Google CEO Eric Schmidt is the latest Silicon Valley CEO to draw ire after suggesting that folks seeking privacy might not want to look to the Internet to find it.
"I think judgment matters," Schmidt said, appearing on CNBC (see video below). "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."
In some senses, Schmidt was merely stating the truth about the U.S. law as it currently stands. However his "maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" comments, in particular, seem to have raised the hackles of privacy advocates and others.
Among the most interesting reactions was a posting on a Mozilla veteran's personal Web page suggesting that users might want to switch to Bing because of its better privacy policy.
"That was Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, telling you exactly what he thinks about your privacy," Mozilla Director of Community Development Asa Dotzler said on his personal blog, referring to the CNBC comments. "There is no ambiguity, no 'out of context' here. Watch the video."
From there, Dotzler shows how one can easily switch Firefox's search engine from Google to Bing, adding, "Yes, Bing does have a better privacy policy than Google."
To be fair, that Patriot Act and other laws apply just as much to Microsoft as it does to Google. Still, I think Dotzler's posting raises some interesting issues. Plus, it's particularly noteworthy that a Mozilla worker is willing to raise the issue given how the lion's share of Mozilla's revenue comes from the Google traffic generated from Mozilla's search bar.
The difference, in my opinion, isn't that Microsoft is somehow subject to different laws than Google, or even that it would behave differently in the face of a government challenge (both companies kowtow in China, for example). Rather, the two companies seem to have a different approach toward privacy issues.
Google's attitude tends to focus on the great benefits that open information can, and often does have. Plus, of course, its stance is an outgrowth of the fact that Google has built its business around gaining revenue by doing the best job of organizing that information.
That shows up in all kinds of ways. Mozilla Developer Relations Director Christopher Blizzard noted in a Twitter posting that sites users visit in Chrome get sent to Google.
"Everyone knows that every site you visit and all address bar searches in Chrome go to Google, right?" Blizzard wrote. (I sent an e-mail to Mozilla seeking its corporate take on things, but did not immediately get a response.)
Microsoft's approach, meanwhile, stems no less from its economic interest, but its zeal is tempered by years of heavy regulation and consumer backlash.
These differences in attitudes, and shifting tides in the center of power in the tech industry, I expect to be major issues in the coming years as regulators and consumers decide where to place their attention.
That said, Schmidt is hardly the first to point out that the idea of privacy on the Internet might be outmoded. "You already have zero privacy. Get over it," former Sun CEO Scott McNealy famously intoned, drawing many of the same criticisms.
Obviously, privacy advocates argue that protections must extend to the Internet. In a blog posting, security expert Bruce Schneier makes a passionate argument, although I think it is interesting that he digs up an essay from 2006 to make his reply.
"Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance," Schneier wrote. "We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need."
So what do you think? Is privacy a basic human need, or a quaint, outdated notion, or is it, paradoxically, both of those things?
Microsoft program manager Alec Berntson shows how Windows 7 allows programs to take advantage of location-based information, in this case the operating system's weather gadget.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News)LOS ANGELES--Windows 7 has a new programming interface designed to make it a whole lot easier for software to figure out where in the world a PC and its user are located.
That should make it easier for a whole new range of location-based services from finding nearby friends to LoJack-like PC tracking programs. Even search could be a whole lot better if the search engine knew where you were. Indeed, searchers often enter their city with their location to try and get just that benefit.
"There's so many times you have to enter in where you are at," said Microsoft program manager Alec Berntson.
At the same time, broader use of location-based services could also open up a range of privacy concerns.
Those issues--and how to handle them--was the subject of a discussion this week at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here.
Microsoft does give a range of control options, such as turning off location services by default, as well as the ability to limit such services only to specific users or only to applications, as opposed to services that run in the background. However, the operating system doesn't allow users the option of letting only certain applications access your location. So, for example, if you turn it on for a mapping program, any other Windows application running could also access that information.
The reason, Microsoft officials say, is that Windows doesn't have a reliable means of determining that an application is what it says it is, so any attempt to limit the location to a specific application would be easily spoofable, Berntson said during the WinHEC discussion.
"We only promise the control that we can realistically give to them, rather than trying to promise more than we can deliver," Berntson said.
That said, application-based control, "would be great to have and it is certainly on our Christmas list for future stuff," he said.
