Google's G1 phone makes it easy to track surfing habits
— -- The new Google phone, dubbed the G1, has been touted as a working man's smartphone — a cheap, Web-friendly wireless device that can make life easier for millions of consumers.
"It's like a walking surveillance device," says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer watchdog group.
It's never been easier to get information on the run. Smart devices such as the G1 and Apple iPhone let you put the Internet in your pocket and go — down the block or across the country. But this convenience could cost plenty in lost privacy, consumer advocates and tech analysts say. Once data have been collected and warehoused, you lose control of it forever.
"The Big Brother aspect of it is troubling," says Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., former chairman of the powerful House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.
Mobile consumers are especially vulnerable, Markey says. Unlike PCs, cellphones tend to be used by one person exclusively. The information they telegraph — on Web browsing, lifestyle and more — tends to be "highly personalized."
That's the main reason mobile data are so prized: The information is incredibly accurate. It's also why Markey and other privacy advocates say the debate about online privacy will become even more intense as advertising migrates to the mobile Web.
Mobile advertising is still relatively new — G1 users, for now, get ads only through search results, for instance — but it's clearly a hot spot. The market is expected to reach $2.2 billion by 2012, from about $800 million now, according to JupiterResearch. Ultimately, it could surpass the traditional Web, now a $20 billion ad market.
Yahoo, Microsoft and other ad-supported search engines collect information as Google does. But the sheer size and scope of Google's data-mining operation — the Web giant performs more than 80% of all desktop searches worldwide — makes it a uniquely pervasive presence, says Chester.
Google and Yahoo, the two biggest players in search advertising, say their self-imposed privacy policies are sufficient to protect consumers, noting that they do not collect or store information in a way that can be directly tracked to an individual.
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