Slashdot Mirror
Google Never Forgets
downsize writes "CNN.com is running an article that provides some insight into how long Google stores our search, email and overall web activity and posits that it 'could prove a tempting target for abuse.' From the article: 'Some don't see Google's long memory as a bad thing. Weinstein doesn't think so. "There's really no good reason to hold onto that information for more than a few months," he said. "They seem to think that because their motives are pure that everything is OK and they can operate on a trust basis. History tells us that is not the case."' In regards to Google's email service, Gmail, Google may find themselves with many upset users due to 'a 1986 law [that] gives less protection from government searches to messages more than six months old...Even when a user deletes a message it may remain on company servers, according to the Gmail privacy policy.' Same goes for POP mail, just because you download it off the server, it's not 'out of Google's long memory'."
Just because some fine print says that Slashdot owns all the pr0n on your machine and your firstborn kid on one of their terms of use pages doesn't mean it's true. There are major limits on what such clicky-agreeements actually can hold up legally.
We do switch to other alternatives. But the people who blindly click though need to know about such things. There are good reasons not to use Google, this is one of them.
I am trolling
Actually, if you login using gmail it automatically logs you into your search history which is found at http://www.google.com/searchhistory/ Hence, the .google.com cookie
Time to clean up your cookies between searching and using other Google services...
http://www.imilly.com/google-cookie.htm
Using this "your Google GUID will be reset to all zeroes, making you effectively anonymous to Google - all the while automatically keeping your saved preferences (such as language, filtering, number of results, etc)."
"I have a cunning plan..."
I know of court rulings in Denmark that have stated that it is not legal to send personal data to the US to avoid the restrictions of the local personal data protection law. The UK laws on personal data protection are almost the same as in Denmark.
If I was you and wanted to pursue this, I would - after having tried to settle this amicably with Napster.co.uk - complain to the UK Information Commissioner.
If readers in other european countries have similar problems, please check the list of national data protection offices.