A CATALOGUE OF HUMAN INTENSIONS

In August, the world was shocked to learn that America Online (AOL), the fourth most popular internet search engine in the United States, had published online approximately 20 million web search queries made by 657,000 AOL users over a three-month period. The unauthorised move was an attempt to assist academic researchers. While the users were said to be anonymous, for their names had been replaced with numbers, it took a matter of days for a New York Times reporter to track down user No. 4417749 – Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow living in Lilburn, Georgia. When the reporter read part of the list of her searches for the past three months, she exclaimed (cue Grandma’s voice from the Tweety Pie cartoon), “My goodness, it’s my whole personal life. I had no idea somebody was looking over my shoulder.”

The combined databases of Google, AOL and other internet search providers contain the vast catalogue of human intensions. Ms Arnold’s search history revealed little more than an interest in medical ailments and pet dogs. But search histories of other AOL users revealed adultery, murder plots, pregnancy scares and fraud. People tend to tell a computer what they would never tell another human. So, in many ways, this kind of breach of privacy is worse than the betrayal of confidence by a close friend. It’s worth mentioning here that AOL’s market share of online search is miniscule compared with Google’s. You get the picture.

ALL ABOARD

Then came the news that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have been acting more like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie than a couple of Stanford computer geeks-made-good. Late last year, the two billionaires purchased a former Qantas 767 jet for use as a private “party plane”. However, a lawsuit filed by the Oklahoman aviation designer responsible for the jet’s retrofit led to revelations that the typically low-key Page and Brin had requested elaborate accoutrements, such as hammocks hung from the plane’s ceiling, and that he had witnessed a petulant spat between the two over who would have the larger bed size, which Google CEO Eric Schmidt mediated by saying, according to a Wall Street Journal report, “Sergey, you can have whatever bed you want in your room; Larry, you can have whatever kind of bed you want in your bedroom. Let’s move on.” Indeed.

I raise this point not because I begrudge Page and Brin their fortune, but because the sustained success of Google Inc., and the privacy of millions of users, is heavily dependent on their sober management of the extremely sensitive information stored within the Googleplex.