It should be just as illegal for Google to download private data as it is for the US government to seize data without a warrant.
Why do laws that could never foresee the technology that houses my private data protect my privacy? If my two-year-old iPhone is already a dinosaur, why are we relying on twenty-five-year-old laws to regulate the Internet? Internet law is regulated by a privacy law that dates back to 1986.1 The evolutions of the information age and technological revolution have outdated laws at a more rapid rate than the previous eighty years.
It is true laws are written to stand the test of time, but we are asking governments to legislate laws to regulate technology that did not exist or affect most of the population when the laws were originally written. Back in 1995, 0 .4% or roughly 16 million users were using the Internet. Today almost 40 percent of the population or 2.7 billion users access the Internet. The laws that regulate the Internet were written in 1986, nine years before commercial ISPs connected a broader user base and created the modern Internet.2
Right now, privacy is a hot button target. Large companies like Facebook and Google would have us believe that their primary objective is to protect our privacy. This is nothing more than a public relations smokescreen. These companies currently take advantage of the very laws that they seek to update.
For instance, in March of 2013, Google’s legal director of law enforcement and Internet security, Richard Salgado, lobbied lawmakers to update the 1986 laws to reflect today’s views on privacy. This stance would lead the public to believe that Google is a defender of their rights. This stance is in direct contrast to Google’s actions between 2007 and 2010.3
Google’s shutterbug cars were used in the towards the end of the 2000-2010 decade to capture street view images for Google Maps. These very cars were also used to capture Internet data from unprotected wireless networks in over 30 countries. Google was spying on us and in the process they compromised emails, usernames, passwords, private videos, and documents.3 You can read more about this issue here.
Google’s actions raise several ethical questions about their policies. To whom does Google have the greatest responsibility to protect privacy? What responsibility does Google have to follow its own code of ethics? Where does our privacy end and the public domain begin? When should Google start to follow its policy? Why is the government waiting to update these Internet laws? How can the public trust Google with their data when Google contradicts its very own policy?
Google is a private company that houses private information with little regulation from the government. Don’t they own the information they house on their servers? Google’s business is unprecedented in the history of the world, let alone the United States. The information they read and house has never been readily available in the history of the world. It is not encased in an envelope like mail. Google might dispute that this information is easy to read and share it with whom they choose. Why should they be regulated when they help build the technology and infrastructure that houses the information? If I willingly correspond using their service shouldn’t I be held accountable for making my information readily available to Google?
Google might have my data, but that doesn’t mean that the data is their property. When I deposit mail into my mailbox, the government cannot search its contents without a warrant. You may argue that the United States Postal Service is a federal entity and held to a different standard than a private company such as Google. Did you know that UPS and Federal Express mail was bound by the same regulation as USPS?4 The government has no right to open mail delivered by either of those two private services any more than it has to its own US mail.
Correspondence such as the federal postal service has been a US institution since 1775. The laws that regulate our postal service should also regulate our email correspondence. Although the Fourth Amendment is an old law, it is also part of the foundation of our country. It was also created to protect the citizens from a government that would abuse power.
Why is it illegal for any person other than myself to open mail addressed to me, but companies such as Google can release email content to the US government with as little as a subpoena. Google currently polices itself which is commendable, but why are they held to a lower standard than the postal service? Federal Express and UPS are private entities that deliver mail, but the mail they deliver is still protected by the same laws as the USPS. Email is just the next step in the evolution of private correspondence and should be regulated by the same laws. When Google read unencrypted data from its cars, it not only should have been in violation of this unregulated law, it was also in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Very simply put, the Fourth Amendment protects US Citizens from illegal search and seizure. This was written to protect an individual’s privacy and physical locations. (Think about that the next time Apple reads your geo-targeted data) Google is guilty of violating this very basic US right.
Legal issues aside, Google is not acting ethically if we only look at the very logic that it contradicts itself. Google cannot ethically argue both sides of the coin. There is hypocrisy with how laws are being interpreted to govern e-mail. Until the laws are rewritten to specifically govern the information age, our government should honor the Fourth Amendment. Google should learn from its own testimony that it acted in an unethical manner.
1 Miguel Helft and Claire Cain Miller, 1986 Privacy Law Is Outrun by the Web, (January 2011).
2 Internet World Stats, Internet Growth Statistics, http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm (March 2013).
3 John Kruzel, Google Wi-Fi Snooping Case Shows Company’s Contradictory Views On Privacy, http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/11/google_wi_fi_snooping_case_shows_company_s_contradictory_views_on_privacy.html(September 2013).
4 Law Offices Of Youngs & Associates, Mail Fraud, http://www.criminal-lawyers-miami.com/lawyer-attorney-1570582.html (Date Unknown).