more on BAD IDEA OF THE WEEK -- Google Launches Personal History Feature

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

------- Original message -------
From: Simon Higgs  <simon () higgs com>
Sent: 21/4/'05,  18:46

At 02:45 PM 4/21/2005, you wrote:

Here's an example. Remember when Google IPO'd? And you submitted your 
application for an allocation of shares? You gave Google your social 
security number as part of the process. Google can cross match every search 
you've ever done back to your social security number. And it's all probably 
admissible in a courtroom.

Now, if that's not enough to get you interested, think of being a stand-up 
organization with API access to Google with the appropriate authority to 
access private data (I'll just leave it at that), and you effectively have 
a limited set of eyes on almost every desktop. Cross index searches for 
applicable keywords and you are a serious player in the intelligence 
business. What you do with that information is your guess.

Sleep well.

Simon

> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: "W.B. McNamara" <whitney () absono us>
> Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 09:37:45 -0400 (EDT)
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Re: [IP] BAD IDEA OF THE WEEK -- Google Launches Personal History
> Feature
>
>
> Could you provide a little more detail on what elements you feel are a
> bad idea?  With Amazon/A9, AskJeeves, and Yahoo all offering a search
> history feature, I'd argue that Google has no choice but to offer
> something similar.
>
> With Google only storing history if you log in, as well as offering a
> "pause" functionality to allow users to keep certain searches out of
> their history, this strikes me as a pretty reasonable implementation
> (though I'll admit that I've only played with it a very little bit).
>
> Search Engine Watch has a post today that offers an interesting
> comparison of the various search history options out there, from big and
> smaller players:
>
> http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050421-070616
>
> - W.B. McNamara
>
> ------ End of Forwarded Message
>
>
> -------------------------------------
> You are subscribed as simon () higgs com
> To manage your subscription, go to
>   http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
>
> Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

Best Regards,

Simon Higgs


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/