Angie Ferrufino Blog Post #4

This week I chose to analyze Nathan Newman's "Why Google's spying on user data is worse than the NSA's". Newman attacks multiple aspects of google's "spying" from how they collect the information to what they use the illegally obtained information. Many hardcore patriots would oppose much of what Newman has to say, particularly in his support of Edward Snowden's release of confidential NSA files. But even those who are strongly patriotic might have a problem with private corporate companies invading the public's privacy for not greater reason but for personal gain. As argued by Newman, at least the collection of data done by government agencies have been for national security and been approved by courts and congressional committees. However, corporate companies such as google have received no approvals and in fact have been found to be conducting illegal collections of data multiple times.
            Newman reports that google has illegally collected private information ranging from photos to private conversations through their "wi-spy" program, which collects data through people's home wifi networks. Once confronted by the FCC, google was forced to agree to a 20 year consent in which they would have their privacy policies monitored. However, after only a year of having agreed to that consent, google was found by the FTC to have secretly placed cookies that would track users without their consent. Google was forced to pay a sum of $22.5 million dollars due to this violation. However hefty the fine was, the amount of profit that google is possibly making through the use of this data is much higher.
           This leads us into Newman's second point which is, how exactly is this data being used? Newman agues that the data collection is primarily being used for corporate gain and to financially impoverish individuals. He states that Google sells ads placements to companies that are known to either sell illegal products or loans that have been banned in multiple states due to there exploitative nature. Additionally, there is a discreet price discrimination practice that  Google conducts by taking into account the individual's location, search history and census information in order to determine what ads to supply you with. Google's lack of discretion in choosing what ads to allow has led to many individuals being targeted by fraudulent home loan companies. Even after Google was alerted of these companies, they still refused to remove the ads until the Treasury Department forced them to shut down 85% of the ads known to be scam. Even more so, in 2012 Google was fined $200 million for knowingly allowing fraudulent pharmaceutical companies to advertise on their site. As Newman states "This was not passive activity by Google, but active complicity with advertisers often selling fake prescription medicine to desperately ill individuals or marketing illegal steroids." Newman provides a strong argument towards the illegal practices conducted by corporate companies. While the NSA and other federal agencies have been accused of illegally obtaining data, at the very least they are doing so for national security and not for the sake of making a profit. Companies such as Google and Facebook have been violating privacy protection laws purely so that they can make additional profit. Federal agencies such as the FCC and FTC need to provide greater protection for individuals from these companies. Failing to do so has resulted in many people becoming victims to fraudulent activity to the point that many have lost their homes. If data collection by the government has been so greatly scrutinized in the past, then it is also important for the public to understand the dangers of data collections from corporate companies.