Online Essay: Privacy on the Internet

Privacy on the Internet-Matthew Dart

At present, the greater majority of the Western population has access to a computer and the Internet (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2007). It is almost synonymous that if a person has access to the Internet, then they will surely have access to an email account. Wether this account is run through the chosen Internet provider or a separate provider is entirely the choice of the user. Although the Internet seems to provide an abundance of choice, the major connotation of choice, freedom, is often under threat from companies that take to constant monitoring and regulating of all parts of the web.

One of the most prevalent online companies at present is Google. Initially only associated with web searching browsing, it has developed and grown into a huge conglomerate company. Now comprising of many programs, including Google image, YouTube, Picasa Picture Viewer, Blogger, Google Earth, Google Talk, Google Toolbar, Google Translate, Google video and G-mail (Google, 2007a). This ensures that Google has a large market share in online activities, and has gained almost unwavering trust amongst users, offering a solution to any needs that most users might have.

One question has to be asked of the online giant, “Is this trust unfounded?” Is one of the biggest problems on the Internet, the invasion of privacy, being perpetrated by one of the largest companies on the Internet?

Google was founded in California in the late nineties, by two Stanford University PhD Students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Initially the site was an investigation and development into the improvement of search engine functionality, and soon branched off into many different companies, numerous have been mentioned above (Google, 2007b). But by far the most controversial addition to its line up is Gmail.

When introduced in 2004, Google Email (Gmail) offered users a free email account with over 2850 megabytes of storage (and growing) (Google 2007c). Compared to Yahoo’s $59.99 offering, Gmail is free and offers one hundred times more storage than Yahoo (The Register, 2004) and was at the time clearly the more cost effective option.

After its introduction in 2004, an act was passed in California that clashed with some of the intrinsic operating features of G-mail. This act, California’s Online Privacy Protection Act (2004) was concerning the privacy of users of Internet facilities and programs and the regulation of informing users of identity information collection on said program. When and if items such as first and last names, Address (both Postal and Email), phone number and social security social security (ibid, 2004) are collected, this act makes it mandatory for the website to create a link to their privacy policy on its homepage alerting users to the fact that these pieces of information have been collected, and also displaying the companies privacy policy. It was these conflicts with the new act that necessitated a change in Google’s main privacy policy the same day that the new act was passed. When evasive actions such as these are taken, it is obvious that although adjustments were made to legally comply with the new act passed, the Google knew they were on the verge of breaching regulations, and this only further weakens Google’s negative actions and image related to the subject of Privacy.

The Oxford Dictionary defines privacy as a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by others. Gmail privacy is somewhat lacking, as when an email is sent, keywords or key phrases are picked up by Google’s system and through their program and its operators AdWords and ADSense (Google, 2007d), and an individual advertising portfolio is created for each user. While this may not seem to be too invasive of the users’ privacy, it does allow a great deal of potential for abuse of the system. The main ‘loop-hole’ delivering Google and their systems from more attacks is the statement made by a Google Representative, which was:

Google scans the text of Gmail messages in order to filter spam and detect viruses, just as all major webmail services do. Google also uses this scanning technology to deliver targeted text ads and other related information. This is completely automated and involves no humans. (Google 2007e)
Here, Google makes the true statement that it is not actually humans who are viewing the content of people’s emails, it is a machine, and that it only uses this scanning technology for security from viruses and spam, and to target specific users through AdWord, to tailor advertising to these users. It is the last part of the phrase: This is completely automated and involves no humans, that states that there is no room for abuse, as a machine will only do what it is programmed to do, a machine can not be malicious. This statement, made in a Public Press release, stated that:
… a computer system, with its greater storage, memory, and associative
ability than a human’s, could be just as invasive as a human listening to
the communications, if not more so. (Privacy Rights Clearing House, Cited in Article Chopra and White)

Combine this theory with the fact that the programmers, the people who created these programs, are undoubtedly human, and as such there is a chance of abuse and corruption to occur, especially when these programmers are supported and payed by Google.

