The German Times, September 2010
As Street View goes online in Germany, a number of leading politicians say Google isn’t doing enough to protect privacy. But the critics include lawmakers who back expanding state surveillance.
Once again, a specter is haunting Europe. This time its name is Google. Representatives of all the powers that be in Germany – left and right, statists and laissez-faire fans, computer geeks and Internet-ignoramuses, privacy advocates and consumer watchdogs – have entered into a solemn pact against the search engine’s Street View service. But then, has any major technological advance ever encountered anything but bitter opposition in Germany?
The enemy, in Google’s case, is an old one: An imperialist force, an American one to boot, grasps for global domination while supposedly restricting personal freedom. Once upon a time, the go-to tyrant’s name was Microsoft, whose founder is now being hailed as a great altruist because he is donating half his fortune (how did he earn that again?) to charity. Now, the search engine has supplanted the Redmond-based software maker as Germany’s favorite tech-pariah.
That Google basically vacuums up data and that no one knows what the company intends to do with its virtual archive really should concern us all. These are definitely issues that must be discussed and, possibly, regulated.
The stiff headwind of criticism that Google faces (not only in Germany) with each new project it unveils, betrays either an outrageous lack of sensitivity to public concerns, or simply boundless arrogance. That is not the way to keep the customer satisfied. The failure to allay suspicions in advance by explaining the motives of the new service has turned into a public relations disaster for Google, at least in Germany.
The Germans know a thing or two about police states. Sensitivity to privacy issues is one reason why our constitution says an individual’s home is inviolable and that postal communication is secret. Because Google did nothing to allay the impression that it was building up a kind of private sector Stasi, the company has only itself to blame for its problems.
The other side of the coin is, of course, the hysteria of the Germans. Despite their own knack for invention, Germans have traditionally greeted technological progress with mistrust. Before the first steam locomotive in Germany began chugging between Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835, skeptics warned that the human physique could not survive travel at speeds of more than 18 kilometers per hour.
In the flap over Google, the Germans are again behaving irrationally. If one can still speak of a body politic in this country, the diagnosis for its ills must be schizophrenia. Why do people who mistrust Google still use Google? No one has to use its search engine. There are alternatives. They might not be as effective but that is the price that anyone who rejects Google must pay.
Street View is, of course, available only from Google but anyone who considers the sidewalk his private sphere would then have to avert his eyes from strangers’ homes instead of sightseeing. And while most Germans say they fear being photographed at an inopportune moment by a Google camera, they also wave to the cameras in athletic stadiums, air their dirty laundry via court TV and subject themselves to the public humiliation of talent show juries. These are, by the way, all television events in which millions of voyeurs gain a glimpse into people’s personal lives.
Anyone who believes that Google shouldn’t be playing fast and loose with intimate personal details such as age, sex, sexual orientation, or former partners, should make sure they don’t surrender that information on Facebook either. And what about shopping discounts that big retailers offer in return for the buyer’s registration, allowing their purchasing habits to be analyzed and used for targeted advertising?
Interestingly, Daniel Schulz reported recently in the Berlin daily taz that the political leaders of the Street View opponents, Thomas Oppermann (SPD) and Monika Grütters (CDU), both voted in the Bundestag in favor of public surveillance measures. They include a data retention law requiring telecoms providers to save data on customers’ phone calls, texts, and Internet connections. Grütters also called for more surveillance cameras in public spaces.
The contradiction between Germans’ fears and actions are also evident on other ideologically charged issues. Anxiety over radiation exposure through heavy cell phone use has convinced almost no one to actually get rid of their device. Cell phones (and their owners) can also be located, as can the GPS navigation systems that millions have in their cars.
But in Germany there is a tendency to see things only in black and white. Instead of allowing bar owners to decide whether to permit or ban smoking in their establishments, a referendum in Bavaria has banned it from all bars and restaurants, regardless of what patrons and staff actually want.
Street View is a similar case. The enemy finally has an identifiable image, that of the “surveillance camera.” By widening the conflict and declaring house facades part of the private realm, Google’s opponents have betrayed the fundamentalist core of their campaign. No one wants to install cameras inside our apartments. Facades have no personality rights. Anyone can retreat into his castle without fearing that Google will follow – unless the lord of the castle voluntarily lowers the drawbridge.