Digital Deception

Assignment 1

Digital Deception

Ever ‘Googled’ something thinking it would stay between you and your computer? Last year we found out that the Department of Justice didn’t want it to stay that way when they subpoenaed the search records of millions of Google’s users. Perhaps even scarier than that is the story attached, about the time earlier this month when AOL accidentally released search records of nearly 600,000 of its users.

Online search engines have engaged in a certain amount of deception. According to Nyberg, deception is the art of showing and hiding. Within the category of hiding, the behavior of these companies would fall under the subcategory of disguise: from all outward appearances, Google and others like it make searches appear to be both completely anonymous and transient. But given that a New York Times reporter was able to take the search information released by AOL and find the individual attached to them, 62-year-old Thelma Arnold from Lilburn, GA, this is clearly not the case.

Vrij’s definition would also support the conclusion that this is deception. According to Vrij, deception is “a deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief which the communicator considers to be untrue.” While it would difficult to get inside the heads of the makers of these products and see if they had intentionally tried to deceive the public, there is no disclaimer before a search is conducted saying, “this search will be monitored for market research and national security purposes.”

Search engines hide their monitoring practices without any forewarning to the user. By both Vrij and Nyberg’s definitions, theirs would be deceptive actions.

posted by Erica @ 10:32 AM