Nuon Chheang Eng

TFBS, MA scholarship student

Introduction

The big corporations are such big that they sometime could compare with the government.
But in fact, they are much bigger than our perception and they control everything where a government
has little to do or sometimes, they are unable to do anything. We can see the contribution or influence
is such that some countries even imposed a restriction or regulated operations in their respective
country. But are we truly control them, or they do control us. Yes, the answer would be very complex
and need to be addressed very carefully. In the case, we could have seen that Google has footstep in
every corner of our lives and these platforms are so vital in our life that without having it we simply
cannot think of our daily life. It has given Google an enormous power to dictate what we will need to
say or what we will go to see or do. Everything has been controlled by the Google algorithm and it's
getting more controlled day by day. As a big company, Google always tries to follow its ethical
standards and complying vital rules and regulation where it operates. It has uncompromised data
security or stricter privacy policy. Google claims that their data never shared with any other third
parties without the consent of their client. Google also claims that all products and services adhere to
stricter policy on the privacy issue. They never breach the privacy of the customer and they are good
governing organization.

Despite Google claim to be clean and transparent, they have faced the backlash from different
governments worldwide. Especially, the European Union imposed a heavy penalty on Google for its
antitrust law violation. They have accused of manipulation their search engine data. Like when
someone searches something on the Google search engine, product, or services related to Google
always displaying at the beginning. Beside Google always keeps tracking users search data for a
period of eighteen months or more but it is at all untraceable. Storing this data will enable Google to
understand customer mindset, and their preferences more accurately which Google deny. Tracking is
another thing Google does continuously. Google collects information from Android phones location
tracker along with internet history. Google claimed they collected tracking information for better
coordinates and a network improvement but is there any way we could check their intention or what
they will do that data they are collecting without the consent of the users. There is no way to check
back Google’s intentions and their usage. We have seen most of the users are now concern about their
privacy and in the case of Google, it is topped to 52% which is alarming. The government should also
initiate regulation to control and monitor data has been used by the company like Google.

The Google success story is paralleled to its controversy. But from a small search engine, they
turned themselves into a giant one. It is one of the most profitable company along with the best
employer by the reputed organization. Great power comes with greater responsibility and it is very
applicable to Google. They must adhere to a policy which will protect user policy and should not be
sacrificed to any third parties. Freedom of speech and data accuracy must be maintained everywhere
even though where we can see the huge business opportunity like China. Though Google has no
presence in China it should always fight for the freedom of speech and human rights from their ethical
perspective. Google must introduce more privacy tools into their services where a user would have
to say whether they want to share their privacy or location with others or not. They must adhere to
ethical policy towards their customer and consider its very serious issue. Google should find a fine
line to use its user data and generate revenue but keeping in mind that they should not violate anyone’s
privacy rather protect it as a good citizen.
 Answer the Questions

1. Has Google implemented a strategy that serves all stakeholders?

There are many opportunities that are provided by internet and mobile technology to the number
of different stakeholders. The number of free superior quality services offered by Google comes at
the cost that people have to sacrifice significant portions of their privacy. Google track online
activities of people and sell this data base of information to the advertisers so that they can target
tailor made advertisements for the customers and the company can target its products and services in
a better way. Google which offers so much free services or content to the customers and most of the
revenue generated by the company is through advertising, this tracking of customers is required for
its very survival. The privacy policy of the company details the information that it collects and shares
with advertisers. For instance, Google claims that the information which the company shares with the
partners are made anonymous and cannot be tracked to individual users. The policy says that none of
the identifiable components are shared with the outside partiers without explicit permission from the
users. The company also serves its partners and advertisers well. In this regards the company follows
a win-win business model with its advertisers or partners. Google shares information about users with
the advertisers so that they can put their targeted advertisements in return of a share of the profit made
by the advertiser. The company however has a strained and unpredictable relationship with customers,
government and the regulatory authorities. In regards to the government, Google has partnered with
several governments in launching digital programs across the world and on the other hand it has been
heavily penalized from time to time by various government for infringing the privacy of people.

