Recalculating the privacy debate after Google Maps penalty

[Commentary] By now, consumers and citizens may have detected a pattern: New technologies allow new types of privacy invasions, which then lead to ad hoc remedies – until the next type of intrusion. As the string of Google violations shows – along with dozens of new privacy laws passed since the 1970s – the pace of this cat-and-mouse privacy quest has quickened in the Digital Age.

Even a mighty Internet company like Google, whose informal motto is “do no evil,” can falter when it creates new technologies with new uses without always knowing exactly what privacy guardrails society expects. The basic need is to better define the purposes of privacy rather than simply react to the fear of losing it. If tech users, companies, and government had a broad consensus on the benefits of privacy, then it would be easier to design comprehensive and consistent policy. Lawmakers and law enforcers would not always be playing catch-up with the latest “violation,” and coming up with a patchwork of solutions.