Kia's World

[this article appears as it was written for the October issue of my school newspaper] 

Google, the Olympian God of the Internet, announced on September 7, 2008 of its potential plans to move its entire server database out to sea. The plan is for the databases to be stored inside of ships that are anchored to the sea floor some seven miles off shore, with pumps sucking up sea water for coolant systems, and specially designed hydraulic rams to harness wave energy for conversion into electrical power. Google’s goal is to create a much more green internet, seeing as in 2005 “data centres consumed 1 per cent of the world’s electricity” said Murad Ahmen, a Technology Reporter for The Times in his September 15th article “Google search finds seafaring solution”.

This, in an environmentally worried society, is sounding like an amazingly inventive and doable idea. Concerns, in the media, only stem from (no joke) pirates and natural disasters (such as hurricanes). On this matter Google comments: “For example, a military presence may be needed in an area, a natural disaster may bring a need for computing or telecommunication presence in an area until the natural infrastructure can be repaired or rebuilt, and certain events may draw thousands of people who may put a load on the local computing infrastructure”.

However if you leave the media behind there is not one blog, one comment, one forum post about this new Google plan that doesn’t bring to light the most frightening concern of all. Being seven to eight miles offshore Google will not only be free of paying taxes to whatever nation they’re off the shore of, but they will also be free from the laws of that nation. This means that Google will not have to, legally, follow any privacy laws at all. Any search, any information, any text, any G-Talk message, any e-mail through Google’s G-mail feature will be completely unprotected by federal laws. Google can, at a whim, sell any and all this data to marketing companies or any individual or group with the finances to meet Google’s price.

It’s no secret that, at this current moment - with land based databases, Google sells search patterns to marketing firms for personal profit. You, under privacy laws in the United States, remain an anonymous user. However this could all change just by putting the databases out to sea.

So what is Google’s real motive? Extra profits for personal data? Or more environmentally friendly databases? We should all like to think it’s the latter but in today’s world, where politicians in the White House can circumvent the Constitution of the United States of America by sacrificing our civil liberties for the feeling - the illusion - of safety (meet the Patriot Act), no one’s motives are clear. Friendly Google could simply be being friendly Google and trying to make the world a better place for our future generations. However the likelihood that it will abuse it’s power over our privacy is very high. 

It would appear that it is time to find a way to stop mighty Google, either that or learn how to remain completely “off-the-grid”. For the first option: that’s probably impossible so just scratch the idea. For the second option: a strong suggestion to visit Kia’s World  (www.kiasworld.co.uk) and ask as many questions about how to  maintain your privacy is the best suggestion that could possibly be given to those worried about their privacy.

“Internet privacy is something that seems to have become a victim of our ever diminishing civil liberties” says Via Riviera, a participating member of Kia’s World who’d rather not have her real name used in the interests of protecting her anonymity (anonymity is a virtue amongst Kia’s World members). To further the ideas of Ms. Riviera, Google’s potential future immunity to privacy laws can only spell the potential for our civil liberties to be circumvented by a technicality and thus allow our privacy to be defiled.

Ultimately it is uncertain how this possible future Google endeavor will turn out, all that is known is that those who care about privacy must start preserving their privacy now. Or risk having none in the future. So, is it friendly Google or sneaky spy Google? Let come what may, we can do nothing to stop it. We can only prepare for the worst.