Is Google too Powerful

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 15:57:20 +0100
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: Is Google too Powerful

Dave:

Apologies if you've run this - or a similar story - already, but a
student here has drawn my attention to a story, dated 21 Feb 2003, on
the BBC News web-site: "Is Google too Powerful", that contained
allegations I was not aware of before:

...
> Tracking users
>
>  Google probably knew when you last thought you were pregnant, what
> diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is
>
> Bill Thompson
>
> Google is a privately-owned US company that has a policy of
> collecting as much information as possible about everyone who uses
> its search tool.
>
> It will store your computer's IP address, the time/date, your
> browser details and the item you search for.
>
> It sets a tracking cookie on your computer that does not expire until 2038.
>
> This means that Google builds up a detailed profile of your search
> terms over many years.
>
> Google probably knew when you last thought you were pregnant, what
> diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is.
>
> It refuses to say why it wants this information or to admit whether
> it makes it available to the US Government for tracking purposes.
>
> And the much-loved Google toolbar tells Google about every web page
> you look at.
>
> Yet it so dominates the search engine market that no website can
> afford to ignore it, and it indexes so much of the web that few
> users think of using another.
...

Full story at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2786761.stm

cheers

Brian
-- 
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/


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