Europe against Google

The countries of the European Union intensified their activities to protect the confidential information of Internet users after the provision of data by former CIA employee Edward Snowden

Confirmation of the monitoring of Americans telephone calls by the US National Security Agency, transferred by the former CIA employee Edward Snowden British newspaper Guardian, caused a reaction not only in the United States, but also in Europe. And the point is not only that Snowden was in Sheremetyevo, and not even the fact of listening to clients of the American company Verizon, but information about the existence of a program under the code name Prism, which helps the national security agency collect huge massifs of Internet data.

Before Snowden’s recognition, the existence of this program was kept secret, since its goal was to monitor terrorist activity on the Internet. This made it possible to scan Internet traffic users of some sites. Moreover, they watched US citizens who have contacts with foreigners, as well as foreigners suspected of terrorism. Moreover, there are suspicions that the British special services also used the program, since it allowed citizens to monitor the relevant permits in court. In early June, the British parliament demanded that the Kingdom Electronic intelligence service provide information about the use of Prism. It will take time to draw up a report, however, how this program has worked over the past few years (and possibly continues to work) is partly known.

According to Snowden, PRISM collected information about the content of emails, photos, videos, sent files, data on sites and on social networks of customers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Paltalk, Aol, Apple, Skype, Facebook, Google, YouTube. The article published in the Washington Post at the same time shows statements by representatives of Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft. They all say that they did not give Prism direct access to their servers. Only the main developer of Google software, Jonathan Zangrin, admitted that such access could be given on the basis of an official request for the Security Services of the United States - even without his knowledge. Later, Google offered to publish such requests received earlier, but the authorities forbade her to do this . Following her, Apple said that she received from 4 to 5 thousand official requests to provide information as part of a criminal investigation, but it was never about intelligence. Cooperation with PRISM was also recognized by the Yahoo server, whose representatives said that they processed more than 12 thousand official requests.

The facts indicate that with more probability the leaders of large American Internet companies surveyed by the Washington Post still did not really give direct access to their servers to any federal tracking programs. Not only in the data of Snowden, but also in the UK parliament, when discussing Prism, the words were sounded that the program does not require a court decision or permission from the server, which is observed. And in the United States, thanks to PRISM, according to special services, several dozen terrorist acts were prevented, although, according to Internet companies, they received requests only within the framework of criminal investigations. If Google has long been tracking its users online for a long time, for which it has repeatedly criticized the European Union, which began its own investigation against the company more than a year ago, then why is the same the same thing has the right to afford the state?

Just five days after the publication of Snowden data, Switzerland forbade employees of the public sector to use Google's applications. Among the so-called Google Apps are e-mail, online calendars and schedules, the ability to edit documents at once by several users, Internet telephony, own Chrome browser, social network Google+, etc. The Swiss authorities considered that Google collects information in its applications and does not guarantee that it will not be used in the future - for example, for a more electoral advertising campaign on the Internet.

Following Switzerland, the National Commission on Informatics and Freedoms of France, which monitors non -disclosure of the personal data of the French, has published the results of the investigation: Google violated the law, and it has three months to change the rules developed to protect the confidential information of French users on the Internet.

At the beginning of this year, Brussels had already criticized the set of rules for the protection of confidential information of users, compiled by Google on the basis of several directives of the European Union and other documents. The European Commission drew attention to the fact that, despite the company's desire to comply with the EU legislation, users do not know what information Google collects about them, for what purpose and how long it has been storing, they are not able to refuse to publish personal data, using certain applications. In addition, users do not give permission to search engines to track sites that they visit. Since Google did not respond to the general remarks of Brussels collected in the document under which representatives of 24 of the EU countries put signatures, now each country separately has the right to take its own measures.

In addition to France, Spain drew attention to violation of laws in the field of personal data protection. Madrid has compiled a list of five violations, each of which provides a fine of 300 thousand euros. Google is accused, in particular, of using personal information, long-term storage of collected data without any restrictions, as well as transmitting confidential information to other Internet users. It is also said about tracking users' behavior on sites belonging to Google - in YouTube and in the social network Google+. Similar investigations - so far without specific results - Germany and Great Britain also began against the American company. Denmark and Italy transferred their comments to the companies and, depending on the answer, they would make a decision on imposing a fine.

Fines remain the only way to make Google understand their discontent. But for the Internet giant, several hundred thousand euros are a small amount, so for now, it is in no hurry to protect personal data and leaves the calls of Europeans unanswered. Refusing to collect information that helps the company in the advertising business is not easy. Of course, you can lose a reputation, however, the collection of personal data of Google is mentioned for more than a year, and the outflow of visitors from sites is not observed. Moreover, in the USA - immediately after it became known that the National Security Agency probably collects information, having access to telecommunication networks, a sociological survey was conducted. But most of the Americans surveyed-56 percent-do not consider the collection of information about their calls to be reprehensible if the purpose of this is to fight terrorism, and 45 percent is not against monitoring their online traffic.

In the European Union, such a survey was not conducted, but judging by the desire of several EU countries to confront violation of the rules for collecting personal information, Europeans are not inclined to easily part with one of the main human rights - secret correspondence, telephone conversation or chat. Brussels not just criticizes Google for collecting personal information, but for the fact that this collection is carried out without notifying users - sometimes using not quite legal practices. In Germany, at the beginning of last year, the company was fined almost 200 thousand dollars - after it turned out that it illegally collected information about residents of more than 30 countries during the filming when creating the Street View program. In addition to photographs, the company’s employees at the same time read information in WiFi not-protected passwords-read e-mail messages, collected the history of visiting Internet sites, financial information and compared these data with real addresses of Internet users. German laws do not provide high fines in case of such violations. In the USA, for the same actions of Google, a more significant fine of $ 7 million is threatened if lawyers representing the interests of several countries will be able to win the process.

According to the British specialist in Internet technologies, Simon Davis , who leads the Blog of The Privacy Surgeon (this name can be translated as a "surgeon of confidentiality"), Facebook compared to Google in diapers. To help the average user imagine how Google works, Davis starts with a story about the search engine. Based on the collected information that the user enters into the search, as well as knowing his IP, the Google website can not only determine the gender, age, political views or even human diseases, but also find out his address and name. If we also use the Google Chrome Internet browser, this allows you to collect additional information about constantly visited sites-additional data for conducting an sophisticated advertising campaign. If you add the use of Google+ to all the above, then we can say with confidence that there is nothing or nothing that the Internet (or rather, the owners and employees of Google) know about you.

It is not necessary to expect 97 percent of the profit of which depends on advertising. It's not about a charitable foundation. So, having the opportunity to use your YouTube e-mail or video service for free, the Internet user has to pay personal information. The only problem is that no one warned about this in advance.