It may be Google’s data, but it’s you they’re gonna arrest

Sergey Brin has weighed in on the whole MicroHoo fandango, and not surprisingly he’s agin’ it. At Google’s Lunar X prize announcement last week, Brin told the Associated Press:

The Internet has evolved from open standards, having a diversity of companies. And when you start to have companies that control the operating system, control the browsers, they really tie up the top Web sites, and can be used to manipulate stuff in various ways. I think that’s unnerving.

I’m right there with you, Serge. And when Google legal beagle Dave Drummond talks about “preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation” I just feel good all under.

After all, Google is one of the most open companies on the Net. Also: I’m the father of Jamie Lynn Spears’ love child, and I give handsome lessons to George Clooney.

The problem with that last paragraph is that none of those statements are true. Google is one of those companies that seems completely open — ‘here, come in and have a oat bran muffin while we massage your feet’ — until you ask them a question about what they do or why they do it. Then they cinch up tighter than a frog’s nether regions.

For example, try asking Google what it’s planning to do with all the user information it collects after it has fully digested DoubleClick? Or why it needs to retain IP addresses for Google searches? Good luck getting any response at all.

In fact, Google’s biggest privacy accomplishment in the last year has been deciding to hold onto users’ IP addresses for only 18 months instead of 24. Gee, I feel more anonymous already. Don’t you?

Last week, Google’s Public Policy Blog posited the argument that IP addresses are not personal information, because they are often shared between machines and users. (Though, personally, my home office has a static IP.) This makes sense until you think about it for 15 seconds. Strangers have also occupied my home address in the past, and probably will do so in the future. But if you ring my doorbell today, I’m the one who answers.

And if you look at the server logs of any Web site I’ve visited, you’ll find my IP address along with a time stamp. In most cases it’s a trivial matter of proving that at the very least it was my computer, if not me personally, who was there. If I happen to have been logged into Google at the time, you’ll find the whole ball of wax in my search history. If not, the site probably dropped a cookie on my system with a unique ID number in it.

Of course, Google won’t share this information with anyone… unless they have a court order. Or a National Security Letter. Or maybe the spooks have already tapped into one of the Network Access Points outside the Googleplex.

But an IP address is pretty good all by its lonesome. It is after all what the RIAA has used in the 20,000+ lawsuits it’s filed against terrorists evil doers file swappers. They take the IP address and demand the subscriber information associated with it from your ISP, who can either hand it over or fight a legal battle with the record companies. Guess which route most of them choose?

In the old days, I might have to do something suspicious or even vaguely illegal to warrant such attention. In these days of warrant-free searches and laptops impounded at the borders, who knows what it takes to get flagged by the feds? I’d rather not find out. And that in turn makes me a more cautious, even paranoid, Web surfer.

And Sergey? If you really believe in an innovative and open Internet, it’s time to open up a little yourself. Tell me why you need my IP address information for 18 months. Better yet, give me the choice of whether you can really have it. Because right now, Google feels like a much bigger threat to my privacy than Microsoft and Yahoo combined.

Whose IP address is it, anyway? Weigh in below or email me here. Top commenters qualify for cool swag.

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