I’m enjoying the beta of Google+ that a friend, and Google employee, recently invited me to. I am usually more quick to check out new stuff than hesitant to get freaked out by privacy policies. But my own personal experiences with Google have left me more concerned with Google than with Facebook from a privacy perspective. Primarily because of the vast trove of information Google already has access to. I just don’t think they should have access to so much.
My first real heart-jump was when I bought a Google-powered Android phone and ‘registered’ it with my gmail address. All of a sudden all my voicemails suddenly got routed to Google Voice, as opposed to my usual wireless carrier voicemail. And I wasn’t given a choice in the matter, or able to undo it. My conversation with customer service went something like this “Oh, you entered your gmail address, yeah, all your voicemail goes to Google now, you can’t change it.” I also realized that since I used Google Chrome as my web browser(which I login into with my Gmail address so that it remembers my passwords), now it was possible to link all of my online web browsing activity to my phone usage, including locations/movements around the world, and potentially to my email usage and now to any personal information I give to Google +. This is a lot! Too much, I think.
I couple these concerns with recent reports that Google (and Apple) keep a log of all of our locations via our cell phones, indefinitely:
Google’s Chairman, Eric Schmidt’s statement that if you don’t want other people to know about what you do online, then you shouldn’t do it online:
So what? Well, Facebook and Google both make nearly all of their money from online advertising. And when I say nearly all, I mean this is pretty much where all of their revenue is derived from. Google doesn’t exactly rake it in on their phone business. Online/mobile advertising has been my vocation for the past 12 years and I’m keenly aware, as Google is, that the more you know about a person, the better you can deliver that person relevant advertising. The more relevant your advertising, the more advertising money is going to come your way because you’ve done a good job of getting your client’s message in front of their target consumer. Google is very good at this. One might argue that they are the absolute best at delivering advertising to consumers and getting them to respond. That is why in the midst of a recession, they are hiring 4,000+ people in a single year, including no less than 6 other close friends of mine have gone to work for the Goog in the past 6 months. Google is ‘crushing it’ with their online advertising business.
It strikes me that Google+ is not just another fun Google product, but an attempt to head off the massive advantage that Facebook has gained with their treasure trove of personal information on 500 Million + users. Note that likewise, Facebook, is trying to head off Google’s advantage on having access to internet browsing habits by offering websites ‘like’ buttons and other widgets to put up on their sites, like ‘login into this website with facebook’ so that Facebook can also collect information on your browsing habits outside of Facebook. These widgets turn Facebook into a much bigger ‘website’, where they can ‘see’ you on all the sites where they have their hooks. Keep in mind that Facebook recently passed online advertising behemoth, Yahoo, in total advertising revenue.
The stages are set: Facebook and Google are now doing battle for online advertising dollars as the two dominant forces in selling and delivering online advertising. “Do no evil” aside, these two companies are online advertising companies first and foremost and our own personal view of what crosses the line in terms of privacy is being pushed and challenged by them because they have a revenue-driven incentive to challenge it.
I am not a crazy privacy advocate, I placed the very first ad on a social media site years ago, when I struck a deal with Jonathan Abrams at Friendster. Back then, advertising on social media used to be a bad word, now every company’s brand manager is scrambling to understand it and to spend there. This desire to ‘get in’ to social media advertising has been driven by the huge amount of personal information we’ve all become accustomed to sharing with companies in exchange for fun online services, primarily with Facebook.
Will I use Google+ ?, definitely! Especially if it’s fun and my friends are using it. But I returned my Google/Android phone because I felt creeped out by the “you have been assimilated into the Borg” experience, and I’d frankly prefer it if Facebook continued to dominate social media. At least that way I can keep some of my personal information with three distinct and independent advertising companies: my location logs are with Apple, my online browsing habits are with Google, and my social interactions and personal info might stay independently with Facebook.
