Michael Zimmer.org

To celebrate Data Privacy Day, Google has published its 5 guiding privacy principles. The principles are something every organization should commit to and strive for. The problem is, Google hasn’t adhered to them quite as closely as they’d want you to believe….

[UPDATE: As of Jan 7, 2010, Google has now changed its homepage so the Nexus One ad fades in with the other content -- more below]
Remember how hard we gad to fight to convince Google to include a link to its privacy policy on the Google.com homepage?
Remember how Google argued “we do believe that having very limited text on our home page is important” and that it was pitched as some great sacrifice to include the word “privacy” and disrupt the homepage’s aesthetics?
Remember how, just a month ago, Google argued …

Perhaps the greatest ethos surrounding Google’s success is its — and users’ — faith in the algorithm. Users trust Google, and have faith that the results provided are accurate and helpful.
Sometimes, however, that trust can be misplaced.
Recently, a student in one of my classes gave a presentation on Google, and proceeded to explain how Google ranks search results using an algorithm called…..PigeonRank:
Why Google’s patented PigeonRank™ works so well
PigeonRank’s success relies primarily on the superior trainability of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia) and its unique capacity to recognize objects regardless of …

Google has announced a new “feature” to its homepage: upon loading, only the Google logo, the search box and the search buttons are visible. The links to additional products, advanced search function, and the privacy policy, only fade in if the user moves the mouse. This video shows it in action.

Aesthetically, this isn’t without its charm, and we all know how anal Google can be regarding the minimalist design of its homepage.
But it took so much effort to get Google to finally add a mere 7-letter hyperlink to its privacy …

When Google launched Google Latitude 9 months ago, they took steps to ensure users’ locational privacy was protected. Among the most important privacy-protecting features was the fact that Google didn’t keep a log of user locations on its servers; only the most recent locational ping was stored. Not even law enforcement could gain access to a user’s location history. This design decision, apparently made in consultation with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was a very positive step for Google, who I have taken issue in the past with regard to its …

Remember the hard battle fought to convince Google to include a link to its privacy policy on the Google.com homepage?
Remember how Google argued “we do believe that having very limited text on our home page is important” and that it was pitched as some great sacrifice to include the word “privacy” and disrupt the homepage’s aesthetics?
Apparently providing users easy access to information about their privacy is much more burdensome for Google than providing a link to where people can buy Verizon’s Droid mobile phone.
Today, Google.com features an advertising message that …

For quite some time now, I’ve been writing about how “search” has become the center of gravity of our informational ecosystem, and that a primary externality of our dependence on search has been the threat to privacy. On numerous occasions I’ve called on Google to engage in value-conscious design in order to protect user privacy, and specifically argued for the creation of a Google Data Privacy center where users can see exactly what data Google has collected about them from their expansive infrastructure of dataveillance, edit or remove this data …

The proposed Google Book Search Settlement Agreement has been the target of numerous criticisms, not the least of which has been its incredible impact on — and incredible silence about — users’ intellectual privacy. Well before the settlement even emerged, I tried to highlight some of the privacy concerns related to the growing reliance on Google Book Search for our information-seeking needs. More recently, as the possible approval of  settlement looms, various advocacy groups have again brought attention to the fact that Google might gain even greater ability to monitor …

Dr. Pamela Samuelson has been one of the most vocal, and most intelligent, critics of the proposed Google Book Search settlement agreement. She has written, for example, on how the settlement threatens orphan works and represents a “major restructuring of the book industry,” largely to the benefit of Google, the Authors Guild and AAP, and their lawyers.
More recently, Samuelson has questioned whether the Authors Guild and AAP fairly represented the interests of all authors and publishers during the negotiations that led up to the settlement agreement. She notes:
The Authors Guild …

Shortly, I will be presenting my thoughts on privacy and the Google Book Settlement at the “Google Books Settlement and the Future of Information Access” conference organized by the UC-Berkeley School of Information.
I speak last on a panel of esteemed experts, including Angela Maycock, Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association; Tom Leonard, University Librarian, UC Berkeley; and Jason Schultz, Associate Director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at U.C. Berkeley School of Law; fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
They will certainly cover all the important terrain, so my …

The art blog Art Fag City recently published a brilliant and insightful photo essay by Jon Rafman, titled “IMG MGMT: The Nine Eyes of Google Street View“. Through text and Street View images, Rafman critically interrogates the gaze of Street View, exposing the ways in which it frames our view of the world, while at the same time constraining it.
Below are some of the Street View images he has found, along with his closing remarks. I urge everyone to read and feel the entire essay.

The collections of Street Views both …

[Note: please be sure to read the comments with responses from Google's Alexander Macgillivray]
Joris van Hoboken recently brought this section of the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement to my attention:
Section 3.7(e) Google’s Exclusion of Books
Google may, at its discretion, exclude particular Books from one or more Display Uses for editorial or non-editorial reasons. However, Google’s right to exclude Books for editorial reasons (i.e., not for quality, user experience, legal or other non-editorial reasons) is an issue of great sensitivity to Plaintiffs and Google.  Accordingly, because Plaintiffs, Google and the …

Over a year ago, I highlighted some of the privacy concerns related to the growing reliance on Google Book Search for our information-seeking needs. Recently, as the possible approval of the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement looms, various advocacy groups have again brought attention to the fact that Google might gain even greater ability to monitor the books you browse, the pages you read, and even the highlights and marginal notes you make on digital copies of books.
Notably, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU have called on consumers to …

New York Law School professor (and fellow Yale ISP alum), James Grimmelmann, has launched The Public Index: A Website to Study and Discuss the Google Book Search Settlement. From his announcement:

The Public-Interest Book Search Initiative at New York Law School presents:
The Public Index
A Website to Study and Discuss the Google Book Search Settlement
http://thepublicindex.org
The groundbreaking proposed settlement in the Google Book Search case is so complex that controversy has outpaced conversation and questions have outnumbered answers. We aim to help close these gaps. The Public Index is a website featuring a …

Last month I noted that Google’s Street View service was being challenged by German data privacy authorities, who insisted that Google must permanently remove personally-identifying images from their databases (not just blur them in the user interface). Google argued that the original images are necessary to help the system “learn” how to automatically blur better in the future, but Germany feels (and I agree) that privacy must trump. engineering in this case.
Google has conceded, and will now erase identifiable raw data depicting people, property, or cars upon request.
This is a …