Beware: Google declares nothing’s private!

As a practicing attorney, I am all too mindful of the ease with which the public can access private information about anyone these days.  In fact, this was demonstrated with poignant irony a few years ago when a blogger trolled Goggle’s own archives to find out all kinds of private information about its CEO Eric Schmidt.

Frankly, this is why I was so stunned when Schmidt declared the following during an interview with CNBC’s “money honey”, Maria Bartiromo, last week:

Bartiromo:  People are treating Google like their most trusted friend, should they be?

Schmidt: If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines  … do retain that information for sometime … it’s possible that information could be made available to the authorities.

What this means is that you’d better pray you’re never prosecuted or sued for anything. Because not only Big Brother but even your civil adversary could compel Google to turn over all of the searches you made when you thought nobody was watching.  And just think how embarrassing or compromising it would be to have some of those search terms come under public scrutiny – no matter how innocent your explanation.

So if you’re planning to cheat on your spouse (or to do something even worse), don’t search Google for guidance; because you might as well be talking to your local gossipmonger, or to the police. And, if you think you can un-Google your most compromising searches, think again….

By the way, it’s not just Google.  You’d be shocked at the spying and eavesdropping your employer, your Internet Service Provider, your local supermarket and even your favorite (naughty) website engages in to keep track of your purchases, preferences and … peccadilloes.  And all of them blithely use that information for their own commercial purposes, but would rat you out just as blithely at the mere hint of prosecution or civil litigation.

Alas, this PSA comes too late for Tiger.

(Though, to be fair, it wasn’t Google or any other Big Brother entity that made his juvenile sexting fodder for public ridicule.  Instead, he can thank his growing gaggle of opportunistic mistresses for that….)

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