card information, telephone number, and purchasing and credit history of those who sign up for such features as Google Checkout, a service that enables customers to make online purchases. In its five-page Checkout privacy policy, Google said that it may also “obtain information about you from third parties to verify the information you provide.” Google said it “will not sell or rent your personal information to companies or individuals outside Google”—unless individuals give their “opt in consent.” But even if consumers choose not to opt in, Google still retains a wealth of personal information, which it is free to use to better target search or YouTube advertising. This data, mingled with its search data and the data gathered by DoubleClick, induces privacy anxiety. Companies like eBay and Amazon.com, among others, also retain credit card and other personal information, but there is a difference: Google uses this data to assist advertisers, and eBay and Amazon do not have advertisers to assist.
This is where the specter of Big Brother enters the discussion. “In 1984, Winston Smith knew where the telescreen was,” observed Lawrence Lessig. “In the Internet, you have no idea who is being watched by whom. In a world where everything is surveilled, how to protect privacy?”
Big Brother comes in different guises. Under the federal Patriot Act rushed to passage after 9/11, the executive branch can, without a warrant or users’ knowledge, gain access to what Americans e-mail, search, read, say on the telephone, watch on YouTube, network with on Facebook, or purchase online. There are tens of millions of surveillance cameras on our streets and in buildings. Candidates for public office can be harmed by damaging leaks to reporters of the most private information, as nearly happened to Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas when his in-store video rentals were leaked, suggesting he was partial to pornographic films. Advertisers can pay Google and other companies to access better targeting data. Telephone or cable companies can offer free services in exchange for a record of a consumer’s every click, encoding the knowledge of every song they listen to, product they buy, ad they like. In recent years, AOL (among other companies) was publicly embarrassed when it extracted and shared the names of some users from the Internet protocol address found on every browser on every computer.
Google may be viewed with suspicion by many media industries, but it enjoys a well-deserved reputation for earning the trust of users. In its 2007 annual ranking of the world’s most powerful brands, the Financial Times and the consulting firm Millward Brown awarded Google a number one rating. Still it is hard to imagine an issue that could imperil the trust Google has achieved as quickly as could privacy. One Google executive whispers, “Privacy is an atomic bomb. Our success is based on trust.” The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Randall Rothenberg employs a different image: “Privacy is one of those third rails with unknown amounts of electricity in it. People think about advertising and worry. That’s part of America’s don’t tread on me attitude.” Yet Rothenberg is unsure about the amount of electricity in the privacy issue because he is acutely aware that Americans hold contradictory attitudes toward privacy; they tend to distrust governments, businesses, or advertisers that can spy on them, yet “if they really cared enough about privacy they’d never have credit cards. They’d never subscribe to cable TV” They wouldn’t parade their most private thoughts on Facebook. So how does a company like Google locate and not step on the third rail?
To find that third rail requires a degree of sensitivity not always found in engineers. Yet Google has at times been sensitive. When, in 2006, the Justice Department subpoenaed a number of Internet companies to turn over all child pornography search queries, Google, opposing the request as a “fishing expedition,” took the U.S. government to court and won. (The judge ruled that Google had to turn over fifty thousand suspicious URLs, but none of its user’s names.) “Unfortunately,” said Schmidt, “our competitors”—including Time Warner, Yahoo, and Microsoft—“did not hold the same position, and complied.” He is outspokenly critical of the Patriot Act, which he believes violates privacy and grants the president too much power. Schmidt implicitly agrees that privacy is a do-not-step-on third rail: “If we violate the privacy of our users, then we’ll be hosed.”
Trust is essential to Google, as it is to much of modern commerce. If we didn’t trust waiters or Amazon, we couldn’t use credit cards. If banks didn’t trust