BIG BROTHER
Given Blunkett's ' one way' extradition treaty with the U.S and the British police hauling us off the roads and ransacking our posessions in search of ' offensive words' is any form of investigation likely to be shortly classed as subversive ?
If so, many of us could yet still be getting that free holiday of a lifetime in Cuba.
George Bush;
"Hey Tony, I've seen some very naughty Englishers have been using Google to look into some of our clandestine (big word for George) behaviour that we REALLY wouldn't want the world to know about....."
Tony Blair;
"Calm down George, you know very well we have rushed through legislation which will allow you to come and clean them up off our streets without bothering with the British Judiciary.......just come and get 'em. There's nothin' they can do about it, our good friend David Blunkett has taken care of any worries we may have had".
Big Brother is Google
http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html
That's why we nominated Google for a Big Brother award in 2003. The
nine points we raised in connection with this nomination necessarily
focused on privacy issues. By the time the 2004 nominations are
open, we hope that this list will be shorter rather than longer. But
don't count on it.
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.
If so, many of us could yet still be getting that free holiday of a lifetime in Cuba.
George Bush;
"Hey Tony, I've seen some very naughty Englishers have been using Google to look into some of our clandestine (big word for George) behaviour that we REALLY wouldn't want the world to know about....."
Tony Blair;
"Calm down George, you know very well we have rushed through legislation which will allow you to come and clean them up off our streets without bothering with the British Judiciary.......just come and get 'em. There's nothin' they can do about it, our good friend David Blunkett has taken care of any worries we may have had".
Big Brother is Google
http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html
That's why we nominated Google for a Big Brother award in 2003. The
nine points we raised in connection with this nomination necessarily
focused on privacy issues. By the time the 2004 nominations are
open, we hope that this list will be shorter rather than longer. But
don't count on it.
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.