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Google: The Democrats’ Private Intelligence Agency

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Last week, Neil Stevens raised the alarm about Google selling out conservatives on policy issues. He’s right, but a number of conservatives and Republicans think there is an even bigger problem for GOP.

Remember that enormous, sophisticated data operation the Obama campaign had? The one that gave them massive daily data on public opinion trends in almost every segment of potential voters.

It’s almost as if Democrats had access to some sort of huge database of real time information about what the public was reading or writing online. The kind of breathtakingly large, real-time data that could be used for real-time trend analysis, predictive modeling and even behavioral manipulation.

On a completely unrelated note, former RNC eCampaign Director Michael Turk wrote Monday that “the frightening advantage the left has is in a less touted entity known as the Analyst Institute (AI) and a consortium of behavioral scientists” who are “concerned not only with your characteristics and voting behavior, but how they can manipulate that behavior.”

Now, combine Obama’s political campaign with Google’s near-comprehensive real-time data and the left’s behavioral analysis.  What do you get? Beat.

This goes beyond just campaigns.  Google likes to brag that they can detect flu outbreaks two weeks before the CDC based on search volume. Eric Schmidt once bragged that the company could predict stock market movements.

Imagine how much more could be learned if Google’s computer algorithms combined not only search data but also all of the data they get by  reading everything written in or sent to Gmail and whatever you store on Google docs and Google Drive. Then imagine what Democratic voter data groups like Catalist (which launched as a for-profit operation, allowing it much more latitude in working with outside groups….or companies) could do with that data.

With a  few tweaks to their algorithms Google could easily have near perfect insights into the voting behaviors and patterns of the U.S. population at large down to specific precincts, neighborhoods or even households.

The threat isn’t just that Google openly supports left wing politicians and policies.  That’s obvious, and that relationship goes both ways.  Google+ hosted Joe Biden for a “fireside chat” about gun control and Obama is doing a Google+ “hangout” immediately following his State of the Union speech tonight.

The real threat is that Google, or perhaps just a few people within the leadership of Google, may be quietly operating as a private intelligence agency for the left.

And every time you use Google or Gmail you could be contributing just a little bit more of your behavioral data to the left.

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COMMENTS

  • spinoneone

    The real story here is that those of us who do not agree with the Regime should avoid Google products, including Android and its apps, and make sure we are on Apple and/or Microsoft platforms. Do not use Google’s search engine; switch to Bing or something else.

  • tjpeco

    Really? Thats your solution?

    I use google services. I use Google+ as my exclusive social network, I have over 10 Android devices at any given time, I use Chrome, Gmail, youtube, Google Currents and just about every other Google Service out there.

    Why?

    Because they are the best. They are the best products out there. If you want everyone to use Apple, go take a look at just how much they donate to the loathsome left. Tim Cook is going to be at the SOTU address today as a guest of the administration. If you think that Apple, Facebook and every other silicon valley regime that supports liberal dreg isn’t collecting data on their users then I have a bridge that I’d like to sell you.

    Google can analyze my voting patterns. They can try to affect my behavior all they like but so far, they’ve been woefully unsuccessful in trying to change who I vote for or the ideas I support.

  • Bill S

    This isn’t about changing you. It’s about using your information to defeat our candidates.

    But if you’re ok with subsidizing a company who claims to “do no evil”, yet supports evil in politics, then okey dokey.

  • hmmathis

    How about Google’s services being a huge, undocumented campaign contribution to the Democrats?

  • liquidone

    You fools need to stop worrying about Google.We can build a better system then Catalyst if we START RECRUITING THE SMARTEST IT GUY’s NOW TO DEFEAT THE DEM MACHINE IN 2014 and 2016. We should be spending millions to do it! But I doubt the idiots in the Republican establishment understand that the next election is going to be a cyber war.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    G’bye

  • Bill S

    That’s right, because we can only concern ourselves with ONE PROBLEM AT A TIME!!!11!

  • bannor

    well the GOP will spend millions trying to duplicate that. it’s how they spend those millions that will be the problem. look into Romney’s ORCA thingy they spent a lot of money on that but they don’t hire the best in brightest. in the GOP the consultants direct all the money and they’ve all go friends and business partners who need to get paid ORCA was a prime example of that it’s one big incestuous network. The candidate hires a campaign manager who had a firm before he took the job. he hires his old firm. the old firm has partners who own other businesses like ad agencies or whatever… and when the whole thing crashes and burns the RNC appoints someone to look into the debacle and that person happens to share office space with the consulting firm that was responsible for spreading all that money around to begin with.

  • naraht

    In Google’s core business, searching, what are the alternatives from companies that are more conservative?

    I went through a list of the top 10 search engines for US traffic at http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/search-engines . As far as I can tell, of the top ten companies the *most* conservative city for a corporate Headquarters is White Plains, NY. (Mindspark which owns the mywebsearch tool bar). The remainder are based in places like Cambridge, Mass, NYC, Western Washington State and California (they don’t appear to be in the more conservative areas of the state)

  • Bill S

    Fair question. This is good info:

    http://lifehacker.com/5876794/going-google+free-the-best-alternatives-to-google-services-on-the-web

  • Thomas Crown

    I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but isn’t this just a series of guesses based on a series of data points? In other words, you’re seeing a glue that may not — or may! — be there, right? There is no evidence that Google is running a gigantic felony, right?

  • Bill S

    Not sure that there’s direct evidence of Google violating privacy for political purposes, but there’s a pretty fair history of Google privacy violations to give significant pause on any potential abuses.

    http://www.bing.com/search?q=google+privacy+violations&qs=n&form=QBLH&pq=google+privacy+violations&sc=2-19&sp=-1&sk=

  • Thomas Crown

    Right, but there’s a difference between “not solicitous of user privacy” and “committing a federal offense.” Just because they’ve done one does not mean they’ve done the other.

  • Bill S

    There’s a lot of “coulds” and “mays” in Ben’s piece, so I think he’s not necessarily making a direct accusation.

  • naraht

    I’m not sure that any of the alternatives listed are for companies significantly less conservative. Does anyone have a good feeling for whether Google or Microsoft is more conservative?

  • Sir Aaron

    I’ve got the same issue. None of the other products really meet my needs so I would be sacrificing a lot to move over. It would be nice to know that such sacrifice would mean something since virtually all the alternatives listed are all companies known for their very left of center politics and support.