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What MSN, Google, Yahoo and AOL Know About You
hotgist writes "America's top four Internet companies, Google, Yahoo,
AOL and Microsoft's MSN, promise they will protect the personal information of
people who use their online services to search, shop and socialize. But a close
read of their privacy policies reveals as much exposure as protection. The
massive amounts of data these companies collect, which can include records of
the searches you make, the health problems you research and the investments you
monitor, can be requested by government investigators and subpoenaed by your
legal adversaries. But this same information is generally not available to you."
Were things really much more private before the Internet as we know it today? You had to approach actual experts like doctors for any questions you had. That leaves a trail. And if you had checked out library books as research, I'm sure the government could trace those records as well, even before computerized systems. Technology simply makes the process shorter.
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
Do you really think that Google doesn't keep track of your past searches, just because you disabled it?
They (my nephews and nieces) look at me as though I am an brontosauraus wearing Sanjaya's fauxhawk when I talk to them about the dangers of "overexposure" (both literally and figuratively) in the internet.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Yes but you cannot datamine a trashcan over several years without a considerable amount of effort. Meaning, there is an inherent cost in digging thru millions of peoples trashcans, including probably getting shot by some for intruding on their property. From a search engine companies perspective, there is no inherent cost of gathering this data. It is simply an benefit of their business model.
To me this is a failure of congress once again. In no way should they have allowed companies to keep this information. With the current situation in the US political system, though, I suspect nothing will change anytime soon. I suspect that at some point GOOG and the others will get caught selling some of this intrusive data. At that point the pubilic will force congress's hand. Until then, however, we will have the deal with this situation...
I think it adds at least one step for a snoop trying to put me and my searches together(one with direct access to the various databases that is).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Everyone concentrates so much on which services are collecting information and what information they are collecting. The next, and more important, question is rightly,"What are they doing with it?" I'm not talking about the generalized vague notion that everyone has: they're selling it. Yes, of course, but to whom are they selling it? Do they portion it out or do they sell the entire database in raw csv format any time anyone asks? Is there a subscription service to receive weekly or monthly updates to the dataset? Is there any effort made to screen the people who offer to buy the dataset to ensure that they will similarly protect the privacy and security of the consumers represented within it? Are there services which will cross-reference the various databases to infer data which cannot be directly collected for legal or technical reasons? Are there services which buy these datasets which offer to correlate them with tax records, grocery card clubs, and DMV records?
The answer to all of the above questions, of course, is "yes--to the worst extent possible and with absolutely no conscientious consideration for the consumer from whom the data is being mined". Take it for what it's worth. Twenty years ago the hospital kept records, the insurance companies kept records, the banks and retail outlets kept records, but they weren't so ready and apt to cross compile and sell those records to hundreds of political and fringe religious groups posing under infinitely ambiguous names such as International Financial Consultants, Ltd.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
If Google really wants to keep on record and ill-tempered sea bass, they are more than welcome. Maybe I am being pessimistic, but I have given up on any true sense of privacy. One week after I purchased my house, I got an unsolicited sales call.
I asked, "And how would you know about me just buying my house?"
She replied, "It is a public record."
"Oh, and did it also indicate that I wanted your stupid unsolicited sales call to wake me up at 9 *AM*?"
"I am sorry sir..."
"Just remove me from your list and never call again."
And this was the result of a simple paper record. That pretty much removed any thought I had to privacy. The Do-Not-Call List seems to have worked in Ohio, but that fact that I had to report my number to a list, just so it wouldn't be called, bugged me.
I suppose privacy is possible. Only use cash. Don't subscribe to any magazine. Switch e-mail address every month. Don't buy anything on-line. Don't get a credit card. Turn off the cookies in your browser. Register your new PC as "Bob Smith".
Or, one could revel in the public nature of your records. Create some fake web pages that talk about fetishes you don't really have. Subscribe to the strangest of the strange web sites. Subscribe to every single magazine you can get for free. Drive the marketers crazy as they try to categorize you. "sir, where does a straight bisexual transvestite biker vampire ruby programmer fit into your database?"
Bearded Dragon