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Should you Fear Google?
Ponty writes "Google-watch.com is presenting a list of nine complaints about (almost) everybody's favorite search engine. Some of the salient fears are "Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save." and "Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency." The concerns seem like paranoid hand waving to me, but maybe I'm not paranoid enough."
Google deserves your nomination
for Big Brother of the Year
Nominations accepted here during February 2003 only
1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.
2. Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."
3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.
4. Google won't say why they need this data:
Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.
5. Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.
6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf. Yes, it reads your cookie too, and sends along the last search terms you used in the toolbar. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you phone home. Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google.
7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."
8. Google is not your friend:
Young, stupid script kiddies and many bloggers still think Google is "way kool," so by now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. No webmaster can avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming he wants to increase traffic to his site. If he tries to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, he may find himself penalized by Google, and his traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time they don't even answer email from webmasters.
9. Google is a privacy time bomb:
With 150 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved. Google deserves your nomination for corporate Big Brother of the Year.
Google Watch home page
I think paranoia is not an extreme reaction, because although Google has been exemplary in their behavior so far, such a centralization of information will, one day, become a target for malicious groups.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I'm not too knowledgable on these things, so if this is a stupid question, forgive me. Are there any data-collecting methods listed in the link that cannot be easily thwarted by clearing your cache regularly?
If not, then what's the problem?
1. So disallow cookies! It works fine with out them.
2. Google uses that statistical information to improve thier search algorithems.
3. What are they talking about?
4. Would you share the reason why your search engine is 100X better than the next runner up?
5. That is the DUMBEST reason ever
6. The Google toolbar TELLS you it is spyware, multiple times, and gives you the option of NOT participating.
7. The Google cache is just as illegal as the cache you have of the site on your computer. Except that they are using THIER bandwidth to provide a service, for FREE.
8. Google is the best search engine out there, come up with something better and someone will make fun of that.
9. Ok, maybe THIS is the dumbest reason ever. Most paranoid too.
--sig fault--
We have tens of thousands of these pages indexed in Google. If you don't spend time understanding how the search engines work, you can forget about attracting any serious traffic to your site.
Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah, I remember now: From every marketroid who ever got in a tizzy because his web site wasn't appearing at the top of the list the way the highly paid search engine gaming conslutant promised it would.
when they get cornered no ?
not that iam one to point fingers
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name
I especially like the quote "Google hires spooks." Perhaps it's because I work for a large company, but I know of several special forces folks here whose old work involved infiltration and intelligence gathering...
Should I avoid anything that includes "spooks?" Obviously I should avoid Minnesota, Utah, and several other states because they elect "spooks."
(though some *might* suggest that I avoid those states for other reasons;)
"... but you can love completely without complete understanding." - Norman Maclean, "A River Runs Through It"
What is there to keep private? Unless you're searching for your own credit card numbers or SSN or other confidential data, or sick stuff like child porn, who gives a shit? And if you're doing that, you deserve to get ridden.
And if you think corporations are actually 'evil', then you've got some serious issues with reality. They are self-serving, which can indeed clash with public opinion and privacy, but they are not 'evil'.
Don't anthropomorphise corporations. They are merely collections of individual human beings just like you and me.
Now, this doesn't necessarily obviate his concerns, but Brandt is a veteran conspiracy-watcher whose obsessions include mind-control projects and secret cults amongst the elite -- and this tendency to indulge in, as Wm. Gibson would put it, "apophenia" is certainly likely to color his view of Google.
To my eye, his concerns display a kind of parochial paranoia: obviously, we're all aware of the uses and limitations of cookies, none of us want to see the cache (or the Wayback Machine) go away, and his comments about Google's "monopoly" and the "[y]oung, stupid script kiddies" who "think Google is 'way kool'" are just inexplicable.
Telling, I think, is his concern about Google having a former NSA developer on staff -- I've worked with a fairly large number of former spooks from the NSA, CIA and civilian contractors, and to suggest that having the NSA on your resume makes you some kind of Coder in Black is absurd. But, of course, YMMV.
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
If the government had spooks working at google as spooks, do you think that they would have traces of ever being a government employee in their history? Unless, they would know that a spook would not have a government employment history in their backround, so they would put government employment that in their history. Unless,..... this gives me a headache, forget it.
Fight Spammers!
Google lets you exclude pages that contain certain keywords by putting "-" in front of them.