But, not everyone felt that Windows 7 was doing all it could on the privacy front. One attendee suggested, for example, that Microsoft at least notify users when an application requests location information.
Although technically possible, Berntson said that's not currently on Microsoft's roadmap for Windows 7.
In fairness, location-based services are actually more secure in Windows 7 than in the past. That's because in past versions of Windows, there was really no way to reliably turn off location information.
"The old way of doing it--there was no warning, there was no switch, there was nothing," said Microsoft lead product manager Daniel Polivy. That said, it was so cumbersome that few people have enabled such location-based information or built services on top of them.
A pair of APIs
So just what is it that Microsoft is doing in Windows 7?
Well, at a low level, Microsoft has a new application programming interface (API) for sensors and a second API for location. It uses any of a number of things to actually get the location, depending on what's available. Obviously there's GPS, but it also supports Wi-Fi and cellular triangulation. At a minimum. Users can type in their location if they really want location-based services and don't have any of those other sensors.
Applications can then use that longitude and latitude information to provide any number of services to the customer, of which mapping is only the tip of the iceberg. Most of those applications will be up to developers, though. The only location-based service in the current Windows 7 OS itself is the fact that the weather gadget will use your location, assuming you have such services available and turned on.
Masafumi Kuboyama, a senior manager in Sony's Vaio PC unit in Japan, said he wants to know what's going on in his system and would appreciate knowing what the location-based services were up to. Most computer users, though, don't want to be bothered, he said.
"My relatives never understand what's going on in a PC," he said. "Everybody says, 'Please do (it) automatically.'"
He also said he's interested in the possibilities opened up by location-based services. "I'm looking forward to seeing more convenient applications for the Netbook."
Tim Zinsky, a software architect at Hewlett-Packard, said he wasn't all that disappointed that Microsoft isn't providing all the pieces with its location API.
Zinsky, who stressed he was speaking for himself and not HP, said he isn't convinced that there isn't a way to track which applications are using the location information.
"They are underestimating the capability there," he said. "I think they could do it."
But that's OK with him. "I don't want it all to come from Microsoft," he said. "If they can't do it, maybe somebody else or another company can do it."
Privacy advocates are starting to sound the alarm over a feature in Google's Chrome that sends anything typed in the browser's Omnibox back to Google.
Google told CNET News earlier Wednesday that it plans to store about 2 percent of the data it gets back, along with the IP address of the computer that sent it. Google said it won't receive or store data if users turn off the auto-suggest feature or if they select a default search provider other than Google or if they are using the product's "Incognito" mode.
Still, EFF staff technologist Peter Eckersley said in an interview that he is concerned about Google having yet another window into what the world is browsing.
"We're worried that Chrome will be another giant conveyer belt moving private information about our use of the Web into Google's data vaults," Eckersley said. "Google already knows far too much about what everybody is thinking at any given moment."
Eckersley did point out that there are several ways to keep the data from being sent to Google, but noted that there is still a lot of data that will head Google's way.
Because Chrome is open source, Eckersley suggested that one option would be for privacy-minded outsiders to create their own suggestion engine that sits on surfers' own PCs, offering some of the utility that Google provides, without having to send the data to its servers. He noted that Chrome, itself, already does this when a surfer uses Chrome in its more stealthy Incognito mode. In that case, all suggestions are based on a surfer's locally stored history.
"The addition of Incognito is great," he said, adding that Google is making some strides with Chrome, clearly recognizing that people want to be able to surf the Web without having a record of it stored in various places.
"They are making some initial moves in the directions of that," Eckersley said, but reiterated his concerns over how the Omnibox works.
"We are genuinely really worried about the Omnibox thing," he said. "It's just one more piece of the complete puzzle of Google seeing everything that everyone is doing."
Simon Davies, Founder of Privacy International and a senior fellow with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) also expressed concern over the Omnibox feature.
"I'm astonished that these terms are sent to Google even without the return being hit," Davies said. "That is beyond anything that Google has ever contemplated before."
Davies said the lack of attention to privacy and less-than-clear disclosure of its information use is typical Google behavior.
"This is why Google is running into trouble with regulators in Europe," Davies said. "They will trip themselves up at some point very badly. The patience of regulators is growing thin."
Updated 2 p.m., with change in license terms.
