You cannot prevent that some entity will have private data about you, once you start using mainstream online services whose focus is on mainstream issues like ease of use, portability of data and seamless access from multiple devices.
Ensuring that the legal frameworks we live within have strong privacy laws makes more sense to me, because what are the realistic options for any of the mayor tech players right now, when they face a data request from the US goverment other than fighting it in the courts? (which they do)
Moving all Google employees to Iceland or some asian country and closing all offices in the US/Western Europe? Closing down any service that collects private data?
Both, but any Google executive aware of the abuses could have anonymously tipped off Wikileaks or some other journalist. None did.
To explain Google's behavior, classic diffusion of responsibility is all that is necessary. Without any such dissent, it's no surprise that the government abused its power.
Snowden is a significant outlier... hiring policies are intended to prevent the hire of the kind of person who would do what he did. The scary thing is that Google's hiring practices achieve the same thing.
We do not know this and it would be questionable if the risk associated with such an act would be worth it considering that Google can actually use its resources to move things in a legal way. (via courts, lobbying in Washington etc.)
"To explain Google's behavior, classic diffusion of responsibility is all that is necessary. Without any such dissent, it's no surprise that the government abused its power."
I remember Google protesting (SOPA) and actively pursuing privacy initiatives multiple times in the last years and even pull out of the Chinese market.
They release detailled copyright removal reports: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/
They let you take all your data out of all Google products: http://www.dataliberation.org/takeout-products
They fight governments data requests in courts (sometimes successfully) and release strongly worded statements when they are allowed to.
Suggesting that we ended up with an abusive goverment because Google slavishly followed orders seems unrealistic to me.
"Snowden is a significant outlier... hiring policies are intended to prevent the hire of the kind of person who would do what he did. The scary thing is that Google's hiring practices achieve the same thing."
Google as a company would arguably not exist anymore, if its developers/admins constantly leaked data.
The survival of the NSA does not depend on public trust and a positive public image - Google does.
Google's legal initiatives are largely just naked lobbying for its own corporate interest. SOPA in particular. Nothing wrong with this but it's a lot different than using its legal team to fight government abuses. Google is reasonably scared and chastened by Microsoft's massive antitrust battle, and Eric Schmidt pragmatically ramped up lobbying and philanthropy when he took the helm.
They let you take all your data out of all Google products: http://www.dataliberation.org/takeout-products
Do you think this removes it from the system that the NSA has access to?
They fight governments data requests in courts (sometimes successfully) and release strongly worded statements when they are allowed to.
Strongly worded PR statements while being 100% cooperative. My guess is that the statements are run by the NSA for approval before they are published.
Suggesting that we ended up with an abusive goverment because Google slavishly followed orders seems unrealistic to me.
I did not argue this. But it's a very slow and gradual slide into tyranny, and Google has done nothing to prevent the obvious abuses. I again point to the Government's treatment of Microsoft as a significant driver of Google's supplication.
The survival of the NSA does not depend on public trust and a positive public image - Google does.
Only when the information is kept secret does the NSA's survival not depend on public trust. I'd argue that the NSA depends more on public trust than Google, since Google's motives are very clear, at least insofar as the shareholders are concerned. The NSA is there to protect US interests which generally are not documented and are subject to the whims of both high level and low level officials.
You could encrypt the data locally before sending it to the server. You might also question whether this model of computing is in fact sensible. There are at least partial alternatives, for instance holding all data locally on a smartphone, and then plugging that in to use as a desktop, tablet etc. We should be asking whether the advantages of the Google model outweigh its (significant) disadvantages.
In fact it would probably be a good idea for Google to proactively report/describe some of the technical tradeoffs they have made when it is related to privacy.
Because what most people do is judge based on incomplete information - and Google has more and more problems with its public perception.
Regarding the idea of encrypting all data (I believe you mean that not even Google should be able to decrypt it) before sending it to the servers I see some issues, but my views on cryptography are probably pretty naive.
1) There are laws that force them to hand over data to governments when courts order it - I do not know if they would get away with only turning over encrypted data.
2) They also have business goals - like increasing ad revenue by matching ads to the personal preferences of its users.
3) They have social interactions in most of their products - I don't know how this could work with total encryption.
4) There are certainly some usability tradeoffs to make - like how many times does a user have to enter a password to access his data.