Due to the vast amount of Internet monitoring and recording of activity and behaviour, know as ‘Traffic Analysis’ (Berthold, Federrath, KÖhntop, 2000), it is getting more and more difficult to retain any concept of anonymity on the Internet. There are however, some companies on the web that believe in and support the fight for civil liberties, privacy and anonymity online. One such company is Tor. Concerned with the construction of a distributed, anonymous Network (Tor 2007a) the IP address of its users is distributed around a number of different computers and users, effectively re-routing the IP address of its many users so that an unclear path is constructed for Traffic Analysis or Eavesdroppers:

Tor hides you among the other users on the network, so the more populous and diverse the user base for Tor is, the more your anonymity will be protected. ( ibid 2007)

In countries where censorship is a big issue, for areas including Cuba, North Korea and some of the Middle Eastern countries (CPJ 2006), the anonymity offered by Tor gives the internet users of these censored regions the access to previously non-accessible web sites, possibly containing negative views of their country, or websites featuring pro-democratic and liberal messages.

Privacy over the Internet is becoming more and more limited. But what Internet privacy is available should not be taken for granted, because when this matter of privacy and security is handed over to others, it is often used or misused for their benefit, and not with the secular users privacy in mind. This necessitates a pro active stance regarding security to be taken, through the use of programs such as Tor, to help not only the users personal privacy from Traffic analysis, but to further support the spread of freedom, civil liberties and human rights to those under a cloud of censorship.




References:

- (1) – Google Programs, (2007a). More Google products [Last date accessed 3/5/07] :http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/options/

- (2) - Google Company Milestones, (2007b). Google Corporate Information: Google Milestones [Last date accessed 3/5/07]
http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/corporate/history.html

- (3) - Miniwatts Marketing Group, (2007) World Internet Usage Statistics News and Population Stats [Last date accessed 3/5/07]
http://www.internetworldstats.com/index.html

- (4) - CA Business and Professions Code 22575-22579, 2004, California's Online Privacy Protection Act Goes into Effect July 1, 2004, [Last date accessed 10/5/07]
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/CAPrivProtAct.htm

- (5)- Definition of Privacy, Oxford Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press, 2007, AskOxford: Privacy, [Last date accessed 10/5/07]
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/privacy?view=uk

- (6)- Information regarding Gmail, A Google approach to email, (2007c), Welcome to Gmail [Last date accessed 10/5/07] https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=mail&passive=true&rm=false&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%3Fhl%3Den%26utm_source%3Den-et-more%26utm_medium%3Det%26utm_campaign%3Den%26ui%3Dhtml%26zy%3Dl&amp;amp;ltmpl=default<mplcache=2&hl=en

- (7)- Information regarding Gmail’s privacy flaws, Andrew Orlowski, 2004, Google mail is evil-privacy advocates [Last date accessed 10/5/07] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/03/google_mail_is_evil_privacy/

- (8)- Information on advertising methods, keywords, (2007d) Google Corporate Information: Business Overview [Last Date Accessed 3/5/07] http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/corporate/business.html


- (9)- Questions and Answers regarding Gmail Privacy, (2007e) About Gmail [Last date accessed 10/5/07]
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_privacy.html


- (10)- Journal Article: Samir Chopra and Laurence White, 2007, Privacy and Artificial Agents, or, Is Google Reading My Email? pg3/6 . Article found through Google Scholar Search engine. [Last date accessed 10/5/07]

- (11)- Journal Article: Oliver Berthold, Hannes Federrath, Marit KÖhntopp, Project "Anonymity and Unobservability in the Internet", 2000, Pg 9/10. Article found through Google Scholar Search engine. [Last date accessed 10/5/07]


-(12)- Overview of Tor, 2007, Tor: Overview [Last date accessed 10/5/07]
http://tor.eff.org/overview.html.en

- (13)- Committee to Protect Journalists, 10 Most Censored Countries, 2006, North Korea Tops CPJ List of ’10 Most Censored Countries’ [Last date accessed 10/5/07] http://www.cpj.org/censored/index.html