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Finding Fault With Google's Privacy Policy
orenh writes "Viacom has recently obtained a court order that requires Google to hand over a complete list of every video watched by YouTube users. These logs will include the login names and IP addresses of the users. Google are now asking Viacom if they can anonymize the logs before turning them over; Viacom hasn't responded yet. But this privacy nightmare could have been greatly reduced if Google had anonymized the data in advance. Google's privacy policy states that they keep personally identifiable information for 18 months. There is no real reason to do so; Google can achieve everything they need even if they anonymize their search logs after just one month, and it's time users told them to do so."
So they can suggest youtube videos based on what we watched before. That and I bet they're gonna figure in to the suggested videos what we've searched for in the past through the regular google search engine, which btw is A HORRIBLE IDEA. Plus, duck and cover if the executives don't get pretty statistics reports with colorful graphs that show what people watched from different locations determined by IP. I guess you could somewhat anonymize the stats needed to generate that but that's just extra work for the programming crew.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Because it doesn't matter where the logs are housed as long as Google does business in the U.S.. Housing them elsewhere does not make them immune to a court order.
Life is short: void the warranty.
...if you don't have a Google login name. Google search works just fine without one. It even works fine without any Google cookies.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Google does allow you to opt out of their logging. This doesn't fix the privacy issues on the topic, but may keep you out of the record books. http://www.google.com/history/?hl=en
The reason Google is keeping logs is to improve search results. If they know what an individual user searches for, they can improve his personal search results and the global search results as well. If you search for "slshdot", don't find anything, and then search for "slashdot", they understand that the first keyword is a misspell of the second. They know which search results you click on, and us it as an indication of the quality.
If you're a Firefox user, get the CustomizeGoogle add-in. It gives you back some of the privacy that Google wants to take away.