Law in the Internet Society

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The Many Privacy Problems with Google's Entry into Broadband Telecommunications, and Why Users Won't Even Notice

-- By SethLindner - 06 Nov 2009

Recent Google Acquisitions

Two acquisitions over the past two years indicate Google's apparent interest in entering into the VoIP telecommunications industry. Google's first move was its acquisition in 2007 of a company called GrandCentral, a web-based call forwarding system that provided users with a single phone number from which calls could be routed to multiple other phone numbers based upon user-configurable preferences (like who was calling and when). After continuing operations as GrandCentral for about two years, in April of 2009 the service was launched as Google Voice. In addition to the call forwarding features of GrandCentral, Google Voice adds call screening, blocking of unwanted calls, and voice transcription to text of voicemail messages. Currently Google claims to have more than 1.4 million users of Google Voice, of which about 570,000 are active users.

Although the Google Voice service probably seemed useful to those with many phone numbers, it wasn't exactly what people think of as a VoIP service because all phone calls still needed to be routed to a permanent phone number. So, even though Google Voice was free to use, it really wasn't anything close to a replacement for existing telephone services. This is where Google's recent acquisition of a company called Gizmo5 comes in.

Don't Look Too Closely -- Google's Privacy Policy

One of the significant features of Google Voice is its ability to provide written transcriptions of voice mail messages and recorded phone calls. I imagine that the eyebrows of even those with the utmost trust for the Google conglomerate were raised upon learning of this feature.

"Wait a minute. Google knows exactly what someone told me in my voice mail?"

Yes, Google does know. Your just surprised because their proving it to you by sending you a transcript.

"Okay, so even if they DO know what's in my voice mail, I'm sure Google won't share that information about me to anyone. Let me take a quick look at their privacy policy to see what it says about all this."

"A Higher Sense of Privacy" -- Engineered User Reactions

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r2 - 18 Nov 2009 - 02:28:10 - SethLindner
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