"The Google Threat"
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune:
Google's emergence as one of the scariest companies on the planet continues with a story in the Financial Times describing the Silicon Valley firm's goal of maximizing and cataloging personal information gleaned from every user's every use of its vastly popular search engine. Google described its plan to amass detailed dossiers on billions of people – correlating every search by computer ID numbers – in the most benign fashion possible. Chief executive Eric Schmidt spoke of a day when Google could help users find more satisfying jobs or come up with good things to do on days off.
But of course the real reason Google gathers all this data is to goose its advertising revenue. The more it knows about individual users, the more it can charge advertisers of products those users might be interested in.
This makes economic sense for Google, but should mortify Google's users – because the company has never come close to adequately acknowledging the vast privacy concerns raised by its already massive database. The potential for government snooping, harassment, financial manipulation, blackmail and all sorts of online crime is stunning.
The only good news here is the likelihood that at some point an entrepreneur will see the opportunity presented by a new search engine with this pitch: “Guaranteed private searches! We'll permanently delete your search terms as soon as you're done!” Such a search engine would be used by millions from day one – and would only grow in popularity as awareness of Google's sinister ways became more common.
Attention, ambitious computer scientists: Here's your big chance. Get rich – while performing a public service.
Comments
my belief in Gooogle's sinister ways and ambitions leads to the possibilty (and probabilty) that they are bringing their vast wealth and power to bear in the prevention of just this event (copyright, patent, ad campains, etc. overtly- espionage and bribes, etc. covertly) . Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutly. It will take a Herculean effort on the part of the people to dislodge a ruling giant and return the wealth and power to its rightful place. To WE THE PEOPLE! Let us hope WE are up to the task!
Posted by: bobc![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/nav-commenters.gif)
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May 30, 2007 07:32 AM
Some small search engines have already emerged with such a privacy-protecting policy. The metasearch engine Ixquick, for example, states it will permanently delete all personal search details gleaned from its users from their log files. Of course, how could such a startup usurp Planet Google.
The mostly likely candidate to really challenge Google is the (still vapor) Wikia Search. When Jimbo Wales was asked (at a talk at NYU) about whether they will retain user data, he didn't have an answer, and it seemed he hadn't really thought hard about that issue (by that was just my reading of his reaction).
Posted by: michaelzimmer![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/nav-commenters.gif)
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May 30, 2007 08:13 AM
The users of Google ought to form a class and sue Google for the commercial use of their personal info without compensation. The dollar value of such info per user is fairly insignificant. My info is probably worth about a nickel but that's my nickel not Google's. In the aggregate all those nickels add up to billions for Google.
Posted by: Jardinero1![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/nav-commenters.gif)
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May 30, 2007 12:09 PM