2. How can Google respect privacy and still maintain its profitability?

Google has to depend on advertisement revenue so as to sustain its business model in a scenario
where in the company does not charge the consumers a dime for some of the services offered by the
company in the form of Gmail and Google search. In order to earn advertisement revenue, it has to
reveal to the advertisers a whole lot of data about the taste and preferences of the customers. This
means that Google has to lay its access on some of the user data and share the same with the
advertisers. Google uses the information related to its users so as to better design and ensure
effectiveness of the services provided by the company. The tracking of user related information helps
the company to better customise the result of its search operations, target the ads in a better way and
also to integrate the different services that are offered by the company. The information about the
users is used by the company without having explicit permissions from the users whose information
are used by the company. The privacy statement of the company informs the users that their
information is being tracked by the company but the customers are not allowed to opt out of this
tracking. In fact, Google has almost all the data about the affiliations, likes, identities and feelings of
any person and data analysts use these whole range of data regarding the users in innovative manners
so as to target the advertisements better and in a way that is more and more sophisticated. There are
now two distinctive ways in which Google can restructure its business so as to not interfere into the
privacy of people and still maintain the profitability of its operations. In one of the alternatives,
Google can delete all data regarding the users which can be used to relate the data back to a specific
customer. In other words, the company can make the data that is collected by it anonymous.
According to the company, it is seen that the company store information about the user such that it
can be traced back to a particular user for a period of 18 months before the data is made anonymous
by the company. However, it has been through anonymous data collected from other search engines
that the data can still be traced back to particular user. The second alternative for the company is to
change the business model of the company. That is to say that in lieu of stooping to track the activities
of the users and selling the same to advertisers for generating revenue, the company can charge the
customers a nominal amount and instead stop the practice of tracking user information.
3. How will increasing global regulation of privacy affect Google’s operations?

Earlier there were inadequate regulations regarding privacy. However, in recent years
regulations regarding privacy have been strengthened and this has resulted in the fact that several
charges have been brought against Google which has caused the company to pay significant number
of charges. For instance, after it was revealed that the company was using loopholes in the Apple’s
safari browser to override the default setting and install its tracking software in these devices so as to
track the data of the users and their online activities, simultaneous investigations charged brought by
the Federal Trade commission led the company pay $22.5 million so as to settle the charges and an
another $17 million so as to settle the charged brought by 37 states and the district of Colombia.
Similarly, it was revealed in another investigation that the company deliberately violated the privacy
of users through vans that were built with specialised equipment’s so as to take photos for providing
better location-based services were also used to track online activities of people by tracking through
unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Subsequently, the company had to pay a fine of $ 7 million to Federal
Communication commission along with the District of Colombia and 38 other states. In another
service offered by Google named as Google Buzz, the privacy policy of the company was violated
and this led to the fact that the company reached a settlement with Federal Trade Commission in
which it was agreed upon by the company to launch an audit for 20 years by third parties regarding
answering the question of whether the company violated its own privacy policy. It was agreed by the
company to pay $16,000 for each violation per day.

After the company launched a single privacy and did away with 70 different privacy policies,
the EU countries felt that the new policy violated with the privacy and transparency laws. In this
regards, 6 different countries came together in 2013 for violations of privacy laws of their government
and the company not paying heed to their requests. The company was fined $204,000 by France
Government, $1 million by Spanish Government and was threatened with affine amount of $15
million if it did not comply with the requests of Netherlands government. This has resulted in the
revelation for Google that the activities legal in one country might be illegal in another country. The
privacy concerns raised by individuals have led the Government to propose legislations which spell
out the data that the company like Google can collect and those that it cannot collect. In order to ward
off federal legislations in this regards the companies like Google are trying to incorporate a do not
track feature on their browsers so that the people have the option to deactivate tracking by a simple
click on this feature. In this regards it is also seen that many states who are dissatisfied with lack of
federal actions in these regards have passed their own privacy policies.