:)
Your browser passes your entire query to found pages you click in the "Referrer" field.
Some sites dynamically customize the page you get based on the search terms found in "Referrer".
But they do it WRONG. They simplify and assume all search terms are to be included.
So, for instance, if you type into Google "porn -gay" expecting to exclude gay porn sites, instead you are likely to get a lot of them.
You say this in jest, but I have endured such an experience, well, not the "inch of your life" part. In 1991 (my fresh. year in college) I was paid a visit at my dorm room. While they didn't "kick in" my door (the RA unlocked it for them), it was 3am and they did in fact yank me out of my bed and "drag" me off (shoeless no less) to an empty office on campus. It was not a pleasent experience. Had it not led to an internship followed by a 2 year stint (which was less pleasent than that fateful night but paid the bills), I'd have been really ticked. Anyway, it was all over a credit-card scam and I had done a project (which I used for both a comp-sci class and my public speaking class) which led them to beleive that I was involved. All they had to go on was a copy of the report I had written and the statements given by my comp-sci and P.S. professors, but that was apparently all that they needed.
That was a silly statement, what he is saying is that it is no different than going into a bar and dropping your business card into the fishbowl to try and win a free lunch. And besides they don't get a whole lot of information from you. Maybe an IP, whatever fake name you put into your profile (Good idea using a fake name) what browser your using, some other data, I do the same thing on my site with CGI script, not for any terrible reason, I just want to insure my site looks ok on all the browsers people use.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
Actually.... I LOVE it when companies collect data on me.
I guess I am just really weird - but I fill out every opinion poll - and answer every question when people call me asking for my opinion.
Why?
Well, mostly because if they are going to get somone's opinion on something IT MIGHT AS WELL BE MINE! And, if I am going to be bombarded with advertising (including spam, and junk mail) IT MIGHT AS WELL BE ABOUT STUFF I LIKE!
To all you paranoid slashdotters out there this might sound weird. But, really, truly, I have NOTHING to hide - so why worry?
Derek
Google is a company. Repeat with me, google is just a company. OK, right now it is a privately held company, but eventually they are going to go public. When that happens, profits take precedence above everything else. Then you can't be so sure they'll stay on the straight and narrow path.
Up until now, google haven't been evil. Why? Mainly because it was started by geeks (Brin and Page were doing their Ph.D at Stan in '98), and the tradition continues (See this excellent article). But think of 10, 15 years into the future. Totally different people will probably be at the top. They'll see thing different from google does now. For all we know, they'll pull people's pages off the index because "the information could be used by terrorists".
The basic problem is that when a single entity has access to such a lot of information, and so many people depend on them, you can never know what's going to happen.
Note: I'm actually a major fan of google. However, it does not mean that I'll continue to be a google fan tomorrow, or that I don't ask "what if" questions.
Walmart also keeps your credit card number stored in a central database demi-permanently, using the barcode at the bottom of receipts as the key for the record. They claim to do this to hasten refunds, but refuse to remove it.
Don't believe me? Try buying an item with CC and then returning it.
This guy is an whiner with almost no valid complaints.
Points 1, 2, 3, 4 can be summarized "Google collects the same information that every single commercial web site does. Google does market research to find out what people want from it and how to improve their site.
Point 5 (Google hires spooks), can be summarized in two parts: "Google hires people who are good at automating information organization" (It should be no big shock that ex-NSA geeks have lots of skills useful to writing search engines.), and "Google wants to sell Google technology to the government." (Remember when it was discovered that the FBI's case database was so out of date it only allowed a single search term per search? Maybe it's time to replace it with an internal Google server.)
Points 6 and 7 (the toolbar is spyware and the cache is illegal) are potentially valid (even a blind dog occasionally finds a bone), but not as horrible as suggested.
Point 9 is a bit random: Yes, as the largest search engine Google collects alot of information. Of course, this is true of any large search engine. It was true of Altavista when they rules the roost.
But hidden near the bottom, in point 8, ah, we have the meat of his complaints.
I'm not a blogger, so apparently I'm a "young, stupid script kiddie" because I think Google is "way kool."
Of course, here we have the meat of the argument: I tried to abuse Google's system to get an un-earned high ranking for my pages. When Google caught me abusing the system, they penalized me.
