This is how, by the way, he plans to finance the operation: the basic version of WebXray will be available to everyone, but Libert will offer a specialized level for litigators, regulators and companies that want to keep their digital presence in compliance with the law. It will also offer consulting services and act as an expert witness in lawsuits.
I gave the keys to the site to digital rights activist Cory Doctorow, who took a quick look under the hood and approved the idea. “I think the way forward here is a class-action lawsuit,” Doctorow says, noting that this could lead to a slew of class-action lawsuits against big tech companies. “As long as this only exposes API calls that produce evidence that Google is obtaining data that it doesn’t have legal consent to receive or retain, this is the right move. I think it’s really a smoking gun,” he says.
Libert agrees: “Yes, I want to be the Henry Ford of technology demands: turning this into a factory assembly line.”
It’s already started. Three months after leaving Google, Libert acted as an expert witness in a trial, testifying that websites allegedly leaked data in violation of the law, against Google. His former employer tried to have him disqualified, arguing, somewhat ironically, that he knew too much. As for Google’s internal standards and policies team, the company’s court records say: “Dr. Libert became the go-to person for all things cookie-related.” (On Monday, a judge ruled that the company’s policy team had been “in the black.”) fired that claim, pending appeal.)
“When I filed the first lawsuit and used WebXray to do it, they lost,” Libert says of Google’s reaction. “When you look at those legal documents, there’s one thing that drives them: fear. They’re afraid of this data being available, because they know it affects the bottom line. And that scares them.”
“One of the tragedies of Google is that they used to lead by example in a positive way, and I think especially in the last three to five years, they’re not leading by positive example, they’re systematically leading by negative example,” Libert says. “And I think that’s destroying the web — the most powerful company doing things like recommending that you put glue on your pizza. It’s not just that.” a Web page is doing that, is that it he website, he “The advertising platform is doing that, and that was part of my frustration.”
Of course, Google disagrees with this characterization of its tools and operations. “We design and build our products with strong security and privacy protections, including easy-to-use controls for managing and deleting data,” says Bryant, the company spokesperson. “When it comes to advertising, Google was the first company to develop a tool that lets people view and adjust their ad settings and even opt out of personalized ads altogether.”
Despite Libert’s bleak view of the current state of online privacy, he’s actually optimistic. He believes WebXray will help accelerate the shift to a better, more private, and more secure web—the path that Google and the other tech giants are currently blocking. And perhaps it’s no coincidence that there’s been an exodus from Google’s privacy teams in recent months: the announcement by Keith Enright, Google’s head of privacy, Leave the company The position came in June and “will not be replaced.” Libert says his colleagues are being laid off en masse. To Libert, it seems Google is deprioritizing privacy at the very moment when users are calling for stricter policies.
“The problem we had 10 or 15 years ago is that there were no laws. Now many countries have passed laws: the vast majority of people on the planet are protected by data privacy laws, but the application has not caught up,” he says. “It will catch up. I think we can speed up the process.” Because people want Privacy; it’s that simple. That’s why you imagine law firms, government offices and businesses will turn to your new search engine to help eradicate the scourge of privacy violations on the web.
Perhaps that’s why WebXray’s motto is simple and idealistic: “Privacy is inevitable.”
I guess we’ll find out.
