Case Analysis on Privacy

Google is a large company that millions use as their number one way to obtain information. Part of providing all this is nearly unlimited access to the internet and the sum of all human knowledge. Tens of thousands of people rely on them and the information they gather, companies rely on consumer data based on search results. But with all this info there has to be some sacrifice in the collection of general information. The article “Siva Vaidhyanathan’s Googleization of Everything” opens a door into the privacy issues that such info gathering had caused. In this Case Analysis I will argue that Consequentialism shows us that Google couldn’t have gathered all this information without the invasion of privacy. Google has to invade the privacy and the lives of others in order to gather this information, though they could’ve gone about it in a safer way. Without compromising the safety of others. 

Luciano Flordi writes about privacy in Luciano Floridi, “Privacy: Informational Friction,” from The Fourth Revolution. Oxford University Press, 2014: pp 101–128.

In this article on page 3, he talks about Anonymity. He says that Anonymity is understood as the lack of personal information about an individual and how it can be hard to know who someone is when there is a lack of details. 

Anonymity is something that can be hard to maintain and achieve even when an individual’s goal is to remain anonymous. In Google’s case, by having cars with cameras drive down the street taking photographs, seeing into houses, into buses, and God helps whoever is on the street when these photos are taken without their consent. 

In the article itself, there was a small child who was naked at the time the car had driven by his house, and the photos were up for more than 48 hours before action was taken. The boy’s and the family’s private lives were interrupted and exposed to the world. Google has taken steps to ensure the anonymity of such individuals by a blur or a smudge, but as the article mentions. 

These individuals still are identified by the surrounding objects and what they are wearing, especially if they are local and are in the area a lot. There are also concerns by taking photos of the surrounding buildings causes the neighborhoods to possibly be a target for crime, as the street camera could see into houses and into backyards. This further would be a breach of privacy and put people at unneeded risk of a crime happening to them. Google cameras could so run the risk of interfering with protecting those who are being protected by the government. Identifying tattoos on the legs or upper extremities as Google only blurs the faces. 

All of this plays into another topic Flordi writes about in his article, empowerment.

Empowerment is using the available technology to gain more knowledge or to use it as a tool for ethical or unethical reasons. Due to the rise in how advanced we are as a culture, Informational Friction which is the restriction of available information has lessened. Informational friction is a vital part of remaining anonymous or keeping certain truths and facts hidden from others. Empowerment takes advantage of that lack of security and uses it and exploits it for the use of a goal set by the user. 

An example that Flordi wrote was about an Alfred Hitchcock film where a character who was wheelchair-bound used the information that he was empowered by to spy on his neighbors. Google uses its empowerment by providing a service to the people by mapping out the roasts and taking accurate photos of the surrounding areas. The Google article does mention how this has helped businesses advertise and people find out where they are going. But do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few who want to keep their lives private? Is it right for Google to post such information with reckless abandonment? 

This is the exact argument for consequentialism. From that ethical standpoint, Google is in the right to do this as mapping and gathering information about our world helps improve it. Mapping out each and every street and storing it in a database that we all can access is better than looking at paper maps in the car or wondering what Inn sits in England at the intersection of Bear ln., Alfred St., and Blue Boar St. the sacrifice of a few peoples privacy to beagle to sit in one half of the world s and see another part without ever leaving your chair is worth the sacrifice. 

Overall how much do we actually care about our own privacy? How much information are we willing to give away for the sake of our own luxury and conveyance in the use of a product? Looking at James Grimmelmann, “Privacy as product safety,” Widener Law Journal, 19 (2010): pp 793–827. Mr.Grimmelmann tells us the cost, and whether or not we care. Grimmelmann uses Facebook as his shining example of how information is everything in our society. Saying that you can know the daily routine of someone or have enough information to arrest an individual based on a post or a friend that they had on Facebook or some other social media platform like Myspace. He writes about the great myths of Facebook for example that users don’t care about privacy. He says that “ Users of Facebook care passionately about privacy, but they have great trouble achieving it.” If this means users who post their vacation photos and their daily lives care if a car drives around and takes photos of their street, then it’s just a matter of perspective of what seems to be private. Grimmelmann also mentions how teens use fake information to hide online, providing a fake last name, a fake age, or other lies that keep those they want to keep away.

Google can improve its own privacy policies with this. Photo editing is a very real thing and Google could doctor photos with information that isn’t true when it comes to the privacy of property and people their cars take pictures of. Google already has plenty of AI bots and staff that look for identifying information to blur or obscure. Changing a license place here or the color of a car there wouldn’t be too difficult. 

Grimmelmann keeps going back to the huge amount of photos that users post despite the privacy settings that these social media users employ. How a seemingly private photo can be seen by tens of thousands of users every single day. How people can seemingly hop on trends, like “ users were willing to add a green plastic frog as a friend.” Social media use isn’t as private as some would like it to be. Why should google be any different? 

Google shouldn’t change its ways of photographing and gathering information, as the article by Vaidhyanathan states that Google was more than willing to help hide and cover up embarrassing information. This is a step in the right direction for personal privacy. The customers themself loved the convenience and the usefulness of the street view function even if it did show their own homes. Showing that as long as they aren’t thinking about a program from a privacy standpoint they are in no way concerned about it. 

Consequentialism is the consequences of our own actions, a post a like, or a tweet. Even what you search online is tracked and logged in a database. No matter what you use no matter who you talk to someone, somewhere will know that about you and there is no escape from the data harvest. Do the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many? If the individual is important in some way that it would contribute more to society to keep their privacy secret than it would be to expose it then their needs could outweigh the needs of the many. Google shouldn’t be exposing important figures or revealing the details of military compounds or bases to the general public or even the world, that would put more people at risk than needed. The right thing to do is to obscure information that is published online always, change eye color hair color location name, and color of a building, or blackout or blur the interior of a building in street view. For the sake of privacy. 

Privacy is one of the most important things we have. We don’t need to compromise others in a major way to gain information, we should be private about our lives and do our best to keep the information we don’t want getting out restricted to ourselves and our trusted companions. We should watch what we post online and keep it simple and brief with not a lot of info to go on. We should change parts of our online presence to keep our actual identities from being public knowledge. Although the information gathered is very important in improving our lives. 

Our general, privacy is most important, and it all comes down to the users of the internet to keep their lives as private as they can. Their online presence is only as private as they make it. Google should continue gathering information, they should keep their street view project going and of course keep it updated, as long as they keep in mind the privacy and the safety of their users. Using technology to keep others safe and their lives secure is the most ethical thing to do.