Google vs. Bin Laden?
How’s this for a headline? “Entrust my medical records to Google? I’d rather give them to Bin Laden.”
That was the headline accompanying a column in Tuesday’s London Daily Mail. Columnist Stephen Glover (no, not Steve-O of “Jackass” and “Dancing With The Stars” fame/infamy–and I only know his real name because his sister is an old friend of mine) is scared to death by the prospect of a company like Google storing medical records.
“People who deposited their medical records with Google would no doubt be given assurances that they would not be passed on to third parties. But Google would not go to the trouble and expense of storing such information unless it hoped to benefit from it in some way,” Glover writes.
“Here is a company which, through a variety of means, is building up a profile of each of us – or at any rate those of us who use computers. I understand, of course, that it has no over-arching intention of ordering or controlling our lives, and that the information it holds about us is used for its own commercial gain. But it would be absolutely the last company in the world to which I would entrust my medical records. I would far rather stick them in an envelope and send them to Osama Bin Laden or Vladimir Putin,” he continues.
Wow, I know I’ve been harsh on Google in the past, but never like that.
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Mr Glover has a point. Google isn't offering to store your records to be nice, they have a business motive behind it.I guess people differ, but I wouldn't trust the same company (which is not based in the same jurisdiction as myself, i.e. the amount of control I can impose is limited) with potentially my personal email, health record, transcripts of what I search for on the internet, a lot of my documents, the maps I look up, etc.The important difference between Osama Bin Laden and Google is that one of them does not have a proven track record of being good at datamining, the other does.I'd rather give my records to the one that does*.*) Of course I see the humorous point here, as the comparison between Bin Laden and Google is absurd on many levels, but still.
Shortly, Google will know everything about everyone. Still, at least they seem to be better at keeping their data secure than our governments! Here in the UK we get our security people leaving their laptops on trains!