NEWS: Google is Watching You

GEEK: Google is Watching You

As we sit in front of our computers, adrift in invisible streams of binary code, faced with mountains of information, most of us only rarely give a thought to our privacy. It's disconcerting to think that every move we make, everything we type or click on could be generating a log somewhere. Just yesterday Privacy International published a report ranking many of the largest websites based on their privacy policies and practices. It's pretty dull reading, and chock full of geeky jargon, but the results are certainly worth a look.



Google came in dead last, beating out the usual privacy offenders like Amazon and Microsoft by a long shot. They're also the only one out of the 23 companies reviewed to be deemed "hostile to privacy," which sounds vaguely threatening. It's hard to tell exactly what the privacy violations are, but as reported in the Washington Post, they may relate to stored user profiles and Google's recent purchase of the online advertising service Doubleclick.



Since the report has been released, Google has begun what Privacy International are calling a smear campaign of negative publicity against the independent watchdog group. Just today PI issued an open letter to Google refuting some of the claims that have been made about the validity of the study. (Unfortunately it won't link, but it's available on their homepage). Wherever the truth lies, at least the study raises some interesting questions about the sites many of use most often.



Sadly Yahoo didn't score much higher than Google, so if you're serious about your privacy, you may have to do some digging to find a better search engine. On a more positive note, several websites scored reasonably well, including: Ebay, Last.fm, LiveJournal, BBC, and Wikipedia. Surprisingly, in what must be a glaring oversight, the researchers didn't bother to include Suicidegirls in the study.

They didn't include SG because the girls got to them man. THEY IS WATCH U MASTERBATE!!!!!! Which is kind of hot, really.

Google is going to take over the world. Duh.

there is a web site out there explaining how google is god. i think its fairly funny. and the email rants are even better.

This Is A Great New Point I Can Use In My Anti-Google Arguments!

Sadly, this will be the last article by Aaron_Lariviere, as tonight a Google SWAT team is going to break down his front door and rape him before cutting his throat.

On a side note...
Livejournal ranks well? Well, no shit. I mean, who the fuck wants to sift through thousands of weepy teenagers?

"Today at school no one understood me. Philistines."
"The dark raven flies overhead
its tear fall down
a ruby diamond
it mirrors my black heart."

google = skynet

The one friend I count who works for google takes privacy concerns very seriously. Google harvests a TON of information, but they're upfront about what they harvest, how they use it, and who they protect it from. Google is one of the few who told the government where to stick it when the government started requesting records of search history. Most other search companies just roled over and handed over the requested docs without a fight.

They caught a lot of flack for working with the chinese government on a local, censored search engine, but their stance there is starting to look more reasonable. Even working with censored information, the people of China are able to piece together a better picture of the world than they could before, and Google has started to push back against requests to censor things now that they've established their place.

excellent point!

What about that search engine with the hot girl and the funny flash movies, the link to which is currently unavailable ot me?

Edited to add: Hold on, just remembered her name. And googled it.

Miss Dewey

Not to be too paranoid. But alot of this flack could be a mud slinging campaign by someone with government funding, because google wouldn't cooperate.

Quite frankly though. There isn't much I do through search engines that I'm really concerned with someone making a log of.
Even if I did, there are always more, pathetic, stupid people making far more embarrassing searches, than mine.

The net is free range, get used to it.
If it weren't then it would be cencored and everything you did would be logged by the powers that regulated it.

I concur - Google seems pretty clear about what it does and doesn't collect. Google's Chinese pages are at least clear that stuff has been censored.

I'm uneasy about Google linking stuff I type to adverts, but they've got to make money some how.

Google assists me greatly in my online reasearch of pornography, so it can't be that bad right?

probably because no one ever uses the search feature. case in point: the sex talk board.

shhhhh !

they'll hear you.

If they are watching me....they are going to be deadly bored.

I think they might be already dead if they watch me

That's why I type fuck you in the search box every so often just so they can look at that.

Let me save them millions of dollors in research and development money. I search for hentia.

I agree, it is pretty vague and difficult to understand. This accompanying piece (http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-553961 can't link to it because of the brackets in the url) is easier to follow, but still, the whole thing could have been better. Part of why the report looks that way is that this is the "interim report" meaning its just a description of what the findings are showing. The full conclusions won't be posted until this fall. Not that I'm defending them, but I do think it's interesting that such a commonly used website has come under such intense scrutiny of late.

So, google is collecting some of your data, BFD. S5 has said it best.

On a related note that is kind of amusing to me.

So the Government got all pissy with Google:

http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/google/gonzgoog11806m.html

Now the big question is, exactly how much money did the government spend on all of this?

They could have just signed up for this:
http://www.wordtracker.com/

That's right you can download the top twenty million search terms....

There are a number of services that have that information available to people also. Yes, the services existed way before Alberto and his experts even thought about the internet. How exactly do they think people create successful search engine marketing campaigns? All googlebombs or what?

It's a matter of personal opinion how much the data collection bothers you, really. Personally I don't mind all that much, but I'm not researching dirty bomb construction or thai sex tours, so I don't really care.

I was just reading another article where the Privacy International guys explained what bothered them the most and they said it was mainly just that there's no way for a user to "opt-out" of the data collection. Every single user has their search records retained... no matter what. There's nothing you can do to get them to delete them. Google is saying that they're "moving toward" deleting search records after 18-24 months, but that will take several years. From what it sounds like, as of now, they may be keeping those search records indefinitely. Privacy International thought it was essential that Google include an "opt-in" feature so that users have the choice.