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This article and petition was written by Ken Evoy, President Sitesell.com.
Watch the video (made by a Google employee) to understand how little the average user of Google understands about the Internet. Most people believe that a browser is a search engine! SHARE THIS PETITION
Why is this important?
Google plans to railroad those same people into allowing Google to track and store all their activities across all of its services that they use, combining all that data into one massive "file" on you. We cannot stop them from trying to do this, but we can influence them to ask fairly.
Google understands the low level of sophistication of most users of the Internet. What chance do they have against Google's plans to railroad them into "accepting" this?None.
This policy starts on March 1, 2012, so this is URGENT. Once started, it cannot be reversed.
Up to now, people don't really understand how much information they are letting Google have on each service, separately. They should, but who actually reads those long, complicated agreements before they click "I agree"?
What is new? You will now be allowing Google to assemble all that information across virtually all of its services that you use. That includes tracking what you do and say on such services as...
- Google Search (all your searches and clicks are tracked)
- Google's Chrome browser (consider all that you do on their browser)
- Mobile phones (have an Android phone or other device?)
- Image Search (all your searches and clicks are tracked)
- News
- Google apps
- YouTube (all your searches and clicks are tracked)
- Docs
- Groups
- AdSense (how much you earn)
- Google+
- Gmail (yes, all the contents of your e-mail, too)
- and on and on and on.
Basically, Google's policy is that you can opt-out by not logging in, as explained here.
That is railroading. It takes advantage of "default behavior" and low user comprehension to slide one's surrender of privacy past us again.
Major media have covered this story...
Daily Mail UK ("Google will know more about you than your partner")
Washington Post ("Users can’t opt out")
Many Other Concerns
US Congressmen and the European Commission have concerns. Google has told them, essentially, that "you can't stop us."Maybe we can, all together.Here's the thing...
Legally, Google can try to do this. It does need some kind of agreement by you, since the change is not trivial. So they are making your continued use of their services amount to such an agreement...
"You can opt-out by not logging in."
As soon as you login and use one service, you agree to give all your information on all the services you use. As long as you fully understand that, it's your choice.
But Google's permission-getting approach amounts to pulling the wool over our eyes. They hope that we will just slide into this without giving it any thought.
Here is their announcement. It sounds benign. But their information is one-sidedly positive ("better products, better ads") and they don't mention the downsides. And they hope you don't read the fine print of the actual agreement.For example, they don't mention that (according to Simon Black of Sovereignman)...
"In the first half of 2011, the US government requested information on over 11,000 Google accounts. Google complied with a full 93% of those requests. Your account might have been one of them, and you would never know."
Under their new privacy policy, Google will be able to send to the government a combination of every search you've done, e-mail that you've made, text message that you've sent, how much money you've made from AdSense, what you watch on YouTube, and so on.Did you catch that hiccup in the fine print of their agreement? It's there. And there are others. Most people, though, won't get past their "sales copy" and click to read the actual agreement, despite its importance.
Yet stop and think about every service by Google that you use and all the information about you that you generate while using their services...
It's all available for the asking by government and it does not seem that Google fights hard for us, not with a 93% rate of surrender.
I have written to Google about this in a 7-part reply to one of Google's 3 attempts to defend their new Privacy Policy in their Public Policy Blog.
Since then, they censor my replies, so I have posted follow-up replies here.
Yes... Google, the company that fought SOPA due to its inherent censorship, is now suppressing dissent.
So I'm bringing this to change.org, where they cannot censor any of us.
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Here is the bottom line of this petition...
Google's services are not "free." You pay for them by giving Google everything you say and do while using their services. As long as Google is changing their privacy policy (combining your information from all services pulls everything about you together), let's be sure that everyone fully understands both the change and what they actually give to Google.
NOW is the chance to press "RESET" on privacy. Let's start all over...
Google owes every user of its services a fully informed opt-in opportunity (including potential downsides that are explained as clearly as the upsides)...
1) The first time a user logs into any Google service after this policy comes into effect, Google must offer this fairly worded opt-in to have all their information tracked.-and-
2) They must offer it at every Google service that each person uses, so people fully understand that all information across all services is being tracked and pulled together.
Google may make it clear, of course, that the user cannot have access to the particular service if s/he refuses, or even all of its services (which is what the new policy proposes). Those consequences are Google's own business choice.
But Google must ask while informing fully and fairly. As long as people understand exactly what they give up in order to get Google's free services, this is a free world.
Why won't Google ask fairly? Because many people, if they fully understood the upsides and the downsides, might decide not to use Google's services.
But fair is fair, right?
Please "sign" this petition. Doing so not only adds your support to this cause, it sends an e-mail to Google, Congressmen, and the European Commission.
Finally, please share this petition with all your friends (through Facebook, e-mail, chat, etc.), asking them to sign, too. The "social web" is a powerful way to make the voice of the average individual heard. By working together, we can influence the mighty to turn wrong into right....
Please implement a fair and fully informed opt-in process to get permission to track, store and combine all data generated by each user of your services.
SHARE THIS PETITION////////End of Article
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