Google: A Map to Your World

Google Maps is slick and brimming with potential. Privacy and security? If Maps will bump the stock up, who cares?

By Scott Berinato

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I wonder how anyone feels being mapped, not quite randomly, to people who share only geography and some minor fact that makes Google's convoluted search algorithms think they're related.

Let's be clear: I'm not against this kind of application or the technology behind it. As a journalist, I certainly don't believe in blunt restrictions on information access. I'm not arguing to ban Google Maps or to sue Google every time a deranged man uses the application to figure out how to get to the office of his ex to do violence. I don't think Google is immediately liable if someone accesses Maps to rob a store or find the best place to leave an explosive package near a convention center without being detected.

However, I am arguing that maybe the company should have considered these eventualities before a billion people got access to the thing. In a way, what bothers me is how much potential the application hasenough to make mapping and location intelligence so easy that it creates new dangers.

So, why not have a discussion about the fact that these unprecedented levels of simplicity and ubiquity create new dangers (or, if you prefer, new opportunities for anyone motivated to do harm)? Why not stop before you throw it out there and consider that this might require new policies and, yes, perhaps require new restrictions on access (but hopefully as few as possible)?

Well, first because IT has always shirked ethics as a detriment to progress and innovation, sadly. But specifically in this case, because such a discussion might have slowed down Wall Street's darling, affected that white hot stock price.

So instead of social responsibility, we get callousness. The Maps product was launched as a beta product seemingly with zero forethought given to privacy, security or safety. On Google's blog, on its Maps demo page and on the Google Maps and Google Local pages themselves, there wasn't a single mention of, or link to, a privacy policy when I visited. There was no proper use statement. No disclaimer. No indication anywhere that an internal conversation happened, never mind a public policy discussion.

I asked Google about this. I imagined they would argue that all this information was available anyway. Mapquest has given us directions for a long time. Verizon and other phone companies offer white pages and yellow pages. All Google did was aggregate. Make it easy to get everything in one place, fast. Information doesn't hurt people. People who misuse information hurt people. Hey, Googleâ¬"s just the messenger.