Sneak is a big fan of Lauren Weinstein. This is partly because the picture on his blog suggests it would be unwise to diss him – he appears to be a huge, hairy-arsed biker, although of course he could easily be a puny weakling with a girl's name and a photo of a hairy-arsed biker. The other reason Sneak gives Weinstein the thumbs up is for his prominent role in working to safeguard privacy.
Sneak particularly admired this recent summary of Google’s questionable business practices:

 

Google keeps records of your searches, and can tie them to other activities via cookies. Google scans the e-mail you send and receive through Gmail. Google collects a variety of information on your other browsing activities through various optional toolbars and services.

Now, with the new Sun Microsystems deal, if hosted versions of word processing and related applications are developed [as is rumoured], Google could quite possibly be tied into your document editing ... if you use such services.

Google refuses to hire a privacy officer (after all, they're the "Trust us -- First do no evil" company, and they're smarter than everyone else about... well... everything, right?)

Google refuses to detail their data retention policies or the extent to which they make that growing corpus of data available to outside entities. ... "Trust us" is not enough.

Why does Google so strenuously resist at least consulting with the privacy community? What have they got to lose if everything they're doing is on the up and up?

Stirring stuff. At a guess, what Google stands to lose might be its $300 share price.

14 Oct 2005