Abstract

RENAUD, Pascal. The Google car is watching you: technical governability and democracy. Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2012, vol.33, n.130, pp.177-186. ISSN 2448-7554.

Can the rule of law be imposed on multinational information corporations equipped with technical and juridical means far superior to those of the agencies entrusted with the task of regulating them? Google, the company with the world's leading search engine, recently emerged as a major player in the field of digital publications, but behind this "Doctor Jekyll" there lurks a "Mister Hyde" of information. The hundreds of vehicles loaded with sophisticated electronic equipment deployed under the pretext of taking photographs of the facades of houses simultaneously capture and record personal data that circulates on Wi-Fi networks. In France, Google was recently sentenced to pay €100,000 in damages; but is such a sanction not merely symbolic for a multinational firm whose revenues exceed $2.5 million USD per trimester? How can this company be forced to obey local laws when the data it gathers is transferred to the United States in real time? These are some of the questions that this article discusses in an attempt to generate reflections now that Google's project has been launched in both Mexico and Brazil.

Keywords : Internet; regulation; privacy; Internet governance; citizenship; sovereignty.

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