[509] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Google Books Settlement Sharing Offer - And Aton's
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Fri Sep 11 03:59:59 2009
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:33:33 -0700
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Google Books Settlement Sharing Offer - And Aton's Dilemma from Outer Space
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000610.html
Greetings. I'm on record as being in favor of the Google Books
settlement. It is not perfect of course, but viewed as a binary,
thumbs up or thumbs down proposition, I consider the benefits it
brings for access to out-of-print, orphan works to outweigh various
negative considerations. Interest in the settlement is in high gear
right now, with court testimony regarding the proposal currently
ongoing.
Last May, in "Untangling Orphaned Works in the Proposed Google Book
Search Settlement"( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000571.html ) I
attempted to address some complaints that detractors of the settlement
proposal have expressed. In particular, I suggested that it might be
useful if Google would make scanned books covered by the settlement
available in some form and basis to competitors, to help neutralize
accusations that the settlement unfairly favored Google.
So I was pleased to hear today an announcement from Google
( http://bit.ly/WNqIh ) that out-of-print (including orphan) books
that would go online via the settlement would be made available for any
book retailer to access and sell, via any Internet-connected devices.
While it is unrealistic to assume that this will eliminate all
opposition to the settlement, it does demonstrate an important degree
of good faith.
One complaint I've frequently received from persons who object to the
settlement involves the privacy of records involving book viewing by
Google Books users, particularly those books that would be covered by
the settlement.
Google recently published a specific Google Books privacy policy
that I believe is a good one
( http://books.google.com/googlebooks/privacy.html ).
However, a number of correspondents writing to me have noted concerns
related to my November, 2005 blog item "An Online Library from Science
Fiction" ( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000161.html ). In that
piece, I referenced the anti-hero ("Aton") of an old Science Fiction
novel, who traveled to a "library planet" to get physical access to
research books, since he knew that research through the commonly used
online galactic library system would flag his rather suspicious
queries.
We can call this "Aton's Dilemma" -- and it does raise a pertinent
point. While the Google Books privacy policy is a very reasonable
one, there still remains a key difference between a typical physical
library and online library that concerns many people at the gut level.
Fundamentally, the problem is that it's usually possible to walk into
a library, grab virtually any typical books from ordinary collections
off the shelves, read them, and leave -- with no record of your
specific reading activities (other perhaps than some rather generic
closed circuit camera images merely showing your presence in the
facility).
But with an online library -- as was Aton's concern -- you leave a
trail of your every activity, and even when the custodian of those
records promises to reasonably and lawfully protect that information,
the mere existence of that data in the first place will continue to
significantly bother some observers.
I'd hate to see such concerns contribute to any possible derailing of
the settlement.
One possible solution to the "dilemma" in this case might be for
Google to promise "accelerated destruction" of Book Search, settlement
works-related tracking data (e.g. raw IP address information) much
faster than would be the case under Google's general privacy policy.
Whether we're talking about hours, days, weeks, or whatever, the
sooner that data is expunged from its raw form, the closer we'll
approach the "walk into the library" level of privacy.
Google points out that IP addresses are used for access control
purposes in Google Books (e.g. to help enforce licensing restrictions
affecting the number of pages from any given work displayed to a given
user, etc.) and for other quite justifiable logistical purposes.
However, it seems likely to me that most or all of those needs could
be met in an environment where the complete, raw, IP address data is
rapidly hashed or otherwise transformed in manners that would still
provide the necessary statistical and control-related data, but still
sufficiently obscure the actual IP addresses to provide reasonable
anonymity to those Book Search users as appropriate.
Obviously the devil is in the details with any such techniques, and I
certainly wouldn't propose a specific road map for their
implementation at this stage.
But I very much want to see the Google Books settlement succeed, and
to the extent that additional levels of competitive confidence and
library-like privacy can be reasonably provided -- that will help to
convince current detractors of the settlement that it is actually
worth their support -- I hope that such avenues will be explored.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
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