The Swiss consumer broadcast "Kassensturz", showed in their last episode (11.11.2008) a report about google and data privacy.
Additionally to the report, the expert for information law, Prof. Dr. Urs Gasser from the University Of St. Gallen has been invited for an interview.
Have a look at the video (in German and Swiss Native German):
I have do admit, that there is a certain danger of violence against data privacy from Google, but nevertheless: This is an innovative company, providing us with a lot of new features and contributes in most cases in a good way to the internet!
What is dangerous in this report, is the fact, that Mr. Schmezer and the other reporters constantly mess around with Google the search engine and the other Google services/applications. The best point is, when the moderator calls the well known Cookies (the little text files, placed by sites on your computer for recognising you later on or saving preferences) "that are the little programs which are placed on my computer and then send data to the internet"! This is not serious journalism! Programs on your computer that send out data to the internet (mostly when the user is unaware) is called Malware or Spy-Software, but not a Cookie, just to make this point clear.
And by the way, every user of email, respectively the SMTP (which stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), has to be aware, that his mail can be read from everyone, unless he does encrypt it (with PGP or something else). So if there is one more, that scans my mail, does not bother me. But in fact it is a problem with mails arriving at Google Mail accounts. There the other user has not agreed, or at least not explicitly on the terms and conditions of Google. That such mails are scanned, this is indeed, also in my eyes, at least critical.
All in all, was the report not that bad, it showed a complete image of what Google does, but used it, in a really messy and confusing way, to create fear and resistance against this company. Well Prof. Gasser relativized the situation a little bit, when he admitted, that he is, as many others too, is a heavy Google user. Now we are again, aware of the many dangers to our data privacy, when it is about internet. Let us hope that they never come true.
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