Google and Privacy
Professor Edward Felten accurately recognizes that privacy is Google's Achilles Heel. He writes, "Privacy is for Google what security is for Microsoft. At some point Microsoft realized that a chain of security disasters was one of the few things that could knock the company off its perch. And so Bill Gates famously declared security to be job one, thousands of developers were retrained, and Microsoft tried to change its culture to take security more seriously. It’s high time for Google to figure out that it is one or two privacy disasters away from becoming just another Internet company. The time is now for Google to become a privacy leader. Fixing the privacy issues in its video DRM would be a small step toward that goal."
There's some evidence that Google is aware of the tenuous nature of user trust, such as its decision to fight the Department of Justice's subpoena of its data. But by entering the entertainment business through Google Video, the company must now serve two masters: content owners and content consumers. That's a recipe for trouble. Balancing the often conflicting interests between these two camps will test Google as never before.
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