Google Gives Info to Brazil, Takes Info from your Background Noise
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | September 6, 2006 | Share This
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On Saturday, the Washington Post reported that Google will comply with the Brazilian court’s order to turn over data from Orkut, a social networking website. More specifically, Google has agreed to turn over registration information (including names and e-mail addresses) to help tie users to specific IP addresses.
The difference, says Google, between their compliance now and their earlier refusal to give records to the U.S. Department of Justice, is the scale of request. The U.S. was asking for the entire search index, whereas the Brazilian government only needs private information on a few of their citizens. At WebmasterWorld, there were several posts discussing the pros and cons of Google’s new decision – most notably, the suggestion that Orkut is being used by Brazillian drug gangs to incite violence against specific public officials. Without getting into a discussion of internet privacy, or lack thereof, I can’t help but think of another recent Google story:
On Sunday, the Register reminded us of Google’s intentions to start recording “audio fingerprints” via the microphone on your PC. So the theory goes, if Google can pick up on the TV or radio program (or conversation?) taking place around you as you type, then Google can serve more relevant content ads. And of course, that information is matched to your time-stamped IP address and search history.
In the aftermath of AOL’s scandalous database leak, the new information that Google intends to gather for search purposes, and release for legal purposes, is not necessarily evil, but is definitely creepy.
Topics: Google, International, Legal Issues |