Author: ccachuela

Google is no stranger to controversy over user privacy violations. Gmail, the company’s email service, faced criticism in 2004 for analyzing the contents of its user’s messages. Despite disclosing this in their policy at the time, the non-subscribers corresponding with Gmail users were unable to give their consent and were often unaware they were being monitored (Electronic Privacy Information Center, 2004). In 2007 the internet giant acquired the ad company DoubleClick, which uses cookies to track what its users look at and talk about online, then employs that information to target the ads you see specifically to your interests (Monyak, 2016). Google Street View employs a fleet of cars that record video footage of neighborhoods around the world, often capturing private moments in people’s lives. Though several complaints have been filed regarding this aspect of the company’s behavior, no lawsuits have been successful in discouraging these actions (Liedtke, 2010). 2012 was a particularly contentious year for the company, which was illegally tracking Apple Safari users and storing data on them, resulting in a lawsuit and millions of dollars in fines for Google (Miller, 2013). The same year the business was widely criticized for creating a blanket privacy policy for all of the platforms and services they own, which allowed them to combine the information they store in each of your accounts into one comprehensive user report, feeding worries about profiling and setting a poor legal precedent for this Big Brother-type behavior (Reitman, 2012).

Despite all of these scandals, Google still remains a fixture in most of our lives. We allow them to see what we look up on the internet with their search engine, where we are going when we use Google Maps, and even when our lights are on and what is on our weekly shopping list, with the recent introduction of smart devices in our homes. Are people unaware of how much of their information is being tracked and stored by the company, or do they just not care? Or perhaps, has Google turned over a new leaf? The stories and lawsuits referenced above are years old, which can seem like a lifetime in this digital age. After all of the heat from the media regarding user privacy, maybe Google has re-written their procedures to better protect consumers. Let’s take a look at their current Privacy Policy and find out.

According to their website, Google, “collects information to provide better services to all our users — from figuring out basic stuff like which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful, the people who matter most to you online, or which YouTube videos you might like (Google, 2019).” Sounds pretty helpful, right? The company collects and stores information for its users that includes their name, gender, birthdate, phone numbers, addresses, terms searched for online, videos watched, ads interacted with, purchase activity, IP address, GPS location, and which people you communicate with online. They also hold on to original content you create when using their services. According to their policy,  “This includes things like email you write and receive, photos and videos you save, docs and spreadsheets you create, and comments you make on YouTube videos (Google, 2019).”

You can also quickly discover what they won’t do with your information in this document, which includes personalizing ads based on race, religion, health, or sexual discrimination, and they won’t share personal information like your email address with advertisers. The only time “personal” information like your name would be shared with someone outside of their corporation (without your permission) is if they need to do so to comply with law enforcement or to prevent a security threat. But this begs the question, what do they consider “personal?” The document defines non-personally identifiable information as, “information that is recorded about users so that it no longer reflects or references an individually-identifiable user (Google, 2019).” So the fact that I like dogs and rock climbing wouldn’t be considered personal because it would be difficult to figure out who I am with just that information (but easy to sell me a climbing chalk bag with pictures of dogs on it.)

Once Google has collected all of this information, what happens to it after that? Any data collected is encrypted, according to their policy, to keep it safe and protected. They don’t sell any of it to other companies. In fact, Google says, they use it protect their users from things like fraudulent or illegal activity, as well as to better analyze how their services are functioning and being used, and to make your internet experience easier and more relevant to your life (Google, 2019). Mostly, though, they use it to sell you things, via personalized advertisements, geared specifically towards your interests. And that’s not just on Google itself, or the websites they own. According to CNBC, 76% of websites now contain Google-owner trackers, more than Facebook or any other internet company. “This advertising system is designed to enable hyper-targeting, which has many unintended consequences, such as the ability for bad actors to use the system to influence the most susceptible or to exclude groups in a way that facilitates discrimination (Weinberg, 2018).”

 You do have the option to turn off certain monitoring features, including these focused advertisements, as well as location tracking. All of this information can be found easily on their website and is written in plain language. They are actually very transparent about it. So what’s the problem?

Just last year Google had to pay the Federal Trade Commission $170 million dollars for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (Singer & Conger, 2019). The video sharing and streaming service owned by the company, YouTube, was collecting data via cookies on children who use the application, including what videos they watched most and their viewing habits. This was done without parental consent, and for the purpose of better targeting their ads to young viewers. COPPA is an important way we protect our children and their personal information on the internet, but Google essentially turned their nose up at it, claiming that their videos weren’t directed at kids, despite the content obviously showing otherwise.

