Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Is Google becoming Big Brother?

Quote of the day, from a very good article by Richard Falkenrath in the Financial Times: Google, by gaining the consent of its users in the form of a quick tick, has secured the power to build an electronic surveillance apparatus that far exceeds anything the Bush administration tried to do.… The potential is vast. ...

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Quote of the day, from a very good article by Richard Falkenrath in the Financial Times:

Quote of the day, from a very good article by Richard Falkenrath in the Financial Times:

Google, by gaining the consent of its users in the form of a quick tick, has secured the power to build an electronic surveillance apparatus that far exceeds anything the Bush administration tried to do.… The potential is vast. For instance, Gmail has a contact-tracking feature, which integrates with Picasa, its free product for managing digital photographs. Picasa has a tagging feature that can tell Google where and when photographs were taken, and an advanced facial recognition feature that allows Google to identify individuals it has seen in one photo in any photo in the user’s digital library. Integrating just these three services with Google’s core search function could allow Google to locate individuals in virtually any digital photograph on the internet, and so derive where each user has been, when, with whom and doing what. Add YouTube to the mix, or Android smartphones, or whatever other database Google develops or buys — the implications are breathtaking.

To remedy this problem, Falkenrath advocates adding a new "right to be forgotten" to laws protecting privacy. He predicts that companies such as Facebook and Google that profit by monetizing data on people would fight this fiercely. Unfortunately, given their financial strength, plus the power of the California congressional delegation, I think they would succeed in putting down any such legislation.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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