Privacy cannot be a ‘luxury good’, says Google CEO, Pichai

With the rising exploitation of personal data by social media giants, breach of information has become a

‘thing’. Google will never sell any personal information of its users to third parties, CEO Sundar Pichai has said. Pichai says he believed that privacy was ‘one of the most important topics of our time.’ 

Privacy is personal, which makes it the fundamental right of an individual to define how his data is being used. It is vital for the companies to give people clear, individual choices around how their information is being used. The concerns of people are right, and to make privacy real, Google has come out saying it will give clear, meaningful choices around your data. All while staying true to two unambiguous policies: that Google will never sell any personal information to third parties; and that you get to decide how your data is used.

The meaning of privacy is different for different people. For the families using the internet on the same devices, privacy means privacy from one another.

For teenagers clicking selfies, privacy means being able to delete them afterward. For small-businesses privacy means keeping the information of the customers and suppliers private and secure. For individuals using online banking, privacy means the security of transactions and codes.

Internet companies need to understand that privacy is our basic human right and not an over thought in their plans to conquer the world.