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Search Engine Privacy Explained
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Feb 04, 2006 11:15 AM
from the watching-the-watchmen dept.
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."
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Speak for yourself (Score:5, Informative)
They describe what information is stored, how it is stored, what laws protect it (none)
As a company operating in the UK, and as I am a citizen of the UK, m privacy is protected by the Data Protection Act [opsi.gov.uk]. I have the right to demand access to my data, and they are legally obliged to give it to me. If I find it to be incorrect, they are obliged to correct it. They can only use this data in the manner in which they are registered to use it with the Data Protection Registrar, and they can only share it with others under strict rules.
As I understand it, the rest of the EU have similar laws.
Just before anyone jumps down this fellows throat. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.clickonstore.net/)
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.
Google.nl (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.xs4all.nl/~dverbeek)
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:5, Insightful)
Google's "Don't be evil" veneer has worn off even quicker than I expected.
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.
Not Surprising (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.towardsafreeworld.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday June 26 2003, @03:38AM)
But it does leave a legitimate question.
Will those bastards at Google tell my wife about my chronic pr0n addiction?
Re:Not Surprising (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday October 30, @01:08PM)
No, but
Love,
Your Wife
Great........ (Score:2)
opt out... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.mytrip.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday March 04 2006, @03:31AM)
Re:opt out... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.spinningatom.com/)
Re:opt out... (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone entering dodge search terms (Score:2, Informative)
Ah, yes, the federal government (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday February 23 2006, @02:47AM)
That would be *other* than seizing our search data to try to prove that porn should be banned on the Internet, I assume.
Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
The GoogleWatch Guy (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday October 30, @01:08PM)
Best,
Paul
Congress: (Score:1, Funny)
Thank you.
can you say irony? (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://home.earthlink.net/~mellowtigger)
Scope and Semantics (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/~Quirk/journal/ | Last Journal: Monday October 03 2005, @04:07PM)
"The threshold rule is relevance," says Paul Ohm, the University of Colorado law professor. "Relevance has been quite broadly construed. As long as you can show that something's relevant to a case or criminal investigation, I think the litigant would have a pretty good argument."
The suggestion that relevance has been broadly construed is disturbing. The erosion of civil liberties needn't necessarily follow from the enactment of bad laws, but can, just as easily, follow from too broad an interpretation of existing laws and practices.
If the judiciary restrict the interpretation of terms like relevance to as narrow a meaning as possible there is less room for abuse, but in the present environment it's likely judges, not only in America, but in the west generally, will allow broad definitions of such terms to the detriment of civil liberties.
But wait! There's more! (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Currently, it's all somewhat irrelevant... (Score:1)
(http://www.geocodeengine.com/)
Take note (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Monday October 11 2004, @09:43PM)
How long do companies keep records of my search terms?
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo all said they keep data as long as it's necessary, which could mean forever. Microsoft did add that the company is "looking at ways" to provide users with the option to delete their search histories, and Yahoo made a similar statement.
AOL, on the other hand, says it deletes personally identifiable data after 30 days.
And they identify each unique user by the IP Address (with date/time) and/or a ID cookie.
Be forewarded.
Oops (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.nerdzapper.com/)
How can I protect my privacy from search engines? (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Saturday February 25 2006, @11:02PM)
The Index.dat in your "Temporary Internet Files" and in your "Cookies" folders makes any attempts at privacy meaningless.
I made a simple batch file that loads on startup & deletes the Index.dat files. Works like a charm & I never have to think again about someone sniffing through my supposedly clean computer and pulling up my browsing history.
I also tossed in an extra two lines to clear my Temp folder and pre-fetch.
Become Private (Score:4, Informative)
There are other programs and if you do not want your "private details" known then you would be wise to use them. In addition, anyone who thinks their private data that is held by organisations and government departments is safe whether there is a "Data Protection Act" or not then they should think twice for example the "National Security Agency eavesdropping on Americans incident". This is not the first time nor will it be the last time that such incidents will occur. Without being anonymous, we can never have true freedom of speech.
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.
Oh..... (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Wednesday April 27 2005, @01:58PM)
What about the ISP's? (Score:1)
Incomplete advise on deleting web page files (Score:1)
In addition, many add-on browsing tools, such as Flash and fancy tool bars, may store temporary files and histories on their own. Erasure tools, or the browser's built in cleaning feature, may not be able to erase these third party files.
Why should you care? Well, over your hard drives' lifetime, a tremendous amount of data will be stored that can be used to analyze you down to the microscopic level.
Support sites that protect your privacy (Score:2, Interesting)
There are just so many levels at which you can be tracked and your private data can become public. In most cases I am against government regulation but I believe companies should be required to purge personally identifiable information along with tighter restrictions and penalities should private information be revealed.
It is likely the reverse will happen and perhaps that is an opportunity for competition where a cookie free news search engine with third party Ad serving such as Newslookup.com will benefit
WEEE! (Score:1)
Google Analytics Fixes (Score:2, Informative)
# [Google Inc]
127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
If you are using firefox, then there is an extension [customizegoogle.com] to customize your interaction with google. One of the preference sections is privacy settings. Options include anonymizing your user ID and never sending cookie data to google analytics.
labnol.blogspot.com has an article [blogspot.com] that discusses both of these options and also discusses how to add the hosts entry on a windows box.
Re:And since when (Score:1)
(http://www.linicks.net/)
Re:And since when (Score:1)