Privacy – the big concern

Recently the Google CEO Eric Schmidt made a statement

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

In a reaction to this the long friend of Google, Mozilla’s executive asked Firefox users to ditch Google search and use Bing. That could have been due to the growing instability in the Mozilla-Google relationship that generated after the release of chrome browser, but these statements make us think of a larger question. Is the web becoming less and less private? Should the companies like Google be giving their data to outside parties? As for me I don’t have a problem if the data given is used for ensuring the safety of the citizens. If the agencies can give an additional layer of security for us by getting access to our data I am absolutely OK with it. But the problem starts when the situation is changed. A person being arrested just because he sends a mail criticizing the president or the government is absolutely preposterous. Here the difference is whether the agencies are using our data for us or against us.

And at last it all comes down to us users itself. Browse responsibly and don’t share your private data through the Internet with someone even if  you can trust that guy with your life because the next time you send a mail bashing on some one high up in the government (or any other strata) you could end up in real trouble.