"Do No Evil" - The Google Lie

There is a fairly pervasive corruption scandal brewing around the Turks & Caicos and corrupt politicians. Google, whose mantra has been "Do No Evil" seems to have no problem with outing the whistle-blowers.

A resort developer has obtained a court order requiring Google Inc. to help uncover the identities of anonymous contributors to an online newspaper that posted articles linking him to government corruption in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

http://__._/wiki/Google_still_not_fighting_subpoena_for_journalists%27_data

August 28 subpoena, issued by the Superior Court, County of Santa Clara, as part of a "libel tourism" action taken by non-US property developers, demands detailed information about the operators of "[email protected]". The account is the main email address of the TCI Journal, the most influential journal covering the Turks & Caicos Islands. The Islands are a tourist mecca and tax haven in the Caribbean sea, and until August 14 were an independent British protectorate.

...

Google has elected to keep extensive, non-anoymized records on its users, but not defend these records from disclosure. This combination, together with inequitable access to justice in Californian courts, is toxic.

http://__._/wiki/Gmail_may_hand_over_IP_addresses_of_journalists


So.. if you use G-mail. Beware. Google will apparently sell you out at the drop of a hat.



Edit Add:

Off Site data backup, outsourced data Wharehousing, 3rd party email exchanges, even social networking sites and groups have spread like wildfire throughout the Internet. Companies tout their services by advertising that they will do the nuanced grunt-work of maintaining this infrastructure for you... all at a nominal fee. That eveything is safe.

Naysayers have stated that private data becomes available to anyone who really wants it. This is countermanded by promises that the data is secure.

Secure? Secure and invulnerable to a court order? Then the well worn argument of "if you are not involved in illegal activity" idea tends to pop up.

Well, how about if you are involved in exposing illegal activity... activity of people with deep pockets and a ready access law firm to sue and sling subpoenas... or even a government who is not happy that it has been exposed as a party to the wrong doing?

How secure is your data now?


[edit on 4-10-2009 by RoofMonkey]

reply to post by RoofMonkey



I stopped using google as a search engine when they sold out to the Chinese gov't. I don't use social network sites (other than ATS).

Interesting. I have always been of the opinion that using the internet to saveguard your company or personal data is a huge risk - even more so if your data is being stored by a company that is not even based in your own country.
Other countries privacy laws can trip one up rather badly.

Google can be used by TPTB for things like this because they record the activity of those using their site. Switch to startpage if you want to ensure something like this doesn't happen to you. It's just as good as google or yahoo, but neither your IP address, nor any other identifying information is collected, therefore a court order to reveal your activities would be absolutely useless.


TA