It’s Silent, It’s Transparent, It Caresses

Imagine that the Israel Post decides on a rather weird revolution: From now on, sending mail will only be possible with transparent envelopes, so that your mailed items will be exposed.

And more than that: From now on, every mail item that you send or receive will be scanned by the devoted post office employees and kept by them on a USB stick. Finally, another small thing: Your block’s mailman, call him Newman for the sake of it, will also have a key to your home, where once in a while he can check up on your actions, whom you’re talking to and what television shows you’re watching.

Bad news? The Israel Post will soon calm you down: It’s all for you! We’re not really interested in any information about you. The change is for you and only you, so that we can learn how to improve the service we give you. And for this very same important purpose, our mailman will shortly begin to follow your actions on the streets and document them. Nothing personal — it’s strictly for the better service which we have made our motto.

Take It or Leave It

This story, unreal as it sounds, has become a reality for many of us in recent months. More than a few consider Facebook to be the enemy of web privacy, but a true examination of the details reveals that things are completely different. The substantial danger comes from Facebook’s oldest rival — Google.

Not long ago we were asked, as Google users, to approve a change in the company’s privacy policy. Most of us, of course, didn’t read through the essence of the change — and we were also not given an option to choose which details about us would be exposed, and which not. Google simply put in place draconian conditions for the use of its excellent products, and made the situation clear: Accept them, or leave us. The problem is, in a virtual world governed by more or less two giants, there is nowhere to leave to.

As part of accepting the new policy, Gmail users were asked to allow the search engine to practically scan their email items. For some of these users, Gmail is part of their livelihood and has served their email purposes for many years, so replacing it was virtually not an option (not to mention that most of them paid no attention at all to the policy change).

Additionally, Google uses varied systems and technologies to follow its users’ activities in every website and application that it spreads across the internet.

You’re on the Map

To all of this, add Google’s mobile phone system, Android, with its wondrous abilities, and you’ll get a very disturbing picture of the privacy leftovers many of us have in the virtual era (by the way, it is highly recommended for Android owners to carefully examine their location & security settings, as some would be surprised to find out that their location is publicly available to everyone on Google Maps).

And we haven’t yet talked about following our searches in the search engine, about saving every comment we write on Blogger’s blogs even after the blogs are off the air, about Google Analytics and Google Street View, which was launched in Israel this very month. Beyond this, you have authorized Google, with your very own keyboard, to monitor your Wi-Fi activity — passwords inclusive — provided that the network is unprotected.

Given all this, the outlook, shared by many, that connecting to Facebook is more dangerous to users’ privacy, is quite weird. Not that Mark Zuckerberg has any serious intentions in the field but, for now, control in the social sphere is mostly held by the user. Embarrassing mistakes occur on Facebook mostly because of lack of knowledge about the network’s privacy control settings, or users’ over-motivation to share their life happenings with other users.

Intrusive Strategy

For Google, invading our privacy is a first-degree strategic goal. In February this year, a Stanford graduate published research showing that the company uses every method possible for its aim. The research proved that Google had bypassed the Safari browser’s security mechanisms on iPhones and iPads, seeking to follow users’ activities. The company responded that it had been a “mistake.”*

Last summer, Google hired dozens of lobbyists to employ judicial and political methods to prevent damage to its policy. And this tendency, so it seems, continues to expand: During the first three months of this year, the company tripled its lobbying budget to $5 million.

I have met more than one serial Facebook resister, who absolutely refuses to be present on the social network. In their view, it is the essence of the illnesses of our time, a symbol of the invasion of our privacy. Even if we accept this statement, which I consider to be wrong, we cannot argue with the facts: A new language is developing before our very eyes — Facebookish. In order to learn it, we must enter it and become familiar with its customs.

By the way, this is particularly relevant for parents: The method of communicating now and for the generation born into Facebook will be the Facebook language. Anyone who does not know it will sooner or later find himself somewhat disconnected from members of the next generation.

And privacy? It is diminishing anyway in the virtual era. But while Google forces us to turn our privacy into its estate, Facebook is satisfied with relatively little, for the time being. We can only hope that, unlike Google, accelerating growth will not increase Zuckerberg’s appetite to take on the role of Big Brother.

*Translator’s note: It is unclear whether the author meant to use the quotes for irony or for quotation. If the latter is the case, it is more accurate to say that Google responded that it was “unanticipated.”