"People today talk about privacy problems, and they are legitimate and important concerns. Since it is very hard to talk about them in the abstract, you need a name and a face, so we, Google, have become the name and face when online privacy is discussed," said Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer at the Conference on the Evolving Role of the Individual in Privacy Protection: 30 Years after the OECD Privacy Guidelines hosted by the Israeli Law, Information and Technology Authority in Jerusalem today.
Fleischer said, "There are other companies operating in the Internet arena and collect a great deal of data about users, but when you are the largest and leading search engine in the world, and one of the most important symbols of the Internet world, then it's natural that you will be the company that people talk about.
"This is a responsibility that we must meet, but I do not yet know of any company in the world that is working as we are to build tools to protect privacy of information, to create transparency, link with regulators, etc. These are examples of how we are complying with this responsibility."
Is privacy Google's biggest challenge today?
Fleischer: "Google's task is to organize global information and make it usable and available to people. Everything we do is related to global information, so this definition is also related to privacy and will affect almost everything done. Our challenge is to how to provide access to information while providing proper protection on users' privacy.
"This means that the debate on privacy will always be with us. It's not just a challenge for Google; it's a challenge for all human society. We all face and deal with the same world in which there is access to information, and the question is how to manage it while protecting privacy."
What is Google's vision in terms of privacy protection?
"Google has launched a series of tools to protect privacy, all of which are part of our broader vision, to give people control over their information. Obviously, we live in an era in which more and more information is online, and generally, this is a good thing. The Internet and search engines make it easier for people to express themselves and upload information, find information, and share it. There is more information about all of us there, and the tools we're launching give people transparency, visibility, and the possibility of controlling and managing the information."
Are we slowly losing the concept of privacy? Will our children live in a world of zero privacy and zero expectations of privacy?
"Privacy is a permanent principle. What that means is that, in practice, it constantly changes and develops, but it will always be around. Everything around us changes all the time, and so does this concept. I don’t think that we're going from a world of privacy to a world of no privacy in the future, but the concept of privacy will constantly develop. What are the things that we want to keep private and what are the things that we want to reveal; these are questions of borders that are going to change and be affected by various factors. It's not that there will be less privacy - the borders will simply move. More and more information will become available, so the answer to the question is whether there will be more information about all of us online is yes, but whether people will still take measures to protect the privacy of things that are important to them, obviously yes. It's human nature and that's not going to change."
Fleischer says that the question of where privacy is going is a sociological question. "The way in which young people express themselves on social networks and use the technology they didn’t use before turns it into a social question. People need to be careful about what they put online both when there are no privacy protections and when there are. These things won't change. We need more education on this point, especially to teach children how to use online services responsibly, as well as tools to protect privacy. Privacy is a developing field, but it's a challenge of society and the whole world, not just Google."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 26, 2010
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