Here in DC there is a lot of talk going on related to the Google Book Settlement. I am most concerned about competition, orphaned works and copyright licensing of works under copyright. Although every time I talk to someone about the settlement privacy comes up. The settlement could make Google an online library of sorts that is not constrained by privacy laws that libraries embrace. This Tuesday, Alexander Macgillivray, Deputy General Counsel at Google and soon to be General Counsel at Twitter, spoke at Knowledge Ecology International and pointed out that the settlement does not cover privacy at all. His justification for this was that rights holders, authors, and publishers, are not the correct people to write a privacy policy with. This caused quite a rise out of EPIC’s Executive Director Marc Rotenberg who I respect as one of the leaders in protecting privacy. I happen to agree with Alex here that the privacy discussion needs to happen with users and privacy rights orgs not with book publishers. Although I think EPIC’s fears are not unfounded without some law or the settlement keeping google and other users of the registry in check how can we ensure privacy. I think the answer is legislation not the settlement but I do not see this as likely before the settlement goes into effect.
For those people that want to get the best information out on privacy and the settlement check out Epics coverage:
B. The Settlement Rarely Addresses Privacy Explicitly
The Google Book Search Settlement, as a general rule, fails to explicitly address privacy. The only reference to privacy in the entire settlement states that all data provided to Google by members of the Settlement Class “shall be subject to a Registry privacy policy.” (§ 6.6(vi)). However, this portion of the settlement does not specify the details of this policy. Additionally, this clause only addresses the privacy of rightsholder data. While the contemplated privacy policy could potentially provide privacy protections to authors’ and publishers’ personally identifiable information (PII), these protections are by no means guaranteed. The mere existence of a privacy policy does not guarantee privacy protections. The settlement also does not specify that any privacy protections will govern consumers’ or library patrons’ PII. Despite this, the settlement contemplates large-scale consumer usage of the Google Book Search through both its consumer purchase option and its institutional subscription feature.
Read more at EPIC’s coverage of the google book settlement.
