For more details, please listen at: www.HolisticSurvival.com. Google has obtained an incredible amount of power over online information.
Jason asks Scott to explain Google’s relationship with the government. The U.S. government can obtain whatever private, intimate information that Google has without any warrant or subpoena. It boils down to a lack of security and an invasion of privacy. Scott says they know you better than your own family, online and offline, and the vast amount of information they collect puts people at risk. It seems so convenient that Google knows your search patterns, but is the convenience worth the loss of personal privacy? It definitely raises the security risk and proposes a conflict of interest. As Scott describes, anywhere there is a centralization of power, bad things happen. Scott Cleland is the world’s leading Google critic. Cleland has testified before Congress three times about Google. He publishes GoogleMonitor.com and Googleopoly.net, and authors the widely read PrecursorBlog.com. As President of Precursor LLC, he consults for Fortune 500 clients. A former #1 ranked Institutional Investor independent analyst known for spotting early on why the Internet dotcom bubble would burst, Cleland was also the first analyst invited to testify before Congress about the missed warning signs of Enron’s fraud and bankruptcy. Fortune profiled Cleland as “ahead of the pack in raising questions about WorldCom’s debt, profitability, and survival.” Cleland is a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Information and Communication Policy. He lives in the Washington D.C. area with his wife and two children.
