GOOGLE...Is This Story True???
 

From IndyMedia
10-13-3

Google-Watch.org - a site looking into the worry implications of
Google's 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.

http://google-watch.org
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/10/278746.html

I love google :thumbsup

That's bad.

Let me close my google toolbar.

Will they see me typing this and put my site on a blacklist? :disgust

Yes, 100% true and this information is about 2 years old. :thumbsup

Thanks to Google I make thousands of dollars a month sitting around watching Mr. Ed while you people are submitting your lame TGP galleries.

Boo fucking hoo!

A search engine that uses your IP, search term, and date and time?!?!?

OH MY LORD! Why would an internet search engine need your IP #, the term you're searching for, and keep track of something so incredibly personal as the date and time?

How? You have a good page ranking or your buy their advertising?

Bullshit...

Great, now there is going to be a paranoid anti-google backlash in the same way there is an anti-microsoft backlash.

:mad:

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

:sleep

google makes my life easier despite what was writtten :thumbsup

And some of us make 10's of thousands :321GFY

i flush my cookies from my browser all the time. i'm no geek - are there such things as permanent cookies that I can't get rid of somehow?

Fatpad it is very scary - they have your IP number which is just one short step away from revealing your identity. You could be doing research into child pornography, tracking down a child pornographer and using Google to do it - but the data won't show that, all it will show is you looking for and visiting child porn websites.

:waaaaahh ............................................. :sleep

The power of a Whois check. :thumbsup

hehe...

the other googleguy

google-watch is hysterical, in more than one sense.

i'm going to register google-watch-watch

Couldn't agree more :)
WG

who cares if google installs cookies, records what i search, and updated their toolbar automatically... how the fuck could that hurt me?

I can't believe giving your IP # to a website is suddenly cause for alarm.

Every website you visit gets your IP #. It's how the web works. People who don't want to give their IP # to sites, won't be having a very enjoyable experience on the internet since their browser will never receive any webpages.

GFY has a cookie on my machine, and I'm sure they have my IP #. They could probably recreate my entire day on GFY if they wanted. Heck, they could probably get a list of every thread I read this week if they wanted, and see all the searches I did.

btw, the data will not show you were visiting child porn sites. It will show you did a search for something child porn related. People shouldn't be visiting child porn sites anyways.

I drive around in a car with a license plate on it. Anyone standing on the side of the road can write it down, not just people I interact with. It's one step from revealing who I am, yet I and millions of other people continue driving our cars.

This site is nothing but paranoid crap written by nutjobs who see scary stuff everywhere they look.

Spyware sucks.... BUT, in google's case I'll live with it. Most spyware's sole purpose is gather information so they can spam you with ads and popups that you probably don't even want. Google's collection of information makes it easier for me to find what I'm looking for. Big Difference.

If you're so concerned about tracking, use Mozilla and set the option to force all cookies to be temporary.

This is so fucking dumb..

Hello.. newbs! You can disable cookies if it sounds so sinister. In Opera, you can enable/disable cookies for specific domains if you like.

Use a fucking proxy if you don't want them to know your real IP address.

BFD. If you're scared that someday someone is going to come knocking on your door and bust you for searching for '+gerbils +anal', see the above two points. Most of us don't really care that Google knows we searched for '+Solaris +FAQ' or even '+internext +pictures'.

You never know what you might need or when you might need it. I have email going back to 1996, for no particular reason what so ever.

Oooohh.. SPOOKY!

BFD. People have to manually install the toolbar in the first place. You don't want the tracking, don't install it. Simple enough.

I'm wondering it can be considered "fair-use". If not, they can still keep it for internal purposes. They only put it in there to keep people from cheating.

I think there is a legitimate concern that Google may become "too" powerful, just as there's a concern that Walmart is becoming too big of an influence on marketing, but I'm not really sure what can be done about it.

Bottom line is, if you've got privacy concers, you've got tools to defend yourself. Most people (rightfully) don't give a shit.

What he said

:thumbsup

i for one dont give a shit, this fuck is full of bullcrap. if were'nt for google, i wouldn't be here :winkwink:

Who cares - It'll all be tracked in logs anyway! Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they keep all their web logs - :1orglaugh Considering they have the 2 decades of newsgroups. What's weblogs for 6 yrs!

jDoG

:1orglaugh

I don't see how they can say their 'near monopoly'...

There are plenty of search engines out there, and anyone can start more if they want..

Just because Google is popular doesn't mean there's any kind of monopoly..

If the other big boy s.e.'s would get rid of all of the bullshit ads on their search page, more people might use them..

When people want to search, they just need a search box.. not lots of unnecessary nonsense.. But I guess they can't see beyond their 'more is better' mentality to see why Google is so popular..

LOL! That is fine I will keep submitting my lame TGP galleries and you keep doing what you're doing. BTW what happens when google changes something drastic? Won't all your traffic go kaboom? I don't live my life dependant on a search engine, way too chancey for my liking. Diveristy is the key :)

DH

Greg must not be getting good google listings.

Google pays my rent.

that is the correct answer.

:Graucho

yes its true