Listen, I think Steve Ballmer is lower than a tick on a bloated dead deer rump, but he poses an interesting point about Google and their privacy policy. Sure, he didn’t do it out of a humanitarian need to protect the consumer – he did it to shiv a competitor who’s taken Microsoft to the woodshed. Nor do I believe that Microsoft doesn’t have other policies that are much more devious and anti-consumer than Google’s privacy policy. None of this is what I want to talk about.
What I do want to talk about is who’s looking at your data. We are really careless when it comes to our data. We use email to communicate information that we never would want to be publicized – yet sending email is nothing more than sending a postcard written in big bold letters that is passed through the hands of a half-million people before arriving at its destination.
Corporations spend significant amount of time and effort to protect data from competitors. It’s mind-boggling how many people in the business-world use services such as the Google applications to store or share their company’s private information. Who knows what business Google will be in tomorrow.
Have you read all the terms of service and privacy policies for all the services handling your data? What methods do the services you use provide for encrypting your information (if any)? Have you considered encrypting your instant messaging and e-mail traffic?
Information is power. As we cede more of our personal information (or business knowledge) to the corporate powers of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others, be mindful – be paranoid – of where that data may end up and how it may be used…