Google's Wi-Fi Privacy Ploy

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Google's Wi-Fi Privacy Ploy
by Jeff Chester
<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060410/chester>
The digital gold rush is on across America, as cities scramble to
develop free or low-cost Wi-Fi zones. These public on-ramps to the
Internet are designed to provide every citizen with a form of
always-on, high-speed Internet access--at the playground, in the
office or at home--at low or no cost.
Dozens of communities large and small, in red states and blue, are
either planning or currently constructing Wi-Fi systems. Community
leaders--from Philadelphia; Houston; Columbia, South Carolina; and
San Francisco, to name a few--recognize that creating a citywide
Wi- Fi zone is not only vital for economic development and public
safety but helps insure that Americans who can't now afford digital
communications on their own can also tap in to the riches and
convenience of the Internet. But there is no such thing as a free
digital lunch.
Consumers and public officials should have no illusions that what
is being touted as a public benefit is also designed to spur the
growth of a mobile marketing ecosystem, an emerging field of
electronic commerce that is expected to generate huge revenues for
Google, Microsoft, AT&T and many others. Soon, wherever we wander,
a ubiquitous online environment will follow us with ads and
information dovetailed to our interests and our geographic location.
Unless municipal leaders object, citizens and visitors will be
subjected to intensive data-mining of their web searches, e-mail
messages and other online activities are tracked, profiled and
targeted. The inevitable consequences are an erosion of online
privacy, potential new threats of surveillance by law enforcement
agencies and private parties, and the growing commercialization of
culture.

Mining Your Data

Not everyone is enthused by the Google/Earthlink model. San
Francisco was advised by a trio of privacy advocates to develop
policies that would respect personal privacy. In letters to the
city, the ACLU of Northern California, the Electronic Frontier
Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
urged the adoption of a "gold standard" for data privacy (pasted in
below from http://epic.org/privacy/internet/sfws22106.html),
insuring that its Wi-Fi system would "accommodate the individual's
right to communicate anonymously and pseudonymously." The groups
also suggested that the city require any Wi-Fi company to allow
users to "opt in" to any data-collection scheme. [Full disclosure:
I rent office space in Washington, DC, from EPIC].

Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital
Democracy (www.democraticmedia.org), a Washington, DC-based
nonprofit. His book on US media politics, Digital Destiny, will be
published in the fall by The New Press.

<http://epic.org/privacy/internet/sfws22106.html>
    EPIC logo
    Coalition Letter on San Francisco Municipal Broadband


    Nicole A. Ozer
    Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director
    ACLU of Northern California
    nozer@xxxxxxxxxx
    415-621-2493

    Kurt Opsahl
    Staff Attorney
    Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
    kurt@xxxxxxx
    415-436-9333

    Chris Hoofnagle
    Senior Counsel and Director, West Coast Office
    Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
    hoofnagle@xxxxxxxx
    415-981-6400

    [1] Letter from Nicole A. Ozer, Technology and Civil Liberties
Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California; Kurt Opsahl, Staff
Attorney, EFF; & Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Senior Counsel, EPIC West
Coast Office, to San Francisco TechConnect, Oct. 19, 2005,
available at http://epic.org/privacy/internet/sfws10.19.05.html and
attached as Appendix A.

    [2] Attached as Appendix B.  These guidelines were developed by
technical and legal experts for service providers that wish to
handle user data ethically.  They are available at http:// www.eff.org/osp/.

    [3] See Appendix B.

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