension) consuming this information.
I write this comment with the full knowledge that it will stay on the interweb for all time - accessible to those who care, now and in the future.
The winners in this new world will be companies that are transparent about the use of this data and make a genuine effort to place the user in control.
I think that people do this with the reasonable assumption (as protected by law) that the information will not be shared outside of their friends circle on that social networking site. This doesn't bother me much.
What does bother are those little Facebook apps written by Joe Schmo some place far away that ask for permission to all of your private data before even letting you USE it. What's the deal with that?
Incidentally, they also happen to use Google Search. Ironic, isn't it?
[CNET editors' note: URL removed.]
I'm not worried that some giant mega-corporation is going to try and spy on me. I'm more worried that someone who knows me will utilize these publicly available tools in order to do whatever it is they do. Even if it's just a nosey friend, I don't want them looming over me the while time. In fact, I don't even want to consider that they have the possibility to do so.
As it is now, I have no problem with Google. I'm just saying that, in future, I'd be wary of their operations. However if they do ever release a service that feeds live satellite video coverage of the world, that would be pretty cool (watch the world trembling with madness at any given moment!) -- just give people the option to have their private property blacklisted. We're probably a long way off from that, though.
- by iConquered November 7, 2009 12:02 PM PST
- I was never a fan of Google Maps. This is the kind of stuff that Karl Marx mentioned. How the products of the lower class would refelct the ideology of the super structure. In other words, people would not bat an eye at real life scenarios that let you know "this is how we are controlling you." It is like everyone is aware, but continues on obliviously. We are like Cypher, preferring the Matrix to reality.
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