Privacy Winning Search Engine War 92
amigoro writes "Privacy is emerging as the real winner of the Internet search engine war as companies aggressively compete with one another by offering stronger protections for user records, a report published today by the Center for Democracy and Technology concluded. The report notes that until recently, most of the major Internet search engines kept detailed and potentially personally identifiable records of their customers' searches indefinitely. But today the companies are trying to outdo each other in privacy protection by announcing steps to delete old user data, strip the personally identifiable information out of stored search records, and, in one case, give users the option to have all of their search records deleted."
the internet is really great... (Score:4, Funny)
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Now that's what I'm talkin' about.
Privacy wins the gold! (Score:3, Funny)
"Uh...no comment?"
Fantastic words from a fantastic Ideal. Back to you, Bob.
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Which kind of proves the headline of the story wrong, doesn't it.
right (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:right (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, there is about as much logic contained in that statement as there is irony in an Alanis Morissette song.
not surprising cuz.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:not surprising cuz.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I suppose it all depends on whether some low IQ, anal retentive, privacy invasive perver
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I assert that search terms are basically "things searchers think about". It follows that a list of my search terms are a list of things I think about. This is kind of scary when you look at some of the implications. For example, governments who conduct secret surveillance of their citizens can, in a sense, read their citizens' minds. Hey look, that guy just thought about "how to make a nuclear bomb". I could go on,
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It's about time too... (Score:1)
Re:It's about time too... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem lies when any company can start connecting you typing in "John Smith" (searching yourself), "webmail.myemployer.com" (accidental search vs. address bar), and "my little pony porn".
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That's great, but..... (Score:4, Insightful)
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what BS... (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Google has emerged as the winner. Why? Because they offer a good search engine product. The results are very, very likely to be relevant. No one else comes close. The average person doesn't know or care about privacy issues. But they do care about quick & easy searches.
The report notes that until recently, most of the major Internet search engines kept detailed and potentially personally identifiable records of their customers' searches for as indefinitely.
And in some countries, they are required by law to do exactly that.
But today the companies are trying to outdo each other in privacy protection by announcing steps to delete old user data, strip the personally identifiable information out of stored search records
And how do you know this? Do you have any real proof they do this aside from them saying so?
a report published today by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)
This is just wishful thinking trying to get attention. Sort of like a Gartner report.
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That's nonsense. AFAIK, no civilised country has such laws. Would you back up your claims with verifiable references please?
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"The report notes that until recently, most of the major Internet search engines kept detailed and potentially personally identifiable records of their customers' searches for as indefinitely. "
And in some countries, they are required by law to do exactly that.
I asked in which civilised countries the laws require search engines to keep detailed and potentially personally identifiable records of their customers' searches for as indefinite
The Four Great Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
3. I won't come in your mouth
2. I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.
1. We'll delete your personal information.
Re:The Four Great Lies (Score:5, Funny)
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Now, see
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Little boy blue - he needed the money.
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I believe them. They aggregate. (Score:3, Insightful)
1. We'll delete your personal information.
Eh. I'm inclined to believe that, given how datacenter space ain't free and user data is a bit of a liability, they're happy to dump your data after a month or two. If they haven't aggregated it and sold it off to another company by then, they probably never will.
I think this is simply marketing spin on a sensible business decision: namely, someone realized they were getting everything they needed within hours or days.
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Which pretty much makes whatever point it was that I was trying to make. The reality is that once information has been recorded somewhere, if it's valuable then someone, somewhere, will try to keep it. That's because personal information is valuable
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Such information is far more valuable to corporations than it is to the government (alien spec-ops aside) so if you think the government may be snooping on your private data, then it has to be a complete certainty that companies like Google are!
Although I doubt
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Yeah, but she looked a lot older.
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Publicly available Privacy Policy must be complied with. Otherwise, they're just nothing but a bunch of criminals. Yes, laws enforce Privacy Policies (at least here in the EU -- don't know about US).
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No, but it is naive to think that Google managers want to abide by the laws?
There's a big difference between the two beliefs.
And note that Google managers, like any organization's managers, aren't a lock-step, unanimous group. It's quite likely that most of them are honest and law-abiding. But it only takes one.
The prudent approach would be to expect that some of them will do anything with their data that's technically possible. Expec
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No it doesn't. You clearly don't know anything about big corporations, nota bene public ones and closely watched ones, such as Google. Ever heard of internal security audits? Managers watching over subordinate managers? Data flow control? If one manager dared to not comply with the laws, he would sooner or later be found, fired and handed over to a Law Enforcement agency. If you think that Google would dare to violate laws at this point, you are the one who's naive. It would pretty muc
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If that were true, explain Enron to me. Worldcom. Adelphia. Global Crossing. Yes, the eventually got found out, but only after the damage was done!
