Can I have some privacy please? Seriously!

Like many grown ups, I take my privacy seriously. However, that doesn't seem to be the sentiment amongst many who are of my age group. The convenience that the social websites and free cloud based services offer over-shadows major underlying issues of personal privacy and ownership. Web based services are offering an array of free utilities, like search engines, email, collaboration tools, social content, etc., in exchange for our permission to expose us with advertisements that generate those service providers revenue. Advertisements are not a bad thing. I am not at all opposed to them. They are what enable the service providers to offer their services for free. Many will argue that it is a fair bargain. However, recently, it has become more and more evident that service provides are beginning to step out of their bounds. Google more so than the others.

Google benefits from the advertisement revenue. The amount of revenue Google can generate from advertisements is directly related to one factor: number of users. Considering that only a certain percentage of the population reacts to advertisements, there are two ways by which Google can make more money: expanding their existing user base which leads to revenue increasing by similar ratio as users; and offering targeted advertisements to its existing users, where each user now becomes more likely to interact with the ad, which means more revenue with the same user base. Google already has the biggest market share with its search engine and advertisement revenue. There is not too much room for expanding user base. Targeted advertising gets to be the winner.

I also have nothing against the concept of targeting advertisements. I'd rather share my content space with advertisements of products and services that I am interested in than those that I am not. It is how Google does it what bothers me. Every time you search using their search engine, every email correspondence you involve in, every direction you look up on Maps, every document you work on on Docs, probably even every private chat conversion you participate in on gTalk, and every phone conversation through Google Voice gets mined for information that is used to decide what advertisements are to be targeted towards you. Add Chrome Browser, and Android phones to the list too.

Its a matter of personal privacy. I do not want anyone to go through my non-public content without my permissions. By non-public content I mean my emails, interpersonal communications in any other forms, search and direction queries, notes, digital media that are not explicitly marked for public viewing, etc. I own the digital content that I generate. I have the freedom to decide how I wish to share it, whether with a selected few (like emails), or with everybody (like this blog), or with nobody (like my backups). It is a shame that there some service providers out there who are not willing to acknowledge that. Who knows who all Google has provided access to that data. It could be marketing agencies, and even government agencies.

I'd be happy to provide one hundred product categories and brands that I'd like to receive advertisements from. Ask me about the information you need from me rather than going through my closet. Its no worse than eves-dropping. That's what it is, digital/electronic eves-dropping. I'll just have to take my business elsewhere.

By the way, Google, you "do" have my permission to use the information from this post to suggest products and services to me.

First blog post from laptop

I know what you might say, but this is different.

I am using a hard client this time, instead of a web browser.

So, lets see if this work!!!

Google and Privacy....

Few days ago, Mr. CEOofGoogle, Eric Schmidt told CNBC, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
I like, "everyone else," take issue with that statement. But that is not what compelled me to write this post. Some comments on the news website in response to the post can be paraphrased as "its the sad truth and you can not expect privacy when you put your data on the Internet as it becomes public domain."
Well, privacy, like freedom, is a basic human right. Internet by nature does not make your data public domain. Its the scarce availability of privacy ensuring services that do it. Just because you park your car on the street, which by the way, is not a part of your property, does not make it any less yours. So when it is stolen at night, you don't say, "oh! well. It was parked on the street. It was going to happen one day or another." That is not how it works. Your data, like your car, is your property. Unless you park it close enough to a sign that says, "No Parking. Will be towed," you don't worry about your immediate rights and ownership of the car.
Many of us, until the moment Mr. Schmidt made that comment, looked up to Google for innovations that would do good to humanity. Google is a publicly traded organization that has to answer to its stakeholders. Its probably no longer profitable for Google to work for the greater interest of humanity, I suppose.
Yet, that doesn't change the fact the privacy is a basic human right.
We can not just accept what is not ought to be. If Indians (I am an India) had said, "well, we ought to be free, but what can we do? we are not," we would still be an oppressed British Colony.

"Life is Beautiful Virus" a Hoax

Many of you may have concerned friends one of whom might have received and forwarded the email to your friends, about "Life is beautiful" virus inside a Powerpoint file attached to an email.
I have one such concerned friend.
The email goes on about the threat, and about how a powerpoint attachment from an email, with subject "Life is beautiful" can damage your computer.
However, no matter how convening the email appears to be, with bigshots like AOL and Microsoft listed, its only a hoax and not a real threat. As far as I can tell, it does not even exist.
Firstly, even if it were real where is any link pointing to a news article or microsoft's or aol's website warning about it?
I found this article, Hoax alert, rather, from Trend Micro Antivirus Website which confirms that "Life is beautiful" virus is hoax and not real.
Here: http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hoaxes/hoaxDetails.asp?HName=Life+is+Beautiful+Hoax+(English)

Be cautious, however, make sure all the relevant facts have been tallied against.
Take care
Karim Lalani