Google has a long history of being rather dismissive of user privacy. In 2009 their CEO Eric Schmidt was quoted to have said, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place (Metz, 2009).” This sort of attitude coming from someone who has access to so much of all of our information is concerning. The American Library Association tells us that, “the right to privacy – the right to read, consider, and develop ideas and beliefs free from observation or unwanted surveillance by the government or others – is the bedrock foundation for intellectual freedom (American Library Association, 2017).” This is one of the guiding principals of our chosen profession, and as such we must fight to protect it. Recently I had to do a project for my Social Psychology class on hate groups, and I did a lot of Google searching for it. Now, in addition to liking dogs and rock climbing, Google also might think that I am a white supremacist who doesn’t believe that the Holocaust happened. And while this will likely never come up as an issue in my day to day life, I don’t necessarily want that in my “file.” Having easy access to the news stories I am most interested in, or clicking one button on my phone to GPS home instead of three (because it know where I live) is certainly convenient, but I’m not sure it’s worth what we are giving up in terms of privacy.

In 2017 Google finally stopped scanning their users’ emails. Though they claimed initially that they did it to decrease the amount of spam in your inbox and not just to generate ad revenue, the bad press finally put an end to the practice. But trust me, they have plenty of data still to go on. According to NBC News, “The extent of the information Google has can be eyebrow-raising even for technology professionals. Dylan Curran, an information technology consultant, recently downloaded everything Facebook had on him and got a 600-megabyte file. When he downloaded the same kind of file from Google, it was 5.5 gigabytes, about nine times as large (Popken, 2018).” It is truly a shocking amount, and while the company claims to be keeping it to themselves and protecting it through encryption, data breaches happen all of the time. In fact, 8 billion people were affected by a data breach in 2019 alone (Leonhardt, 2019). The more information that’s out there, the more at risk you are. And this doesn’t just mean from hackers. A potential leak could lead to discriminatory practices like not being able to get health insurance because you did a Google search for a medical condition you thought you might have, or being skipped over for a job interview because of your sexuality. Someday the government might want access to the information Google has stored to investigate a potential terrorist threat. When Google talks about sharing this information with someone like law enforcement, they use the phrase “if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation, or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary (Google, 2019).” My recommendation to them would be to have more specific wording here- good faith seems too open to interpretation. User information should only be shared with a court order.

I understand that most of Google’s services are free, and directed advertisements help to fund access for people who otherwise couldn’t pay for it. And while I do applaud the company for, in many respects, being so clear about what they are taking from us and for allowing people to opt out of certain kinds of monitoring, it seems that perhaps they could take a little less and still remain a profitable enterprise. But in the meantime, educate yourself about where your data is going and how you can stay protected while still taking advantage of all of the wonderful things the internet, and yes, Google, has to offer us.

References

American Library Association. (2017, April). Privacy. Advocacy, Legislation & Issues. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/privacy

Electronic Privacy Information Center. (2004). Gmail privacy FAQ. EPIC. https://epic.org/privacy/gmail/faq.html#13

Google. (2019, December 19). Privacy policy – Privacy & terms. Privacy & Terms; Google. https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en‌

Leonhardt, M. (2019, December 17). The 5 biggest data hacks of 2019. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/17/the-5-biggest-data-hacks-of-2019.html

Liedtke, M. (2010, May 14). Google caught breaking web privacy etiquette. NBC Bay Area. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/tech/google-caught-breaking-web-privacy-etiquette/1868570/

Metz, C. (2009, December 7). Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy. The Register. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07/schmidt_on_privacy/

Miller, C. C. (2013, November 18). Google to pay $17 million to settle privacy case. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/technology/google-to-pay-17-million-to-settle-privacy-case.html

Monyak, S. (2016, October 21). Google changed a major privacy policy four months ago, and no one really noticed. Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/technology/2016/10/google-changed-a-major-privacy-policy-and-no-one-really-noticed.html

Popken, B. (2018, May 10). Google sells the future, powered by your personal data. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-sells-future-powered-your-personal-data-n870501

Reitman, R. (2012, February 1). What actually changed in Google’s privacy policy. Electronic Frontier Foundation. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/what-actually-changed-google

Singer, N., & Conger, K. (2019, September 4). Google is fined $170 million for violating children’s privacy on YouTube. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/google-youtube-fine-ftc.html

Weinberg, G. W. (2018, January 31). Google, Facebook data privacy concerns out of control. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/31/google-facebook-data-privacy-concerns-out-of-control-commentary.html

In the past year the European Union has passed some of the most stringent laws in history to protect copyright online. While many musicians and publishers have applauded the EU Parliament’s efforts to protect original content, others say the new laws will fundamentally change the way the internet works, and not for the better. What exactly is in the bill, and why is it to controversial? The article, “Article 13: What Just Happened to the EU “Meme Ban” and Why Are People So Angry,” from The Independent helps to break it down for us.

