[Fwd: Google, libraries, and privacy]

[Karen Coyle]

I received this, and must say a "mea culpa" for having passed over this
obvious concern. The letter at:
   http://www.google-watch.org/appeal.html

explains more about the privacy concern.

At the same time, I am not familiar with this organization, so my
forwarding this mail is not a recommendation of it in any way. - kc

-----Forwarded Message-----
> From: namebase at earthlink.net
> To: kcoyle at kcoyle.net
> Subject: Google, libraries, and privacy
> Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 16:25:51 -0600
> 
> As you have no doubt heard by now, five major libraries have agreed
> to let Google digitize all or part of their collections. Google has
> made arrangements with the New York Public Library and the
> libraries of Harvard University, Stanford University, the
> University of Oxford and the University of Michigan. Stanford and
> Michigan will let Google digitize everything. New York and Harvard
> agreed to pilot projects. Oxford agreed only to books and documents
> prior to 1901.
> 
> To address copyright issues, Google will divide material into three
> categories: 1) public domain material that is displayed in its
> entirety without ads, 2) copyrighted material that shows only
> snippets and bibliographic information, and 3) copyrighted material
> where the publisher has agreed to allow a portion to be displayed
> by Google, along with sponsored links that return some money to the
> publisher.
> 
> Nowhere in the press have any librarians or academics expressed
> concerns about privacy issues. Google has the capacity, the
> history, and the intention of tracking the browsing habits of
> anyone and everyone who visits any of their sites. Since its
> inception, Google has used a cookie with a unique ID in it that
> expires in 2038. They record this ID, along with the IP address,
> the search terms, and a time/date stamp, for everyone who searches
> at Google. To make matters worse, Google never comments on their
> relations with officials in the dozens of countries where they
> operate.
> 
> Moreover, they can be very misleading about this tracking. When
> Gmail was launched last April, a Google vice-president initially
> claimed that there would be an information firewall between Gmail
> and Google's tracking on their main index search. Within three
> months, however, after the press interest receded, Google revised
> their main privacy policy to comply with a new California law.
> In it they confessed that a single cookie is used across all of
> their various services, and all information is shared between them.
> ( see http://www.google-watch.org/gcook.html )
> 
> I am asking the American Library Association to address the issue
> of privacy in cases where search engine digitization projects
> are proposed to libraries. Beth Givens from the Privacy Rights
> Clearinghouse, Pam Dixon from the World Privacy Forum, and Chris
> Hoofnagle from EPIC are helping me with this. Here is a letter
> I wrote to Mitch Freedman: http://www.google-watch.org/appeal.html
> 
> If you can help us get the word out on this issue, it would be
> much appreciated.
> 
> Thank you,
> Daniel Brandt
> PIR president
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Public Information Research, PO Box 680635, San Antonio TX 78268-0635
>    namebase at earthlink.net     Tel:210-509-3160    Fax:210-509-3161
>    www.google-watch.org   www.cia-on-campus.org   www.namebase.org
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 
-------------------------------------
Karen Coyle
Digital Library Specialist
http://www.kcoyle.net
Ph: 510-540-7596 Fax: 510-848-3913
--------------------------------------