The Diane Rehm Show

Thank you for addressing the issue of online privacy. I'm wasting a great deal of time trying to protect my privacy and would like to see effective legislation to make it easier for me to ensure that my data is MY DATA and not being harvested without my permission for purposes that are not readily evident to me. Could your guests comment on the Carrier IQ issue?

Remember if you aren't paying for the service YOU are the commodity.

RE: story on Google invading privacy of Safari/iOs/iPhone users...

Although not responsible corporate behavior, I think that it is important to note 3 items regarding this incident: i) there were only 4 firms involved in this behavior (Google, Vibrant Media Inc., Media Innovation Group LLC, and PointRoll Inc.), ii) most responsible online publishers and advertising technologies did NOT engage in this behavior (because, as noted on the show, advertising does provide for a lot of free/near-free internet content/services and don't want to kill the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg), and iii) the information that was transmitted was non-PII (personally identifiable information) so even though users browsing habits were tracked, none of their private data was revealed/exposed.

So, problematic, but not a disaster...nevertheless "caveat emptor" to web users and thanks to people like Jonathan Mayer.

Very nice show!

The usual answer to someone trying to limit speech (sharing info in this case) is more speech. Is one possible solution simply making bots who surf an enormous amount of random material so the real material is simply swamped out?

If Any company has a recored of you searching for a million different things, most of which are random, isn't your info hidden by obscurity then?

Why is Google the bad guy? ISPs have every packet of data I send and even redirect bad DNS lookups to ad pages. Why aren't they being targeted?

Why should ONLY children be entitled to online privacy? We should ALL have the right to have our personal information protected. We are not commoddoties. Bad people use this loophole to get info on their victims (stalkers), and even people who never even use the internet are subject to having their personal info contained in these online bdatabases because everyone from your bank to your county clerk of records sells it! This is wrong and violates us personally.

Sorry, but you folks have got it BACKWARDS.

Under Google, Facebook, and the others, we are PRODUCTS being delivered to advertisers and corporations. That's how they make the money and that's how it has to be talked about - advertisers pay to keep the systems online and Google, Facebook, and the others deliver the goods. It's that simple.

Forget about the user experience and your hand-wringing abut privacy. "Educating the consumer" is just another part of that smokescreen. This problem - for you, not for them - will not be solved until you address it from the business-process end of things. Nothing will change until you (finally!) start a meaningful dialogue about the value of any one individual's personal information.

A space alien landing on earth and looking at the social media giants would first see simple and profitable system of gathering user information and selling it to advertisers for product placement and links. And the aliens would highly admire the cleverness of the system (and marvel at the inaction of our elected officials). Jack

We need a system for privacy policies similar to the system for homeowners insurance policies. All HO-3 or HO-5 policies have the same standard set of features. To understand and compare policies you just have to understand the standard feature set.

If you did this with privacy policies a consumer could opt in at a particular policy level, or could opt out of a service that only offered a too-open privacy policy.

Sites could even charge consumers based on their privacy policy choice. If you chose a restrictive policy that precludes advertising revenue, then you the site might choose to charge you for the service.

the guest stated that you do not need to be logged in to Apple to install apps when, in fact, you absolutely need to be logged in on an iPhone to install apps. You also have tracking going on in the iPhone as was witnessed when we discovered that all of our location data was being stored and possibly collected on iPhones. Consider that the phone is actually just a consumption device and they ALL want the data to market to you - feed the consumption!

This situation falls into the same category of 'don't ask don't tell' of sex education in school. Parents who have the skill, and the time to be available to their children can educate them as appropriate in timely manner. But, the computer and phone are like being in a strange territory with no friends and family to tell you where the speed bumps are, where the speed traps are, and who are the vendors of spoiled milk. Who are the 'bad priests.' Now, the Google people are asking us to 'trust the priest'? If you don't have the time to accompany your children everywhere, you can't take advantage of all the 'entertainment and social opportunities' offered by the Church. This is a private religion, this being a knowledge collector, information, 'benevolent' lurkers on street corners.

In general, consumers have no idea what information is being collected about them and consequently what is done with it. It is difficult to get any action from the general public when starting from a foggy idea of privacy. We all profess to dislike "invasion of privacy" but what does that really mean? Perhaps a better way to start is to require any companies who collect data, to provide to individuals who ask, the complete dataset of what has been collected so far, in a form understandable to the individual. I imagine the fight against data collection would be easier to fight.

The show missed an important point. Supposedly the government requires a warrant to acquire some of this information or to turn your phone into a listening device. At what point do we worry about the connection between law enforcement and the cell phone companies?

I find is laughable to hear how the speakers are all contorting their words to try to make this sound bad. Can Google share information between parts of the company today? Yes, it just takes more effort without the new policies. They are one company, and no privacy law out there says that a single company needs to hide information from themselves. Name one other company that makes it's revenue from advertising that doesn't already allow information sharing between the different entities within that company?

Are you afraid that Google may intermix confidential work information with your personal youtube surfing habits? Then stop sending confidential work data to a free account that makes its money from mining your email messages.

Are you afraid that Google will not be able to show you more relevant ads? Really? You'd prefer a bunch of generic Viagra ads rather than something relevant to you appearing on the side of the screen?

As others have said, when you get the service for free, you are the product, not the customer. The customer is the advertisers. Customer service is making sure the advertisers are happy.

And for the record, Android phones are one of the few that you can use without being locked into the vendor. You can install apps without using the Android Market place. You can setup your phone without assigning it to a GMail account. It would be nice if the speakers could make their point without spreading false rumors.

As one who's studied Google and market for last three years:

1. Original contract of 'free' on the internet was, you get features, we get data. Nothing there has changed - except awareness.


2. Android vs. iPhone 'personalization' issues are the same. Can't get apps from anyone other than the landlord.


3. Google's direction of advertising towards its users on other sites is through the cooperation of those other sites. Don't hate google for selling targeted marketing elsewhere. Or, consider that 'likes' on sites courtesy Facebook is same model.


4. Regulation of internet (and ALL software) applications by government is not the answer to questions about what companies do or don't do when compared to their TOS, although there should be discussion about how binding such TOS terms are and what remedies can be applied when a TOS is broken. Otherwise, it's just political activity and should be avoided.

This last issue is one I never expect to see settled. Or if it is, the output will be used as clout for the highest-spending PAC, and not for the people using the system.

I am disappointed that opinion trumped historical fact in several comments by your guests today. Nevertheless Ms. Rehm, please accept my thanks for bringing the subject up and I hope you continue to ask the tough questions!