While the law provides a lot of new protections for copyrighted material, two articles in the law have proven particularly contentious. Article 13, which has been dubbed the “meme ban,” shifts the blame of stolen content from the person posting it to the platform it is being hosted on. Videos, pictures, and yes, memes, will all be included in the new regulations. This means that if someone posts a video to YouTube that contains copyrighted content, YouTube now faces the repercussions of the copyright violation, prompting the company to publicly state that this might mean no new content being upload from the European Union (Griffin, 2019).

Supporters of the law contend that this will protect creators, but those opposed feel that it is unachievable for tech companies to filter out all possible infringements. Fair Use law allows for copyrighted material to be used as long as it is done in a “transformative” way (U.S. Copyright Office, 2019), but there is no way for social media companies to monitor each and every post being uploaded and determine if it falls into this category. This could mean that any post containing unoriginal material could be banned, ultimately leading to the stifling of creative new takes on old content. Often this is how memes are employed, giving the law its nickname. Under Fair Use, material is also allowed to be reproduced if it is used for educational purposes, criticism, commentary, or parody (U.S. Copyright Office, 2019). The enactment of this new law could result in less information being readily available to the public, at least on social media sites, which (like it or not) is how many people get their news.

Article 11, the second controversial aspect of the bill, “requires search engines, social media platforms and aggregation websites to share revenue with publishers if their content is displayed (Kottasová, 2019).” When you search for something on a website like Google you get a small preview of the content from the original site. This would disallow that practice, unless the search engine paid the creator a fee, which is unlikely to be the result of the law. Google has said that they would no longer include a preview with their search results, which will make it harder for internet users to easily find news stories and other information they are looking for online.

This proposal is concerning to me. Those short previews often allow users to quickly and easily figure out if the site being linked to contains current and reputable content that is relevant to what the user is looking for. Doing away with those samples will make those factors more difficult and time consuming to determine, ultimately leading to frustration for the searcher and a higher potential for misinformation.

As an information professional I am a strong advocate for copyright law, but I am also an advocate for fair and easy access to information and creative content online. These news laws seem like they may hinder both of those things, while only providing limited new protections for copyright holders. While EU lawmakers seem to have the best intentions to safeguard unique works, most of the reproduced creative content seen on social media sites is either protected by Fair Use because it is transformative, or it has no effect on market (i.e. the copyright violator isn’t using the material to make a profit.) The same could be said of the contentious extracts being abolished by Article 11. Google’s bottom line isn’t being boosted by including those snippets. If anything, I am more likely to click on a link from a search engine if I can read a sentence or two from the preview and know that it is relevant to my topic and seems well written. I would think that the practice of including a preview would only help to increase traffic to (and the profitability of) the very websites this law is trying to protect.

Ultimately, we still do not know how this law will affect the internet as we know it. While it was passed by the European Union in March of 2019, lawmakers gave themselves two years to try to implement it. This may prove difficult, as CNN’s article, “Europe’s controversial new copyright law is as clear as mud,” has said that the law is very vague, which may lead to an overreaction by tech companies, who will err on the side of caution to avoid penalties (Kottasová, 2019). My job as a librarian will be to stay apprised of the new policies, regardless of my personal opinions on them, and help to educate users in my facility about how to protect themselves from copyright infringement.

References

Griffin, A. (2019, March 26). Article 13: What just happened to the EU “meme ban” and why are people so angry? The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/article-13-vote-eu-meme-ban-copyright-law-rule-explained-a8841016.html

Kottasová, I. K. (2019, March 27). Europe’s controversial new copyright law is as clear as mud. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/26/tech/eu-copyright-law-explained/index.html

U.S. Copyright Office. (2019). More information on fair use. Copyright.Gov. https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html

These days talk about the link between screen time and mental health is everywhere, and spending large chunks of time on social media sites has been linked to higher levels of anxiety and depression. In a study conducted in 2013, scientists found that the more participants used Facebook over a two-week period, the higher the levels of dissatisfaction they reported in their lives. The same was not true of their face-to-face interactions (Kross et al., 2013). Reports have also come out saying that higher amounts of screen time in children under the age of two can lead to attention deficit disorders and delayed cognitive skills (Tamana et al., 2019). However, in recent years, these and many of the other studies surrounding the topic have been found to be flawed. When virtually every American adult has a smart phone that provides constant access to Tinder, YouTube, and Instagram, what do you use as your control group? Not to mention that each person’s online experience is different, because of how they choose to use technology and how sites like Facebook uniquely tailor each user’s feed (Carey, 2019).

