A New Page In Privacy

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– Travis McCrea

– Travis McCrea

As bad as the pun is (and can you blame me, I studied politics… we are inherently designed not to have a sense of humor), I would like to take this chance to express how excited I am about Larry Page is again taking the role of CEO at Google Inc.

Google Inc. is a dynamic company to say the least, they do so many great things for the open source community and they actively participate in making the world a better place. There is always, however, a slight undertone of creep-dom that comes at the same time. If Google really does store the personally identifiable information which is said to had, a person could get a really great view of my most inner self. Google is an advertising company at it’s heart, and they openly admit that their projects are used to help gather more data about their users. Eric doesn’t help things by saying things like “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.” and “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”. You should stop thinking about “how cool this new thing is Google is giving for free” and start thinking “ehh it seems cool but I really don’t want my data being owned by anyone”.

These are, however, things we should be thinking about anyway. If I could give credit to Mr. Schmidt on one thing, it would be that he has raised awareness to how important it is to keep your information safe online. Luckily Google is fairly stable and has a huge economic incentive to protect its users’ privacy. However, not all the websites on the Internet are held to such high standards… and when people start to think these websites are required by certain laws to protect them, they could find their naked pictures of them, their spouse, and the chickens in Tijuana as RedTubes new popup advertisement.

The fact Larry Page is in command though ushers in what I am hoping to be an era where Google Inc. becomes more like good old Google. The company I can use without TOR and will start working with Electronic Frontier Foundation and other organizations to enhance its services adding protection for it’s users while still moving forward financially. Larry and Sergey founded Google with the concept of “Don’t Be Evil”, and I think Larry stepping up to the plate to take control over his company again is his way of admitting they have moved off course, and they need to return to their roots.

Should you put blind faith into Google now Larry is at the head? No, of course not. It’s important we always protect our privacy whenever we can, and I always suggest you should never post anything online (with any “privacy setting”) that you don’t want anyone to find. You never know who will be the next CEO and you never know what will happen to the company or website. However, I think Larry returning may be a major win for those of us fighting to protect the sovereignty of the Internet. Google is a major player and could really fight back against the governments of the world for making such abusive actions against citizens.

I think I speak on behalf of a good number of us when I say to Larry: I don’t know what you are going to do with Google (Inc.) but you have been a great name for digital rights and civil liberties in the past, and I hope you don’t let us down.

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About The Author: Travis McCrea

Travis is a 22 year old activist and entrepreneur, formerly an officer of the United States Pirate Party. He has moved to Canada and has run for Parliament through Pirate Party Canada, is currently the Deputy Leader of the Pirate Party of Canada, and uses direct action to protect civil liberties and the internet. PS he is also running to be a board member of PPI *wink*