Consumer electronics can do all sorts of wonderful things for us. My android phone for example lets me check email, manage my calendar, search the internet, and has a gps receiver so I can get directions for wherever I need to go. All of these great things require some pretty significant back end work on Google's part. They have to host servers to store and deliver my gmail and google calendar to me, they have to provide me with google maps over my phone's data connection on the fly for my gps navigation, and deliver me search results whenever I ask for them. Besides the initial cost of the phone, this is all free (I still have to pay my wireless provider for service of course). Exactly what does Google stand to gain from all of this work they are doing? One word- information.
Google has made its money from web advertising, and specifically, targeted ads based on what users search for, or in the case of gmail, what is written in their email messages. They are pushing really hard into the cell phone market with android phones because they realize the potential to make even more money from more users and more advertising. This isn't necessarily an evil thing, and we have all been using Google for searching for years, but there are some serious potential privacy issues possible here. Before continuing, I want to state that I am personally a HUGE Google fan and absolutely LOVE my android phone (and have no idea how I would get through my daily life without it). So when I am saying that I have privacy concerns about the android operating system, it is not just a thinly veiled attack on Google.
My concern with android is just how much information they have about me. It is one thing for google to keep track of your searches on a computer. Oh sure, they may find out over time that you really have a thing for woodcarving and classic American muscle cars, and deliver you appropriate ads. But let's consider for a moment the sort of data that is used as part of a smart phone. First of all, there are your searches, just like on a computer. Same for email, which if you use gmail, they also have access too. Oh and your calendar and contacts, aka, where you will be at various times of the day and the people you will see. But now you are going to get directions from the phone to get somewhere. That search for the location you want, stored on google's servers. The route they send back to you, ditto. And finally, your exact location courtesy of the gps reciever, is constantly sent to google throughout the experience, so they can update the maps they are sending back to you. If you want to use google's "voice" service, they will store your voicemails for you.
Those things I just described are just what google for sure is legally collecting now. In reality, if they wanted, they could also see your call and text message history, and listen in on google voice conversations or play back your voicemails. So in all, google (or someone else who could somehow get their hands on this information) could know who you've talked to, what you have said, where you are going to be at a particular time, and track you as you travel there. Here is google's android privacy policy, which sort of says that these things won't happen, but still, it is uncomfortable, at least to me, that so much of my information is sent to one place.
I described here just one example of privacy concerns about one particular gadget, but these questions are important to consider regardless of what product it is. Any time you have a device that is sending your data off across the internet, someone else out there has it, and while they may say that they will protect it appropriately, who is to say that this will actually happen. I will continue to use my android phone for the time being, because it really is a very convenient device, but I am always going to wary about my digital privacy.
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