In a New Zealand Herald op-ed, Gehan Gunasekara compares intellectual property rights with privacy rights, pairing raids by authorities on file-sharing websites with Google's ability to profit off user data--made plain in its upcoming policy change. "The law in both instances determined who gets to profit from the use of information...and in both cases, corporate power was able to trump the rights of individuals," writes Gunasekara. While Google recently received what Gunasekara calls "a rap over the knuckles with a wet bus ticket," for exposing user data, Kim Dotcom faces extradition and a trial for alleged file sharing. Until coordinated privacy occurs, writes Gunasekara, "the privacy of personal information is not taken anywhere nearly as seriously as is intellectual property piracy."
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