An Open Letter to Google: Concepts for a Google Privacy Initiative

                        An Open Letter to Google: 
               Concepts for a Google Privacy Initiative

                           Lauren Weinstein 

                              May 9, 2006

	     http://www.vortex.com/google-privacy-initiative

							
      Preface: The overall situation relating to U.S. and global
      privacy issues is deteriorating rapidly.  Recent Congressional
      moves toward legislating broad, government-mandated data
      retention laws ( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000175.html ) 
      are particularly alarming.  The manners in which we
      collectively choose to address these sorts of issues are
      likely to have drastic impacts not only on our own lives, but
      also broadly on the shape of society, both today and in the
      future.

Greetings. When I was recently invited to speak at Google's Santa
Monica center ( Video at http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000168.html ),
I was impressed by the quality of the facilities, but even more so 
by the caliber of the Google employees I met during my visit. 
Google's capabilities are extraordinary.  While I have been publicly 
critical of some Google policies, my concerns have been focused not 
on Google today, but rather mainly on how Google's immense data 
processing, storage, and related infrastructures might be abused 
in the future, particularly by outside entities in a position to