Google is popular because their search results are uniformly useful. If they let idiots like this one have their way, Google's search result quality would plunge, much like other search engines did during the late 90s.
The secret to getting high ratings? Write high quality, useful web pages. Let other people know about them in acceptable ways (write to related sites suggesting that they might be interested, post pointers on appropriate message boards, usenet groups, and mailing lists). When other people learn about you, if you're really providing good content you'll get links, and with links comes Google's approval. It's no secret. If you start with an area in which there isn't yet a strong primary source, it's easy to dominate the results.
I've got a solid dozen web pages that appear in Google's top five results for common search terms. With one exception, I've never promoted any of them. I just wrote some good content (but not great, it's just a hobby), and waited. I've enjoyed the first result spot for a number of searches for a long time, including driver's license number, nerf wildfire, visual c++ tricks, gen con survival guide, sourcesafe sucks (I'll admit promoting that last link with my Slashdot sig). If I, as a strict ameteur, am able to do this well without gaming the system, what's his problem?
Google isn't his friend because he's a weasel who tried to sell artificially generated Page-Rank. Google is a friend to all legit webmasters and users.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Many 'anonymizers' (read Libraries), ask for an ID before you can use the internet. How much information they retain is probably decided on a per library basis.
Regardless, law enforcement can access whatever records the library keeps if someone ends up doing something nefarious.
What I've learned from this internet thingie, is that privacy is mostly a by-product of poor record keeping. If you choose to 'stick out from the crowd' by establishing a record (ie: post on usenet or slashdot, build a website, publish a blog), then you don't really have much expectation of privacy. Andy Warhol got it wrong: in the future, everyone will be famous, not for 15 minutes, but to 15 people.
That's why I'm generally against persistent cookies. There's really very little reason (short of convenience ala Slashdot's cookie) to have a cookie that exists longer than a session. Anything longer than that, and does not provide _me_ any utility, gets denied.
My father is a blogger.
Google is simply indexing public data. If you don't want it seen, and thereby added to the search engine, don't make it publicly available. Put it behind a password protection system for crying out loud.
In addition, they have to re-index all their pages in their database to insure that their searches remain accurate. So even if they did get information from your site, if you remove the data - Google will remove the link and drop the data (web pages) from their engines.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Funny you should mention that they are one of the good guys. In the sixties, the NSA developed a program whose objective was to create scenarios of terrorist events around the U.S (that's right, America) which could be traced back to the Communists and eventually directly to Fidel Castro. These events would lead to a declaration of war against Cuba and eventually its liberation.
That is how far the government was willing to go to get Castro.
When I say, terrorist events, I'm not talking about vandalizing a courthouse or cutting the break lines on a government vehicle. I mean driving a bus packed with explosives into a crowded elementary school or setting off explosives in the middle of a crowded public place or blowing up a bridge. Serious stuff. This project was eventually exposed by a congressional investigation and heads did roll.
These are two perfect examples why the NSA retains the authority to keep its secrets; it's none of your business that a spook (or ex-spook) works for Google and I can assume with certainty that you knew nothing of tax dollars being used to plan terrorist activities within the US in the sixties. Most people aren't responsible enough to use information such as this correctly. NSA's business is really none of our business. It's not that someone shouldn't be watching the watchers, because the long arm of congress is doing just that. But the business of NSA, taken out of context, can seem to be very sinister.
I'm with you, the NSA is the the single most important asset of national security but keep these things in mind when calling them 'the good guys'.
I may be to late to get discussion on this but... How is google's cache any diffent from some takeing a photo in a public place. As far as I know it is 100% ok to publish a picture of anyone or any thing taken in a public place, rather the person or thing has given its permision or not. How is a webpage any different? As long as it is publicly accessible (no passwords or verification system) why shouldn't it be ok to cache it?
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I was trying the same thing, so then when I put in my name my ICQ profile came up- I was happy I got #1 on google with my name, so I mentioned it in my blog with a link back to google
A month later my ICQ listing was gone and the highest ranking one (10th) was the blog from december where I mentioned google
link back to google and they'll reward you.
I did some research about this and came to the conclusion that the secret agencies of the U.S. government are completely out of control: What should be the Response to Violence?
Google may track who you are and what you search for, but Yahoo does worse by tracking what links you click on from searches! (along with who you are)
I don't mind people knowing what I searched for, though I really don't link people knowing what results I actually choose!