Sphinn - The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google's User Data Collection

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The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google's User Data Collection

Went Hot: June 25, 2008 - 11:46 am
Posted By: 140Local 376 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.seomoz.org)
Category: Google

No company should have this much information on it's customers. This is a comprehensive list on what the Big G is collecting on you... Most of this stuff you already know they are tracking, but it is amazing to see the amount of data that Google is collecting on each one of us. Amazing post, and raises the question of what happens when governments start demanding this information? It is be bad enough to have Google with this much data, but unthinkable that any government could potentially get this much data.

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from sharingmatters 375 days ago #

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What a research!!!

from g1smd 375 days ago #

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I have to wonder if this amount of data being stored is actually legal under existing UK Data Protection laws.

from shocs 374 days ago #

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Damn, this is the dark side of Google :)!

from brian 374 days ago #

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I like the whole spectrum of comments to that post, especially the responses.

from johnandrews 374 days ago #

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There is missing detail regarding the existing connections between Google and NASA for data processing, and NASA and Homeland Security for eavesdropping/advance researching. The privacy concerns of Google employees at the "individual level" are not relevant when the big picture includes Google and high level government collaborating.

An example from years ago is the "ID at a distance" initiative. Research to find a way to impart intent upon an individual on the street, from a distance, based on automated analysis of movement (gait, behavior). The remote camera decides if you are "suspicious", i.e. worthy of additional scrutiny, based on your appearance profile.

Now start mixing in Google's data with psychological profiling... study voices of people who search X and Y vs those who search Z for example... it is mind boggling that so much valuable information will be held within an entity in power, while unavailable to "everyone else".

When they start successfully reading your mind, you'll never suspect a thing.

from g1smd 372 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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I'd like to say that a Tin Foil Hat would protect you, but technical advances probably make that untrue by now.