Google said on Wednesday that it plans to alter contract terms that gave the search provider broad rights to use anything entered into its new Chrome browser.
"In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products," Google said in a statement provided to CNET News. "Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don't apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service."
As first noted by CNET News on Tuesday, Chrome's End User License agreement appeared to give Google a perpetual right to use anything one entered into the browser. Section 11 stated that although users retain copyright to their works, "by submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."
Google said the change, once it is made, will apply retroactively to anyone who has downloaded the browser.
All this is separate from the issue of what information Google plans to store on its servers. Provided that users leave on the auto-suggest feature in Chrome and have Google as their default search provider, Google has the right to store any information typed into Chrome's Ominibox, which serves as both search bar and address bar. The software maker told CNET News it plans to store about 2 percent of all such data, along with the IP address of the computer that entered the information.
Update: As of 2 p.m. PT, it looks like the terms have changed. Section 11 now reads simply: "11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."
The auto-suggest feature of Google's new Chrome browser does more than just help users get where they are going. It will also give Google a wealth of information on what people are doing on the Internet besides searching.
Provided that users leave Chrome's auto-suggest feature on and have Google as their default search provider, Google will have access to any keystrokes that are typed into the browser's Omnibox, even before a user hits enter.
What's more, Google has every intention of retaining some of that data even after it provides the promised suggestions. A Google representative told CNET News that the company plans to store about 2 percent of that data--and plans to store it along with the Internet Protocol address of the computer that typed it.
In theory, that means that if one were to type the address of a site--even if they decide not to hit enter--they could leave incriminating evidence on Google's servers.
Information typed into Google's Omnibox bar could end up on Google's server--provided Google is your default search engine and you have Chrome's auto suggest-feature turned on.
(Credit: CNET News)That said, individuals have a clear way to use Chrome and avoid having this occur. Turning off the auto-suggest feature means that Google will neither get nor store this information. One can also select a search provider other than Google as their default to avoid having their search queries stored by Google. (Update 11:45 a.m. PDT: Switching to Chrome's Incognito mode also switches off the auto-suggest features, the Google representative said.)
Beyond the individual level, though, there is the question of what Google will be able to do with all this information in aggregate. Folks already concerned about how much data Google has from its Web search history may well have another reason to worry. That is in addition to separate concerns raised by the product's End User License Agreement (EULA).
Assuming Google finds a way to use this data to make its Web search even better, it could also make Microsoft's job of catch-up even harder than it already is.
As I wrote before, Chrome's threat to Microsoft goes far beyond Internet Explorer. It puts pressure on the Windows team to innovate faster and, apparently, could also make life even tougher for the Live Search folks.
For many, privacy on the Web is a concern. And for Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, privacy is a feature.
In a meeting with reporters this week, Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's search, portal and advertising platform group, said the company's browser will come with a private browsing mode. And Long Zheng of the istartedsomething blog surfaced two telling Microsoft trademarks that appear related: Cleartracks and Inprivate.
Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's search, portal and advertising platform group
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)Both trademarks are involved with Web browsers, according to the applications with a July 30 filing date. The Cleartracks trademark involves "computer programs for deleting search history after accessing Web sites," according to the Microsoft filing. And the Inprivate trademark involves "computer programs for disabling the history and file caching features of a Web browser; and computer software for notifying a user of a Web browser when others are tracking Web use and for controlling the information others can access about such use."
One obvious use case for privacy browsing modes is surfing the Net for pornographic materials without leaving traces, but other, less unseemly use cases also exist. "Users may wish to begin a private browsing session to research a medical condition, or plan a surprise vacation or birthday party for a loved one," according to Mozilla's discussion of a private browsing feature.
Microsoft didn't comment on the applications beyond a brief statement, "We are investing in privacy in IE8."
And in a June blog posting, Microsoft said privacy is one of the major components of the "trustworthy browsing" element of Internet Explorer 8. "The larger challenge here is notifying users clearly about what sites they're disclosing information to and enabling them to control that disclosure if they choose," the company said. Microsoft said privacy means "the user is in control of what information the browser makes available to Web sites."
Internet Explorer is the dominant Web browser, and version 8 is in beta testing now and due in final form later this year.
Programmers have envisioned a private browsing mode for Mozilla's Firefox browser but so far haven't put the privacy feature into the open-source browser. Apple's Safari has a private browsing mode.
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