Final: Privacy in the age of Google

On the "Privacy in the age of Google" podcast, they claim that people with a gmail account can see all of the information that Google has on them. They want us to be "comfortable" with Google having and protecting our information. However, information can always be compromised and Marissa Meyer from Google admits that there is no guarantee of complete privacy. Personal data can be linked to certain people even though it's supposed to be anonymous, but not everything can be anonymized with the vast amount of information out there on the web. People have to learn to control and personalize their privacy on whatever account and browser they use.

Information used to be found in newspapers. Radio news programs and televised news were also key tools for people to stay informed. However, now a large majority of people in the US are online and use the internet to find info. Web browsing (specifically Google) has become such a large part of our lives to the extent that it's a colloquialism in society. The terms "Googled" or "Google it" have infiltrated our every day speech.

These days, most young people have a presence online. The idea that people catalog their lives on the internet is something that I like to call iExist, which will be discussed in some other blog posts. Since there is so much personal information that we upload onto our email accounts and many different corporations and hackers out there that want either our business or identities, it's hard to keep things private. It's so easy to find someone online.

For example, when I worked for a church updating their member information, I had to quickly double check and find some people's addresses and phone numbers. It was easy to type their names into Google and find their information on yellowpages.com. Recently, I needed to find a friend's address; instead of calling her or emailing her, I decided to get an instant answer and I googled her name. Several pages immediately came up including her Facebook page, and other websites linked to the school district she works for. I could instantly find out where she lives and works. This may have been convenient for me, but it's a little scary to actually experience how easy it is to find someone on Google. If someone exists online, you can find them.

Google can know our preferences by examining our web browsing and companies may want to use the information for advertising and evaluating demographics. We cannot assume that Google's privacy settings are going to protect us all. People need to be educated on how to protect themselves because in the age of Google, privacy does not exist.