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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."

3 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    They had this back in 1984: Memory holes.

    If you recall, all information placed in memory holes was supposedly destroyed, but it turned out that the government actually retained every item, and they came in handy for interrogation sessions.

  2. Scope and Semantics by Quirk · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Q: Let's say the Bush administration wanted to obtain a list of the names or Internet addresses of anyone who typed "how to grow marijuana" or "how to cheat on income taxes" into Google. Could that be done? Probably. If the Electronic Communications Privacy Act does not apply, all that's required is a subpoena from a prosecutor, and no prior approval from a judge is necessary. One Harvard law professor calls the subpoena power "akin to a blank check."

    "The threshold rule is relevance," says Paul Ohm, the University of Colorado law professor. "Relevance has been quite broadly construed. As long as you can show that something's relevant to a case or criminal investigation, I think the litigant would have a pretty good argument."

    The suggestion that relevance has been broadly construed is disturbing. The erosion of civil liberties needn't necessarily follow from the enactment of bad laws, but can, just as easily, follow from too broad an interpretation of existing laws and practices.

    If the judiciary restrict the interpretation of terms like relevance to as narrow a meaning as possible there is less room for abuse, but in the present environment it's likely judges, not only in America, but in the west generally, will allow broad definitions of such terms to the detriment of civil liberties.

    --
    "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
    Cohen
  3. But wait! There's more! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's still no mention of Macromedia Flash. Flash applets are very popular on most pages nowadays. They are used for ads, interactive demos, forms and more. But, people don;t seem to realize that they are also highly effective for storing information that can and is used for tracking purposes on your computer.

    Have a look at
    ~/macromedia/Macromedia/Flash\ Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys

    or on Windows

    C:\Documents and Settings\%UserName%\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys

    Did you know that all of that was there? Do you know what's stored in all those files? Did you know that those files are accessible by any flash applet that runs on your system and that the flash applet can and does report back to its creator?

    Then of course there are the problems due to Java script. Google has one for their analytics service that's all over the web tracking everyone. It's called Urchin and it's even in this page. Just look at the source for this page and search for "urchin.js".

    People don't realize that they are totally OWNED!