Members of Congress don't want their search history made public either
Posted on Thursday, February 9, 2006
at 2:33 PM
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I knew that the DOJ-Google lawsuit would have beneficial repercussions. CNet is reporting that there is a bill in Congress to force websites to 'delete information about visitors, including e-mail addresses, if the data is no longer required for a "legitimate" business purpose.' It makes you wonder how many members of Congress have been using Google to find out if the Hilton in Paris allows you to play videos. They may not all have iPods, but I bet they all use Google.
And Google expects cities to give them every keystroke typed by their citizens?
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2006
at 8:58 PM
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I've been saying that Google is out of control for months, but now it is hard to know where to begin in listing their present transgressions. I actually hope that they are trying to get all the evil stuff out of the way at once, so we won't be able to keep track. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that is naive. I fear that the truly evil act is yet to come. John Battelle reports on an exchange with a Google PR rep who acknowledged Google's practice of storing IP numbers of users with their search requests. Now connect that with the idea of Google providing free WiFi to a city the size of San Francisco. Will they record every byte passing to and from every computer in that city? You bet they will. Will they cross reference all of this data with IP addresses and user profiles? Of course.
It is interesting that all of this is happening during an election year. The Republicans and Democrats will finally have an issue they can agree on. The resulting legislation should be interesting. I used to think they would be the pin that popped the current bubble. Now I fear that they will drive our entire industry right off a cliff.
The Google subpoena is a good thing
Posted on Saturday, January 21, 2006
at 2:05 PM
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This morning NPR teased a segment on the DOJ-Google lawsuit with the line "You may not be aware that when you use Google, the sites you visit are recorded." If this one fact enters the public consciousness, then the lawsuit will have done a great service. A few months back I started to write a post saying that I found myself restricting searches that I didn't want made public (Hey, I'm a heterosexual male), but I thought it sounded too paranoid. Now this is becoming common knowledge. This is an important moment for the Web. Next we can start arguing about the propriety of search engines like Google storing user search history in the first place. It's about time that debate was started.
Google paranoia knows no limits
Posted on Friday, December 16, 2005
at 11:12 AM
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This interview with Larry Page in 2038 is best discovered in an RSS feed filled with headlines about Google killing industries with every move. (via Inside Google)
