[IP] more on BAD IDEA OF THE WEEK -- Google Launches Personal History Feature

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------- Original message -------
From: Lauren Weinstein  <lauren@vortex.com>
Sent: 21/4/'05,  8:24


> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: "W.B. McNamara" <whitney@absono.us>
> Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 09:37:45 -0400 (EDT)
> To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
...
> Could you provide a little more detail on what elements you feel are a
> bad idea?  With Amazon/A9, AskJeeves, and Yahoo all offering a search
> history feature, I'd argue that Google has no choice but to offer
> something similar.

When it comes to general purpose searching, Google is the 800-pound
(or 8000-pound) gorilla.  What they do has an enormous impact on
the direction of the search engine industry.  

Google continues to rely on a "trust us" philosophy to convince the
world that the vast amount of user search data that they've
collected won't be abused.  Even if we choose to trust Google at
present (as I choose to do), their cavalier attitude in this regard
leaves them and their users vulnerable to future changes in business
philosophies (perhaps as a result of mergers), civil and criminal
probes seeking broad access to retrospective usage data, and other
potentially highly privacy-invasive outcomes.

I wrote on this briefly back in December in my blog at:

http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000108.html

I also recommend the article "Google Eyes" for a much more in-depth
look at the related issues:

http://www.fwweekly.com/issues/2005%2D02%2D02/feature.asp

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@pfir.org or lauren@vortex.com or lauren@eepi.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR 
  - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, EEPI 
  - Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative - http://www.eepi.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com



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