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Search Engine Privacy Explained

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the watching-the-watchmen dept.

Kesch writes "Zdnet has a posted a FAQ describing the storage of personal information done by the search engines of AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and, of course, Google. They describe what information is stored, how it is stored, what laws protect it (none), how you can attempt to protect your privacy, and what Congress is doing with regards to the issue."

5 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Speak for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    They describe what information is stored, how it is stored, what laws protect it (none)

    As a company operating in the UK, and as I am a citizen of the UK, m privacy is protected by the Data Protection Act. I have the right to demand access to my data, and they are legally obliged to give it to me. If I find it to be incorrect, they are obliged to correct it. They can only use this data in the manner in which they are registered to use it with the Data Protection Registrar, and they can only share it with others under strict rules.

    As I understand it, the rest of the EU have similar laws.

  2. opt out... by mytrip · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google lets you remove your phone number from their database so other people can't look you up. They ought to let you remove your search history from their databases as well. I'm going to suggest this in their support forums.

    --
    Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly. It just happens to be particular about who it makes friends with.
    1. Re:opt out... by The+Cisco+Kid · · Score: 4, Informative

      They do. Just log in to your google account and click 'Search History' (at the top), then 'Remove items' (on the left) - As well as the ability to remove individual searches or clicked results, there is also a "Clear entire Search History" option.

  3. Ah, yes, the federal government by typical · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...and what Congress is doing with regards to the issue.

    That would be *other* than seizing our search data to try to prove that porn should be banned on the Internet, I assume.

    --
    Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
  4. Become Private by Slashdotgirl · · Score: 4, Informative
    The following are just some of the programs, which provide a level of both encryption and anonymous communication for Internet usage:

    • Tor: Onion-based routing that acts as a proxy layer between the client computer and the Tor network. http://tor.eff.org/

    • I2P: Also known as the Invisible Internet Project. The network is regarded as a message based system. http://www.i2p.net/

    • FreeNet: is a distributed information and storage retrieval system designed to address the concerns of privacy. Freenet is designed to be anonymous and totally peer to peer. http://freenetproject.org/

    • GNUnet: is a P2P network that can support many different forms of peer-to-peer applications. http://gnunet.org/

    There are other programs and if you do not want your "private details" known then you would be wise to use them. In addition, anyone who thinks their private data that is held by organisations and government departments is safe whether there is a "Data Protection Act" or not then they should think twice for example the "National Security Agency eavesdropping on Americans incident". This is not the first time nor will it be the last time that such incidents will occur. Without being anonymous, we can never have true freedom of speech.

    --
    The more I know, the less I know