arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google since January 2000, used to work for the National Security Agency and has a top-secret clearance. Google would like to hire more like him. Can you trust Google with a database of all the search terms you've ever used?

That's why we [yearzero magazine] nominated Google for a Big Brother award in 2003. The nine points we raised in connection with this nomination necessarily focused on privacy issues.
1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.

2. Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."

3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.

4. Google won't say why they need this data:
Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.

5. Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.

6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf. Yes, it reads your cookie too, and sends along the last search terms you used in the toolbar. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you phone home. Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google.

7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."

8. Google is not your friend:
Young, stupid script kiddies and many bloggers still think Google is "way kool," so by now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. No webmaster can avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming he wants to increase traffic to his site. If he tries to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, he may find himself penalized by Google, and his traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time they don't even answer email from webmasters.

9. Google is a privacy time bomb:
With 150 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.

December 11, 2000
"Google's new toolbar extension may give Web surfers the feeling they're being watched."

"Google acknowledged that the toolbar created unique files and said people should trust that the company will maintain its policy of keeping those files anonymous."

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-249711.html?legacy=cnet&tag=st.ne.1002.tgif.ni

N.S.A. top five :-)
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http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&q=NSA+bush+nazi&spell=1

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=NSA+Carlyle

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=NSA+prescott+bush

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=NSA+homeland+of+security

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=NSA+Iraq

Remember this?

"The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input.

The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations 'particularly directed at... UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)' to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq.

The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York - the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France, China and Russia."
http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html

try this : put your name in googles search engine and you get all the letters you ever send to the mailing lists of indymedia!!! Is this the fault of indymedia or is google the big brother?

I send a lot of mails to the lists. They don't appear all when I put my name or emailaccount in Google.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=guido+indymedia

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q= href="mailto:pannekoekrobert@hotmail.com">pannekoekrobert@hotmail.com&btnG=Google+Search

1. Google's immortal cookie:

I don't see the problem, many website use persistent cookies. If you turn off cookies, google will still work

2. Google records everything they can:
This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."
This technology ensures that people living in Belgium will get results from Belgian sites higher in their result. I still don't see a problem.
By the way, most internet connections use dynamic IP-adresses. If you turn off cookies, google cannot know if you've been on the website before.
And, if you use the service (you don't have to), why is it a problem if your searchterms are saved.

3. Google retains all data indefinitely
I don't see the problem. It's usefull for statistics. But since google cannot know who's on the other side, they cannot break your privacy.

5. Google hires spooks:
Since google is an important website, they will need good security measures. They probably have hackers attacking the site each minute.

6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
"With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf. Yes, it reads your cookie too, and sends along the last search terms you used in the toolbar. Their privacy policy confesses this."
OK, then don't use it. Maybe use the opera-webbrowser, they have a very good seachbar, without possible privacy problems.

7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
You can discuss on this one. Ever since internet-crawlers existed, robots.txt existed. Google always followed the rules stated in it.

8. Google is not your friend:
If a website needs cheating to get higher in the google-list, I don't see why he shouldn't be punished.

9. Google is a privacy time bomb:
Really? Google doesn't know who is searching. True, one might find out that some things are searched a lot on the internet. But is that a problem for privacy?

The database company Sybase has details on their
"USA PATRIOT Act: COMPLIANCE or CONSEQUENCES" software:

http://www.sybase.com/solutions/patriotact

It is an entire package designed to automate snooping into their users' customers' lives. Among other things, it features automated notifaction of FinCEN and the FBI for suspicious transaction.