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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."

2 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. 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!