Google’s new Chrome browser hasn’t been available for a week yet and already, privacy advocates are sounding alarms. Over the weekend, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security warned against using the browser, which it fears collects and centralizes a bit too much user data with Google (GOOG). “It was said to be risky that user data is hoarded with a single vendor,” the Berliner Zeitung reported. “With its search engine, email program and the new browser, Google now covers all important areas on the Internet.”
If a stranger walks up to me on the street, I’d never give my personal information to him. But people are more than happy to part with their privacy if they feel they are getting something good for it. It’s a business principle of reciprocity that’s been around for years. Of course, the potential misuse of information is the bit you tend to forget during “the deal.”
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Google’s new Chrome browser hasn’t been available for a week yet and already, privacy advocates are sounding alarms. Over the weekend, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security warned against using the browser, which it fears collects and centralizes a bit too much user data with Google (GOOG). “It was said to be risky that user data is hoarded with a single vendor,” the Berliner Zeitung reported. “With its search engine, email program and the new browser, Google now covers all important areas on the Internet.”
Comments
If a stranger walks up to me on the street, I’d never give my personal information to him. But people are more than happy to part with their privacy if they feel they are getting something good for it. It’s a business principle of reciprocity that’s been around for years. Of course, the potential misuse of information is the bit you tend to forget during “the deal.”
Posted by Ken Okel at September 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm