nytimes.com — When people search the Internet in their homes, it feels like a private activity. But as AOL reminded the world this month, that is not the case. The storing and sharing of data of this kind is a violation of users’ privacy rights. Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and the companies involved should do more to protect these rights.
Aug 21, 2006 View in Crawl 4
eth3lAug 21, 2006
Yeah, I actually totally agree that the information is nto considered private just becasue users *think* its a privater search.Searching on a search engine could not be more public. In order to access the engine you have to have an IP address, which is broadcast to the engine, and then submit information to a thrid party not covered by a privilege (like a doctor or lawyer).Rather than make it private, educate users
macgyver2210Aug 21, 2006
if you can't infer this from past actions, and the fact that GOOGLE even admits they keep search records, you have no business searching teh intarweb.
bbatsellAug 21, 2006
From the article:"When people talk on the phone, they assume that the words they utter will disappear when the call is over. They certainly do not expect that their phone company is recording and storing the words, to mine for commercial purposes or to sell to other companies. People have the same expectation about the Internet searches they do: when the search is over, the words they used will disappear.But that is not how search engine companies are treating the data. Google and other companies store search information indefinitely, and once the data is stored it can easily get out. The companies may sell it to third parties. They may be forced to hand it over in response to a subpoena. Or employees at the companies can leak the information."That is such a fallacious analogy I don't know where to begin. But here's the basic reason:I pay for my phone service. I don't pay a dime to Google for their service, and their service costs millions upon millions of dollars to implement.
catalystghostAug 21, 2006
I think what really needs to happen is that the government needs to get their noses out of the internet. One government doesn't rule it all. If they set up a huge, world-wide group consisting of every nation with access to the web, then they can regulate it. Until they do, they can not regulate it, because of the fact that everyone is from different countries, with different laws. Sure, you have to pay a price for ultimate freedom, such as the problems with security (pedophiles, etc.), but if people would become more educated about the internet, and stop being such dumbasses about it who think it's completely threat free, then we don't have to worry about the pedos, the hackers, the spyware-mongers, etc. There doesn't need to be government involvement in the internet, and it should be limited to private companies only. Everyone controls their own region of the internet, and let's keep it that way.
oxyrubberAug 21, 2006
While I don't completely agree with onlyalad, I do agree that everyone should expect that a search engine would be able to disclose your past searches using: (1) your ip address, and (2) (optionally) a cookie from your browser if they had to. I would personally like to see search engines state that they will only allow this information to disseminate outside their search engine department as required by law. I heard (through word-of-mouth) that the AOL CTO was fired after the AOL user search query scandal; hopefully this sets a strong precident against those who would try to do the same thing in the future.I don't want the government to run blanket searches looking for anything they want, but I would assume (and hope) that all legitimate and warrant-ed investigations would be able to tie back to a user (provided the investigators have access to: your IP address(es), your search engine cookie string, and/or your ISP's IP-user-time tables.I guess the only question is how long search engines should be required to keep or dispose of records. Using the ISP-requirements as a model, they would have to keep records available for X years after the search. Using a more privacy-centric approach, they would have to dispose of the logs/records soon after the search occurred.I anticipate that the US Congress will rear its less-than-sufficiently-knowledgeable(sp?) head where it doesn't belong (remember "it's made up of tubes/pipes") and set regulations either to require SEs to keep or to destroy user search records for some semi-arbitrary period of time. IMHO, I believe that search engines will likely store the data for a very long period of time to save their necks from "obstructing justice/destorying evidence"charges until there is some form of legislation put on paper defining the rights and requirements of search engines and their responsilities to helping prosecute cases against their users.Unfortunately, I haven't trusted the US Congress to make wise and insightful legislation since at least the DCMA was passed.
drunkenpirate34Aug 21, 2006
I think google should be able to keep the terms that people searched for, but they cannot keep the IP's that they came from. That way Google can keep the terms for research/etc.They should be able to keep their region and browser used to navigate there as well. Just not any personal data. IP's, account information, etc.
dvwsAug 22, 2006
That's exactly right, that info might be safe today, but we don't know what the future will hold. Also, google has a lot more than just search data, think about gmail, google desktop, google talk, google check out, and google personalized home page. When you put it all together its a lot more than just the standard search data indexed by IP address. They can also cross reference that data with your personal emails, IM conversations, consumer habits, and files on your hard drive. It's amazing to me that so many people would put all their eggs in one basket and put so much trust in a gigantic corporate entity, just because the companies corporate slogan is "Don't be evil"
acceptab1eunameAug 22, 2006
Dear Congress,Please keep your legislative fingers OFF the internet.Thanks!