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Google - watch

Chakuwi | 12.10.2003 23:57

Google- watch

a site looking into the worry implications of Googles near monopoly of web search engines

Take a look at this

 http://google-watch.org


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, and yes, it reads your cookie too. 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 connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.

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 200 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.





Chakuwi

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

GOOGLE is still cool

13.10.2003 06:08

Eveything above is written from an ignorant outlook on how the internet works and what is the WWW is all about. Another worrying possibility is it was written to appeal to those who are unaware of how the internet/WWW works and are susceptible to scare stories without any basis.

Using 'Expolrer' : Assuming this is Internet Explorer from a certain Microsoft Corp. then the only question regardign privacy should be 'why use MIcrosoft products? their track record is not taken into consideration?'

'Webmasters' not geting replied from Google: Proof? Examples?

If one does not want their data, those that are publicly published or even their IP addresses then it should be their responsibility to understand how open the Internet is and how its iternals work.
If there are issues like 'peristent Cookies' then good folk should get together (there are already few capable rallying points. Eg: EFF). Judging by the apathy shown to other much more important issues it must be fair to say this 'persistent cookie' issue is minor and could easily avoided by not accepting Cookies. Google search services still work when Cookies are rejected.

Gringo


Google is handy

13.10.2003 16:53

Google is handy rather than cool. Who still uses cluttered pages like Yahoo to search for stuff? I haven't even looked at it in a few years. But Google's main srch page is just 2 graphics and a text box - visually great.

However, the finest sites i've been referred to are ones that have been posted on IMC or similar sites.

Gringo's point about cookies is important: My copy of M$ Internet Exploiter is set to 'ask' before accepting any cookie.

And Google works fine with it's cookies on 'reject'

And I use iCab which has an option to delete any cookies you tag, at the end of a session - so you don't have to remember to manually delete them but sites which insist upon cookies operate correctly for that session - and then iCab asks again if you want to accept cookies next time you go to that site.

IP and geography - as I understand it, part of your IP address indicates in which country your computer is connected to the internet. This meant it was possible to prevent users outside the USA from downloading Pretty Good Privacy a few years ago - although I guess you could have spent out on an international call and dialled into a ISP located in the USA and thus get viable IP address if you really needed.

bobby


Think a little.

15.10.2003 01:25

Why not just turn your cookies off?
Surf with Mozilla?
Preferences? Christ man have you even seen their "Preferences"?? They are pretty much worthless!
How 'bout not setting your "Preferences"?
Surf with Firebird?
microsnot isn't the only company that makes "Web surfers" ya know.

dude


A site that comes up if you search for "Google Watch"

10.01.2004 21:31

I did as the web site suggested and put "Google Watch" into the Google search bar, and I came up with this even more interesting site:

google-watch-watch.org

Apparently Daniel Brandt is not entirely without motivation to be mad at Google. It seems that he's resentful of the fact that a page he made (albeit a bad page) about Donald Rumsfeld failed to get a high Google page rank, and now he's all pissed off about it.

Eric