So what is the truth? Is technology ruining our minds? In a world where it’s use is constantly on the rise, I’m not sure that it matters. Rather than focusing on the negatives of something that can’t be escaped, perhaps we should be asking an entirely different question- how can we use technology to boost our mental health?

More and more often, technology is becoming a tool to improve our health. More people than ever are using their Apple Watches and FitBits to track their step counts, heart rates, and asleep patterns. There’s an app for pretty much any diet or exercise plan you want to start, and there are even apps for tracking your blood sugars if you have diabetes. Recently, University of Chicago Medical Centers have installed scanners in their soap and hand sanitizer dispensers to help track how often doctors and nurses are washing their hands between patients, in the hopes of decrease the number of hospital-acquired infections (Schencker, 2019). And, perhaps most importantly, telemedicine is on the rise.

At the University of California this year, the number of students seeking mental health services almost doubled, overwhelming the college’s clinics and increasing wait times to see a counselor to six weeks. Because of this, UC and other universities are considering incorporating virtual therapy appointments into their programming (Wyer, 2019). They aren’t alone. Earlier this year, Massachusetts joined the 32 other states offering some sort of coverage for telehealth services for Medicaid members, many of which include mental health services (Lagasse, 2019). Video-based psychiatric appointments help break down barriers to care for those with busy schedules or those living in rural areas who may not have other options. They are a more cost effective treatment option and allow people in crisis to get help immediately without going to the emergency room, according to the American Psychiatric Association’s website (American Psychiatric Association, 2016). They also allow for greater privacy for patients. And, most importantly, according to a study done by the Canadian Medical Association, they work. Patients being treated for anxiety reported effectiveness at the same levels as face-to-face counseling, and patients being treated for depression reported a significant improvement over non-treatment, though not as high as those in the face-to-face group (Gratzer & Khalid-Khan, 2015).

Certainly there are still barriers to telemedicine. Not all states currently offer coverage, those that do have varied laws surrounding it, and it isn’t a good option for those who struggle to use the technology. The Canadian Medical Association also cautions providers to not rely solely on online testing to make a diagnosis. But any option that opens up care to more people in a way they may be more comfortable using seems like a good thing. As an information professional it is important for me to be aware of and understand how to use these resources (including both the benefits and limitations of them) so that I can help my patrons or students who might need telemedicine to know their options and to gain access. So for anyone who is worried that technology is creating a world with higher levels of mental health issues, it may also be creating a way to help fix it. And your local librarian might be able to show you how.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2016). What is telepsychiatry? Psychiatry.Org. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/what-is-telepsychiatry

Carey, B. (2019, May 31). ‘Screen time’ is over. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/health/screen-time-mental-health-screenome.html

Gratzer, D., & Khalid-Khan, F. (2015). Internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy in the treatment of psychiatric illness. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 188(4), 263–272. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.150007

Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., Shablack, H., Jonides, J., & Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PLoS ONE, 8(8), e69841. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069841

Lagasse, J. (2019, October 31). Telehealth laws, especially for behavioral health, are increasing access despite remaining legislative barriers. Healthcare Finance News. https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/telehealth-laws-especially-behavioral-health-are-increasing-access-despite-remaining

Schencker, L. (2019, December 26). Doctors and nurses clean their hands only half as much as they should. Now some Chicago-area hospitals are having them wear tracking technology to keep tabs. Chicagotribune.Com; Chicago Tribune. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-hospital-hand-washing-infections-sensors-20191226-kkeb2rmihre2fag3uiggckt2l4-story.html

Tamana, S. K., Ezeugwu, V., Chikuma, J., Lefebvre, D. L., Azad, M. B., Moraes, T. J., Subbarao, P., Becker, A. B., Turvey, S. E., Sears, M. R., Dick, B. D., Carson, V., Rasmussen, C., Pei, J., & Mandhane, P. J. (2019). Screen-time is associated with inattention problems in preschoolers: Results from the CHILD birth cohort study. PLOS ONE, 14(4), e0213995. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213995

Wyer, S. (2019, August 25). Telemedicine will jump-start overloaded and underfunded UC mental health services. Dailybruin.Com. https://dailybruin.com/2019/08/25/telemedicine-will-jump-start-overloaded-and-underfunded-uc-mental-health-services/