Engineering Google Privacy

8 Feb 2010 by Graham Lyons - News data privacy, google No Comments

Online data privacy is something that all internet users should be aware of, yet for its potentially massive impact on society it’s not something that the mainstream media seems to focus on. In a similar vein you could probably also argue that the data implications of, say, store loyalty cards are also not often highlighted.

Google logo (Image Courtesy of Google)

Google has been discussing data privacy though. Its Google Brussels TechTalk featured a talk from Dr Alma Whitten, Google’s ‘engineering lead for privacy’. She discussed how they use search information to “learn from the good guys, fight the bad guys, and invent the future.”

It seems that long held data is one key to improving search effectiveness and efficiency. If someone needs to click to the next page of a list of search results then the suggestion is that search wasn’t efficient enough. By keeping this data Google can continually evolve and refine how they search, indeed every person using Google Search today stands on the shoulders of the innovation founded from analysing past search data.

All this has to be balanced with data privacy though, and how Google deals with this is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects. Google needs to walk that fine line between allowing advancement while reassuring users that they aren’t living in a ‘big brother’ styled online world.

Dr Whitten’s presentation can be seen here: