Voluntary Versus Mandatory Privacy Protection for Web Search

Bill Hibbard   December 2005

In "What Google Should Roll Out Next: A Privacy Upgrade" (28 November 2005) Adam Cohen describes the threat to privacy from Google's records of users' searches and email, and admonishes Google to resist the opportunity to profit from such personal data. But it is precisely such personally targeted services that users will want and that will be the core business opportunity of the net, especially as online services develop technology that can talk with and understand users in human languages. If Google resists this, that will simply create the opportunity for a competitor to replace Google as the preeminent online service. But the ability of technology to profile and ultimately to know huge numbers of users does pose an enormous threat to privacy and to liberty. This cannot be effectively resisted voluntarily by online services, but must be the subject of government regulation much like the regulation of other public infrastructure.

It is surprising that the Times has not printed a single letter, including my own, in response to "What Google Should Roll Out Next: A Privacy Upgrade" during the week since it appeared. In it, Adam Cohen describes the threat to privacy from Google's records of users' searches and email, and admonishes Google to resist the opportunity to retain and profit from such personal data.

The threat to our privacy and eventually our liberty posed by central servers and their relations with large numbers of users will be one of the most important public policy issues of the twenty first century, as those servers increase in computing power and intelligence. The voluntary resistance that Mr. Cohen advocates will simply be inadequate to meet the threat in a competitive market for appealing personalized services. Can there have been no worthwhile response to his article? If this issue is really so dull or opaque to Times readers, heaven help us in formulating reasonable public policy.