Google, the www, and your privacy

Google seems to have gotten itself into some hot water over a new social networking tool and your Internet privacy (if there even is such a thing).

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20015620-265.html

Google is settling for $8.5 million with a consumer advocacy group over this new service. It seems the biggest problem was users public profile included their most frequented email address that they emailed. Illeagal activity or not, I would not want someone knowing who I am emailing and how frequently. I, like most people, want to keep my emails and contacts private. Of course that privacy goes out the window if someone hits the forward button, but you typically know if the person you are emailing would do that, or do you?

In today's world sharing information is incredibly easy, you can do so without even knowing it. So what responsibility do companies that operate on web, and most companies do, have in regards to user security? What laws can be passed to provide user security? Can any be passed? It is the world wide web, and don't tell me the United Nations has any authority.

It comes down to three areas and questions for these areas: 1.) the user, do you know what the various websites are collecting about you and what they are doing with that info? What are the privacy settings on the various social media sites, and what is the default setting? 2.) What about the company, what responsibility do they have to the users of their site, if any? Are they willing to take a risk on negative publicity? Do they NEED the users info for business? 3.) What what about government and regulatory entities? What responsibility do they have to the public? Can they control the web? Who has the authority? Its questions like these and many others that are only beginning to emerge that we could not have thought about ten years ago, and they will get more questions, bigger questions, and more complex questions.