Google's Evils: Internet privacy and Censorship

Microsoft and Yahoo both plan to add new measures to their search engines that are support to make all search data anonymous and therefore almost useless after a certain number of months. Microsoft would erase identifying data after 18 months and Yahoo will make all search data anonymous after only 13 months.


These announcements come a month after Privacy International released a report that called Google "Hostile to privacy" for not protecting the privacy of user information.

Some people question if other search engines really do less Evil to user privacy then Google.

Despite all the personal information that Google has amassed:
Google has never leaked personal data or shared it with the government.

As a result of Microsoft;'s announcement Google said that it has also decided to make user data anonymous after 18 months.

Only Ask.com has created a service called AskEraser a search option that erases all history of Ask searches.

These announcements make me wonder; Can any of these measures really protect user information?

Can you really keep search data private?

especially after AOL released search search records of 650,000 of its users in August 2006 to the U.S. Department of Justice.

What if AOL told the the Department of Justice that they have enacted a measure to make users data anonymous and that they had no way of recovering this data? Does anyone think the federal government would ever by that excuse?

What will happen the next time (Yahoo 'helped jail China writer') China asks Yahoo for the privacy information on users that are speaking out against the government?

Do users really care if advertising companies and government agencies look at their search data?

While it may seem unnerving to some that the government can force search engines to hand over search data and personal information I think Americans have much bigger privacy concerns to deal with.

After all the press about the NSA's warrant less wiretapping program we still do not know a lot about who was targeted or what standards if any the NSA had to meet to get permission to tape someone's phone line.

The Bush administration has kept Congress from reading classified documents on the program by claiming executive privilege. So Congress recently dropped a subponea on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and President Bush.

I think that the most evil thing that Google and other search engines are doing is going along with China's attempt to censor search results.

While I believe that people will eventually find a few to get the truth through cracks in the great firewall of China taking part in censorship with keep millions in the dark.

China still believes that they can maintain their power by keeping their citizens uneducated. The Internet has made it very easy for the common person to educated himself on any subject they choose.

Google has asked U.S. trade officials to treat Internet restrictions as international trade barriers like tariffs. China is not the only country that is afraid of the power that the Internet provides.

A study released last month by the OpenNet Initiative found that 25 of 41 countries surveyed engage in Internet censorship.

Apparently the Great Chinese firewall does not extend to Google Earth. Research Hans Kristensen posted the first photo of what is believed to be a Jin-class Submarine to the Strategic Security blog on the Federation of American Scientists web site.

Since Google Earth has been around for a couple of years now it is hard for me to believe that China did not see this coming.