Cloud Computing & Bad Behaviour

Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, stated during an interview recently "I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.", this is a shocking statement from the CEO of a company that holds more personal information on individuals than any other organisation on earth, including intelligence agencies.

You have to consider what business Google is in.  Google is not a philanthropic benevolent giant, it is the World's largest advertising agency and advertising is an industry with a long reputation of manipulation and surreptitious intelligence gathering.  Every action Google takes, from helping children in Africa get on-line to releasing a free browser, is designed with two simple goals: 1) to get more eyeballs to see advertisments; and/or 2) to improve the targetting of advertisments.

One of the biggest challenges that cloud services providers face customer concerns about privacy.  Unfortunately many people consider Google to be one of the World's leading cloud services companies, which they are - the World's largest cloud advertising agency.  The remaining cloud vendors, who are specialists in their particular area, aren't using their massive advertising revenues to subsidise the roll-out of services whose main goal isn't to sort out customer issues but to get more eyeballs or improve advert targetting.  No, these specialists are interested in innovation and the security of their customer's data, not the exploiting of it for conflicting purposes.

Anyone who has adopted any of the products that Google's have been pushing into the Enterprise, especially email archiving through their acquisition of Postini, and Google Docs, should be concerned about Schmidt's attitude. Google Voice users have recently found their voicemails plastered across the web - imagine your internal corporate documents or emails having the same fate because of your service provider's view that information should be free?

I have posted in the past about the lack of focus on these fringe products that bring in very little revenue for Google, unless Google can find a exploit the data held by these cloud services, what is their long-term viability for Google?  Signing a ten-year archiving contract to meet your legislative or compliance requirements with a company that sells its products as a loss-leader is a risky move. 

When your Google representative comes knocking, don't just read the menu right to left and only consider price.  Listen to the words of Eric Schmidt ringing in your ears "..privacy is for those with something to hide...".