14 DAY TRIAL // Australia has long been criticized for proposed plans to implement wide Internet censorship, as well as other moves that don’t really have their place in a supposedly democratic country. Stephen Conroy, the country’s communications minister and the man largely responsible for the Internet-filtering proposals, is fighting back against one of the plan’s most notable critics, Google, the best way he knows how, with misleading rhetoric.
At a meeting concerning the ongoing plans to institute country-wide Internet censorship, the minister couldn’t help fire a few jabs at big Internet companies like Google and Facebook. Google recently admitted to having mistakenly collected personal data from open Wi-Fi networks while gathering images for its Street View product.
The data is largely useless and the company says it wasn’t even aware it was collected until very recently. It’s a big mistake on account of Google and one that may lead to some nasty legal consequences for the company, but, in practical terms, it’s not that big of a deal.
According to Conroy, though, it’s “single greatest breach in the history of privacy.” His words can’t be misinterpreted, he’s clearly saying that Google collecting a fair amount of meaningless data equals to the greatest privacy breach in history. Of course, numerous cases of companies leaking private data or credit-card information for tens of millions of people pale in comparison to Google’s actions. And he is not limiting to Internet privacy, he means privacy in general.
Still, at least Google’s actions were a mistake, right? Well, according to Conroy, Google knew very well what it was doing. “It was actually quite deliberate... The computer program that collected it was designed to collect this information,” he said. What he’s actually pointing out is that, because the code that gathered the data was written by Google, it implies that the company intended to use it, a logic that jumps quite a few steps, but that never stopped a politician before.
He goes even further, accusing Google of hypocrisy in asking Australia to forgo its censorship plans. Again, without citing any actual facts, he basically claims that Google is not accountable for its own censorship practices. “When it comes to their attitude to their own censorship, their response is simply, 'trust us.' That is what they actually state on their website: 'Trust us',” he said. “I think that the approach taken by Mr. Schmidt is a bit creepy, frankly,” he added.
Obviously, protecting the country’s citizens from the abuses of large corporations is the right thing to do for any politician and the fact that Google has been one of the most vocal critics of the misguided Internet censorship plans has nothing to do with the minister’s latest tirade.