New York Times Feb 14 2003 11:52PM ET [Moreover - Top stories]

This short listing of the major trouble points in Google's operation and philosophy is something everyone concerned about web identity should read. Here are the highlights:

1. Google's immortal cookie:
2. Google records everything they can:
3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
4. Google won't say why they need this data:
5. Google hires spooks:
6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
8. Google is not your friend:
9. Google is a privacy time bomb:

There's more detail in the article to explain why each of these points is a problem. Although you can, eventually, get items removed from Google, their self-help mechanisms for doing so often don't work. The instructions for removal aren't easy to find on Google's site, and when you try something that doesn't work it does take several weeks for them to answer e-mail. If you view source on this (or any other) page of my site you'll see I use the NOARCHIVE meta tag. I also make agressive use of robots.txt files on my sites. In addition, I run all my browsers through a local proxy that helps to filter and obfuscate cookie handling of the sort described here. It's a lot of trouble to go through, more than I imagine most people will tolerate. But Google does some seriously scary things, and I think it's time to start fighting back.

google big brother. Interesting article regarding google's potential big brother role. Is it time to switch to another search engine?
[Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

[b.cognosco]

President Bush said again the battle against terrorism and the potential showdown in Iraq are part of the same campaign. By David Stout. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Guardian Unlimited Feb 14 2003 11:56AM ET [Moreover - Top stories]

Mike Bedan (Home):
This is Test # 10...