"The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

[Innuendo]

Sure, they make their money from advertisers. Do they collect and store data to be used by some higher powered big brother to spy on users? Doubtful.

-Josh (May 31, 2010, 07:20 AM)

And what of the companies who are buying the data from Google? Can you vouch for the intentions of these unknown entities as well? I'm sure they are buying data from other sources as well & aggregating and correlating it all. It does not matter if a piece of data is not personally identifiable. Once you get enough pieces of this kind of data regarding a person the correlation of the data makes the data cluster personally identifiable. There have been numerous university studies that have shown this.

Bottom line is if you (or anyone) is not concerned with the data you share with companies that's fine, but don't criticize those of us who do want to keep the knowledge about ourselves private even if you deem that knowledge to be trivial. What's trivial to you may not be to me.

[Josh]

Is any of the data personally identifiable or does it point to an IP address? Is there any evidence that the companies purchasing said data are using it for ill-intentioned purposes? Are there any sources to show that someone has taken 200 pieces of data from one IP address and somehow managed to point the info to a single identifiable person? I am not bad mouthing people who are genuinely concerned with the privacy of an individual, where I get annoyed is people telling me I should avoid google and ALL OF THEIR products because of it without any real basis for the comments.

Why is it we are just focusing on Google? Why not Yahoo? Why not Ask.com? Why not the thousands of websites that sell you products and CAN make use of PII (Personally Identifiable Information) without having to purchase through google? What about the real people who are trying to exploit your machine and steal information without having to rely on google search hits? Does anyone have any data showing exactly what is stored or what is being shared or is this concern simply BECAUSE WE have made Google so big? We forget that it is the end user who makes a service as popular as it becomes. It is the end user who continues to use a product and asks more of them and in turn has the company in question expand it's services to meet the needs of the end user.

[downloder]

Do they collect and store data to be used by some higher powered big brother to spy on users? Doubtful.

-Josh (May 31, 2010, 07:20 AM)

It only takes a minimal amount of research to find what is being done with the billions of data bits being collected, not only by Google, but also by our wonderful government.

Am I paranoid? Nah. BUT, I do take my anonymity fairly serious. No one needs to know the what/where/why of what I do, unless I choose to divulge it.

[Innuendo]

Why is it we are just focusing on Google?

-Josh (May 31, 2010, 04:33 PM)

I am extremely leary of all the companies you mentioned and more, but I think the reason why people focus more on Google is because they are the most successful, they pride themselves on very rarely if ever deleting *anything*, and also pride themselves on their abilities to correlate that data & make it work for them whether it be serving ads or who knows what else.

Another reason people focus more on Google than anyone else is that it seems like 85+% of all web pages I visit report back to either www.googleapis.com, www.googlesyndication.com, www.google-analytics.com, or all of the above. Even when during the course of the day I actively avoid going to Google's sites Google is trying to dip into my business.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the other search engine sites you mentioned don't have equivalents for those three sites mentioned above, do they?

[Eóin]

Is there any evidence that the companies purchasing said data are using it for ill-intentioned purposes?

-Josh (May 31, 2010, 04:33 PM)

Being cautions is all about trying to protect yourself before something like this happens. Waiting until after evidence has emerged would be utter lunacy.

[Josh]

Yes, I agree. but some people I've read act as if Google has already acted in a manner which would warrant treating them as something other than a search company. Treating them as if they've already broken the law.

[Eóin]

Fair point. Google may be the biggest out there, but there no reason yet to say they're the baddest.

[Innuendo]

Yes, I agree. but some people I've read act as if Google has already acted in a manner which would warrant treating them as something other than a search company. Treating them as if they've already broken the law.

-Josh (May 31, 2010, 08:17 PM)

I don't treat Google as though they were a criminal. However, I do treat them as if I were a merchant & they were a patron entering my store. I don't immediately assume they are going to try to steal from me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to turn off the security cameras, either.

[JavaJones]

Watched the CNBC program. First quarter is pretty uninteresting fluff on how great Google is.

Second quarter, the only compelling "point" made is that search data *may* not be "really anonymous" and this assertion was based on a well-known AOL data release *mistake* that was poorly handled. That release included unique ID numbers for users that, yes, allowed searches to be *associated* with a single user, and thus in some (few) cases actually associated back with a person's unique identify... *when they searched for their own name and/or address or other personally identifiable info*. Now get this: most of what people do online is unencrypted, so really almost anyone could be listening. It doesn't take Google tracking your data for it to get in the hands of the government, or anyone else who might want to watch.

But it's true, I have no proof that Google is doing a better job anonymizing their search results than AOL. I do trust them to do a better job, given their company history and intelligence (they do make mistakes, but they usually own up to them - see recent wifi data collection scandal). Let's not forget, too, that Google *voluntarily* introduced an 18 month anonymizing data policy, which other search engines then adopted, and then they reduced it to 9 months a year or so later (admittedly they weren't too happy about the reduction from 18 to 9 months): http://bits.blogs.ny...ention-policy-again/

Third quarter, some more fluff, some speculation and fearmongering.

Fourth quarter, not much more.

I didn't find the bit where they say they're selling data to other companies, but if it's handled anything like the rest of the show, I wouldn't be surprised if they said "we do not sell our data to 3rd party companies" and they just edited out the "do not". This is a pretty scandal-seeking show, in my view. "Google could overwhelm us" says an interviewee, and with a very concerned look on her face the interviewer asks, with evident sympathy, "How could Google overwhelm you?". The answer? Oh no, it could give us more sales!!! Crap, we're screwed! Come on, seriously?

Anyway, if this is the only place where this info actually shows up (and I can't even view it - maybe it was retracted as inaccurate? hehe), I have to wonder why. Google censoring their results?

- Oshyan

[Deozaan]

So I was just on Amazon.com and I noticed at the bottom of the page it showed a "Recent Searches" section which displayed the last 2 Google searches I made.

How does Amazon know what the last two Google searches I made were?

I suppose it's possible I inadvertently searched in Amazon's website, though I usually just search from the address bar since I'm using Chrome.

[JavaJones]

Were those last 2 searches followed by clicks on Amazon links?

- Oshyan

[Deozaan]

Were those last 2 searches followed by clicks on Amazon links?

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (June 04, 2010, 12:28 AM)

One of them was. But the other one I can't imagine why it would be. I was using Google to convert 6 feet into meters (due to an item I was viewing on Amazon). Like I said, I may have inadvertently searched from within Amazon, but I'm pretty sure I would have remembered seeing the strange Amazon.com results for that conversion search. I guess it was probably PEBKAC.