You clearly don't know anything about big corporations. I can assure you that sooner or later that "one manager" will fail to comply with the law, either out of ignorance or for personal gain. That's the way it is: people ar
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You should have stopped after the part "Yes, the eventually got found out". I didn't have to read any further.
If you believe that Google would risk their reputation even though the likelihood of their being found to be criminals(!) is substantial, then you're naive. I say go ahead and risk it, I can't wait to see the Google empire fall down as Enron.
Completely bogus (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: bogosity (Score:1, Informative)
Pick your engine and don't give them the information in the first place [blackboxsearch.com].
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Over the years, there have been a number of stories about organizations (companies, government agencies, etc.) that complied with court orders, laws, etc., and deleted data - after first making several backup copies.
There's also the ongoing story of all the people who are surprised (often in court) by the stuff they thought deleted that turned out to be backed up. It's especially funny when politicians are surprised to l
you know this kind of reminds me of (Score:4, Interesting)
I sure as hell don't want ALL of my searches available to anyone...
Re:you know this kind of reminds me of (Score:5, Funny)
Cnet, phonescoop, slashdot, angelfire, ebay, livejournal, boston.com, viewscore, silverscreeninfo, aolmobile, chicagotribune, sympatico-msn.ca,
And I only looked at the first 3 pages!
http://www.google.ca/search?q=wamerocity&hl=en&cl
And yes, I know. I'm there too.
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P.S. (only # 6 is really me
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p.s. It's "Hear! Hear!" by the way.
Also, my results show only a couple of good hits, but that's what I get for choosing such a wacky username. [wikipedia.org]
I've never been to Ubi.com, those aren't my flickr photos, and I most certainly do not have a Level 70 Human Warlock.
Furthermore, my real name yields only 4 search results belonging to someone else who was attempting to research their own geneology. Neat.
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I know that response was totally uncalled for but I was in that kind of mood
Thanks for being kind with your answer.
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Damn, I even know your phone number. (Unknown Caller)
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It would be possible to work out who I really was just from that information, but it is probably difficult.
I use a different name everywhere else on the web, mostly common names or phrases. I don't sign into search, and I don't save my search preferences. I auto-delete cookies, and have JavaScript disabled (NoScript) on most places.
Of cou
Privacy really a winner? I smell damage control... (Score:4, Insightful)
No one is going to give up personal information thats worth billions of dollars in terms of market research and increasing profits for many industries.
What is marketable? (Score:1)
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The truth is businesses will never be totally transparent, it will be akin to what wal-mart does, they are so big and widespread they can get away with selling knock-off merchandise simply because it's time consuming to track down every story that is doing it and then bring a lawsuit aginst them, ensuring that only big companies with a vested interest in deterring knock offs will bring the lawsuits.
It's
Re:Privacy really a winner? I smell damage control (Score:2)
At present the emerging profit center is truly personal data, emails and documents and spreadsheets. Users are putting all these on free services like Google with a thought of what how it will be used. Search data is small potatoes in comparison.
In fact if someone like MS, with money to spend and no need to make an immediate profit, deve
Well, sort of... (Score:2, Interesting)
It looks like the most privacy-friendly, hands-down, is ask.com with their opt-in "ask eraser". A distant second is aol.com. But both of them share their data with Google, which appears to have the worst policy.
Everybody seems to hang onto most everything for more than a year; better than forever I guess, but a pretty big window for, say, subpoenas.
The google. (Score:3, Funny)
You call that a win? (Score:1)
The fact is, we see something we don't like, we complain, and we induce a reactionary response. Reactionary responses are always deficient; They either reach too far or not far enough, and they're always after-the-fact.
Tag request (Score:2)
What utter rubbish (Score:2)
interesting (Score:1)
I also use the customize google firefox plugin to keep my secrets from google.
News to me (Score:1)
scroogle? (Score:1)
or
http://hidemyass.com/ [hidemyass.com] -> google.com
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I'm sure they will delete your private info (Score:1)
- no sig, really!
I'm skeptical... (Score:2)
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There's a search engine war? (Score:3, Insightful)
The myth continues (Score:1)
Privacy is emerging as the real winner of the Internet search engine war as companies aggressively compete with one another by offering stronger protections for user records
No, no, no, no. Please don't propagate this myth. Seriously. Data Privacy is NOT Data Protection. That's corporate bull-crap to utterly change the meaning of data privacy (and, likewise, privacy). As Roger Clarke points out [anu.edu.au]:
We don't trust each other (Score:3)
COTSE on Slashdot (Score:1)
Cotse.Net Privacy Service [cotse.net]
Take that mods! Btw, this is where you mod me down for being off-topic or otherwise a bad
Sure, they'll do it... (Score:1)