SEOUL, KOREA ― There is a concern that there is a 21st century “Big Brother” (a big power monopolizing information) under which people’s online activities are monitored. This is because Google, the world’s largest internet business, has announced its plan of integrated management of users’ personal information.
Based on the Associated Press report on January 25, Google plans to integrate personal information policies of about 60 different services covering the Google website, Gmail, YouTube and Google Plus. The intention is to comprehensively collect information pertaining to users’ tastes and needs to provide custom services.
The ulterior motive of Google introducing this is for profit increase. The company’s advertisement income is 96% of total sales. While Google occupies a large market share as high as 80% in the search engine market, they have a new competitor in the market, Facebook, one of the most popular social networking sites on the internet. The company’s average income per click during the fourth quarter of 2011 decreased by 8%, compared with last year’s period, 2010.
“When Google’s new policies are implemented, advertisers can make advertisement plans based on users’ information collected by Google.” Jeffrey Chester, Executive Director of the US Center for Digital Democracy explained. “This will enable advertisers’ a one-stop shop of users’ personal information.”
Google has no plan to seek users’ agreement on this new policy, which is a deprivation of the minimum rights that permit users to allow or disallow the company to collect personal information. Al-Jazeera online said, “Google’s policy is just throwing away its management philosophy that users rank first and then comes advertising revenues.”
Experts are concerned that Google may rule the online era as a big brother. Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of ZDNet, told the ICT news, “Google will integrate and trace everything on your monitor.” The US Atlantic Monthly commented that Google should question about the nature of relations and to what extent we can allow the exposure of our personal information.”
A spokesperson from Google Korea said, “Google’s new policy aims to integrate information for better services. Once logged out, your search records won’t remain. So anyone can sufficiently control the collection of his personal information.”
