Search Engine Privacy Explained 158
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."
Just before anyone jumps down this fellows throat. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, they have UK operations and these operations will fall under UK law. In the case of Google, trying to access google.com will usually force you to google.co.uk if it detects your IPs geographical origin as being in the UK.
It would be reasonable to assume that the UK DPA would apply to information aquired by the UK operations of US companies.
Re:Speak for yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
Google's "Don't be evil" veneer has worn off even quicker than I expected.
Worst Case Scenario (Score:2, Insightful)
The GoogleWatch Guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Best,
Paul
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Google.nl (Score:4, Insightful)
Google has a Dutch portal and a Dutch sales office, both might make them responsible to follow the Laws of the Land.
Till now especially airlines have been exposed to the authority that is supervising adherence with this law but other companies with international operations are aware.
Teun@Tosh2:~$ whois google.nl
Rights restricted by copyright. See
http://www.domain-registry.nl/whois.php [domain-registry.nl]
Domain name:
google.nl (first domain)
Status: active
Registrant:
Google Inc.
Bayshore Parkway 2400
94043
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA
United States of America
Domicile:
Lagedijk 7
2064 KT SPAARNDAM
Netherlands
Sales Office Benelux
WTC2, Zuidplein 36
1077 XV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Re:Speak for yourself (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you bet that if you invoked this, Google would say "But we're not a UK company!"
Like how Microsoft said "But we're not an EU company!" when they are being fined millions and forced to open up their protocols and file formats?
The bottom line is that if you want to do business in a particular country, you need to abide by that country's laws. Google want to do business in the UK (and China), so they have to abide by the UK's (and China's) laws.
Re:Speak for yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason they want to use search engine data... (Score:5, Insightful)
Frist and foremost, the Internet is currently unregulated. This really bothers most governments around the world, and probably the United States most of all. They want to have more control over this medium for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is tax purposes and the ability to influence the populace. Look at what's been done with mainstream media and you can have an idea of what the powers-that-be would like to see happen to the Internet.
However, the government cannot simply arbitrarily announce they're going to start heavily regulating the Internet. That's not going to work, so the first step will be to try to use some kind of politically-correct issue, to shoe-horn their grimy hands into the issue. This is likely to be something like child pornography, which very few will have problems with. Things like COPA are good examples of regulatory laws which were passed with a minimum of opposition due to the PC-nature of the issues they addressed, but they all have the ultimate goal of setting precedents where the government(s) can tell you what you can do with your web site.
The demographic profiling done by companies like Google is a big part of the government's ability to make their case for additional regulation.
Make no mistake, this is and will continue to happen. Whether or not any of us think that it's practical to try to control/regulate what happens online, the government is sure going to try. With more and more commerce moving to the online world, and less dependence upon traditional media sources, big companies are going to want to have their piece of the pie, and they rarely play fair. We should be paying very close attention to what happens from the perspective of this plan. We should expect and anticipate a few popular scenarios to present themselves which will sway public opinion into allowing more government regulation of online activity. This may have to do with terrorism, child porn, or even spam. It's going to be an interesting time in the next decade as we watch and see how select corporate and government interests try to bully their way into having control of the Internet. Search engines are treasure troves of information they can use to prove any claim they want.
Re:Speak for yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
Google.com (US and intl servers) is still available to China UNCENSORED by Google (at least as uncensored as the US database is). Google.com is apparently censored or degraded by China or their ISPs to the point of being painfully slow, spotty, etc..
Google.cn is the new service that uses servers INSIDE the Great Firewall, therefore isn't censored on the international pipes and is much more available to the people who need it. The tradeoff is that the servers are INSIDE China and therefore subject to Chinese law, no matter what Google chooses. Google could say no censorship and China could say, "Okay, we now own your servers."
You can argue that Google shouldn't have created a second system for better service (in terms of access) with the caveat that some results are censored by law. But you can't say Google decided to censor China. It's not because "they do business" in China. It's because the SERVERS are in China. Chinese computer users can still get to Google.com (I hope) and have some choice in the matter.
Re:Just before anyone jumps down this fellows thro (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Speak for yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Bejing is forcing the censorship. The only way Google could steer clear of it is to avoid all service to China. Who does that benefit? The Chinese people might never even hear about such a stunt.
2. All countries (even the US) have some level of censorship, so the test is not "selling out" vs. being true to some ideal. It's a judgement ca Or should Google stop service to all countries that don't meat your ideal?
3. As I said, Chinese can still (I hope) reach uncensored Google.com if they need it (albeit slowly).
4. Re-read 1984. The Ministry of Truth is not about twisting the truth, not censoring it. Good == bad, etc.. Are you alleging that Google rewords web pages to alter their meaning?
5. This US administration is more likely to use double-speak (again, re-read 1984) than anything I've heard come out of China. "Unwarranted Spying => terrorist prevention." Death Tax. No Child Left Behind. Would you argue that Google should not operate in the US to make a point about the Bush administration?
The one big complaint I do have about Google is that they should not log IP addresses. If people want to use their cookies for some service benefit, that's fine. But don't track my IP over time without my permission. On that, I call BS.
Re:Speak for yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides the government of china is blocking those websites, not google. As much as anything google's just removing results that the chinese won't be able to see anyhow. I'd be pretty annoyed if I look something up on Google and the first few pages of results are all 404.
The only other alternative would be for google to stay out of china. That'd be a loss for the 99.9% of chinese who don't know or particularly care about tianimen square or falungong and just want to do regular, non-controversial searches on stuff that interests them. It'd be a loss for the 0.1% that do, and aren't being told by yahoo or msn that their results are being censored by the government.
I've thought long and hard about the issue and I can't think of anything less evil that google could have done in this situation.