Google on Privacy and Personal Information

The All Things Digital D9 conference is a place where the best and the brightest of the tech industry wrestle (metaphorically) with the sharpest interviewers that tech journalism has to offer.

Among the more interesting interviews this year was the discussion with Eric Schmidt that launched 2011s D9. Shcmidt, Google's Executive Chair, covered a great number of topics, but one area of special interest is Google's stance on privacy, data control, and sharing personal information.

Schmidt stated that Google is committed to allowing anonymous searches for anyone who isn't logged into their Google account. Further, Google's privacy dashboard gives users access to a summary of stored data and an option to delete it. "We tell people what we know," said Schmidt. "And we give them the choice of getting it deleted." When it comes to privacy in the Android market, however, the concerns change. Since third party groups are accessing personal data, Google can do little beyond informing users of what data is being shared. Google has no intent to do more, however, since they prefer avoiding curation and increasing a "free market" model of app competition.

Despite Schmidt's upbeat and reassuring comments about privacy, certain concerns do remain. It's known that Google tracks at least some basic information for anonymous users, including the IP address " which tags the identity of your computer and your region of origin. This information can (although it isn't often) forfeited to government authorities based on a court order.

There's been enough controversy about Google's privacy policy that entire search engines have established themselves on the ground of being more private than Google. Case in point: Duck Duck Go, whose slogan of "Google tracks you. We don't," has worked as the core of the upstart search site's advertising efforts.

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