Why these people have the time to scour websites to make sure every single link is of legal visibility and size... Dont they have any real productive work to do?

Eh? "Google for Google's privacy policy, you've already given the company your IP address. And you won't realize that until you read the privacy policy."

If you load their home page to look for a policy link, you've already "given" them your IP address. Even if their home page IS their privay policy, you can't read it until you "give" them your IP address. If you don't realize that, their privacy policy most likely won't help you unless it has a paragraph which says "We already have your IP address and we will do whatever we want with it! Bwa Ha Ha!"

Seriously, this may be the dumbest paragraph I've ever read in the body of an article on El Reg. If it's part of the quote from Marc Rotenberg, you should put quotes around it quick.

It IS America, after all... home of the litigious and land of the deep pockets.

However, I definitely would think twice before going up against Google's lawyers. I'm pretty sure they think the law won't stand up to court scrutiny, and they're only too happy to take someone's money to test it.

Paris, because she knows where the money is.

Let's see? Google analytics, no more need for Webtrends and free.

Google maps first (first pan and zoom + satellite + street view) Show me another.

Google Earth quick trip to anywhere on earth.

web search. first and only that actually gets you what you want within a click or two. Metacrawler used to do pretty good too but the others? pretty well trash.

Document sharing and the like are pretty boring but actually work well, especially if you are in different places. And, to the point, I go there in part because their home page isn't full of crap I don't want. (Like privacy policies I won't read) Try going to yahoo some time and get beaten to death with content!

Sorry, I vote they are innovative.

-Paris because she knows what "innovative" means!

From COPA, defining "cospicuously post":

" (5) In the case of an online service, any other reasonably

accessible means of making the privacy policy available for consumers

of the online service."

I'm sure Google would argue that their search box is reasonably accessible. I'm not so sure I agree.

@Chris C:

Isn't that like packaged products where the in-the-box license states "By opening this box, you agree to this license"? By performing a search for the privacy policy, you have no way to review it and determine if you want to accept the risks or not (aside from having your IP address logged).

If that's your definition, then EVERY website with an access log (i.e, 99.999999999% of all websites) is illegal, because they all log your IP address before you have the opportunity to opt out. If COPA was really intended to include IP address logging, I'm quite sure it will be struck down as impossible to implement.

Why does this pointless piece of trash law exist in the first place? If privacy policies are so important then people won't visit the websites that don't conspicuously post them. The fact that Google is so extremely popular without having its privacy policy linked to in their home page just shows how little value this is to its customers.

Seriously, the world would be just as well off without laws regulating every menial aspect of our lives.

> google didn't invent google maps, it just pulled a microsoft

> Google bought out "KeyHole" which as I recall had a product

Keyhole's product became Google Earth, i.e. desktop app. They did not have a web version at the time.

IIRC maps were developed either in-house, or by just 2 people in Australia (can't recall if guys already worked at Google or were hired to develop maps).

.... whats their porn policy is my main concern!

... on my personalised iGoogle front page. Right next to the 'About' link.

Strange but true ;)

Nothing to see here move along.....

Seriously, do someone people have nothing better to do?

At least I got a laugh out of it, Marc Rotenberg's quote should go on an El Reg hall of fame :

"I've been teaching privacy law for twenty years, and in any of these disputes, there will always be two sides,"

ok..............

...that if you type 'google' into Google's search box you can BREAK THE INTERNET!

Where do I find the google page? (lol)

It's just that my poor brain cannot take a sentence with both "Google" and "Privacy" in it.

Now I need a pint.

Those who know that there should be a link will be well aware of google's casual attitude to our privacy*. Those that don't are either unaware of how we are tracked on the internet, or don't care. These last two groups are the vast majority, so Google will keep on getting away with their nefarious practices, in much the way Microsoft did, until the media realise what's happening (as with this article) and start publicising it. Unfortunately, since google now control our access to (or discovery of) most online information, how much good this will do is now questionable.

*Except google don't have a casual attitude to our privacy - they have a deeply ingrained interest into how to destroy it as quickly as possible under the guise of being nice, sorry, doing no evil.

http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm ftw.....

Those Californian lawyers are sharp, though. How long has Google been around now..?

My oh my oh my, the google fanbois are out in force today. Google gives away absolutely nothing for free; it's all paid for by advertising. Fanbois = clueless dolts.

What would Google do with millions of IP addresses it collects every day? Can an IP address be connected to a specific person, in households where several people are using the same computer?

The same privacy arguments have been raised against GCHQ/NSA collections. Yes they do indeed have the ample capability to collect the data but do they have the time/resources to analyse it all?

but there at the bottom of my Google home page is a privacy policy link. What's this all about then?

Grumpy Old Git

Google Privacy Policy

Last modified: October 14, 2005

At Google we recognize that privacy is..................

Seriously, what a waste of time. They have a direct link one click from the homepage and you can search for it anyway.

If users were so worried about their privacy, then the Internet wouldn't exist in the state it is.

Besides, an IP address is NOT a private piece of information, so these kids are barking up the wrong tree anyway. Your IP is owned by the ISP.

The real world, the one outside Cali, doesn't give two shits what you think is illegal.

Oh noes! I had no idea that there was advertising!@$ Now I will go die in shame!

Of course they pay for it with advertising, idiot. That's what they do; it would be impossible to do otherwise. But you don't have to give them cash up front, which makes them different from some of their competition (analytics comes to mind).

At any rate, I expect AC to stop reading the Reg, as it's funded the same way.

I will deliver your real post for free if you let me read it all.

How the Google fanbois don't realise that Google eat babies for a living. The point about the IP address is that they use it alongside other things like the Google cookies and your logins to other services like gmail in order to track absolutely everything you ever do on Google. Remember that time you searched for donkey porn - you might not remember it, but Google do, alongside a fully indexed e-mail back catalogue. They do a lot of tracking and recording of information that you probably don't expect. Try this simple experiment. Log out of your gmail account and clear cookies. Now go onto youtube and try and watch a video marked as adults only. You will get the page that requires you to log in or provide age verification. Don't enter anything. Log into gmail, and repeat the exercise. This time you just get a button to confirm age verification - it knows who you are from the gmail login. All this information is being used in a very similar way to people like Phorm, to improve advertising revenue for Google.

But now think of another scenario, someone decides you look suspicious on the tube and you get arrested for being a suspect terrorist (eg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/17/dna_purge/). Now, since you were arrested, you now have to declare this on visa applications to the US, this gets you on some low level terror watch list in the "Land of the Free"TM. An investigator uses this arrest as justification to subpoena your Google records, this shows that you once searched for the Al Qaeda manuals (eg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/30/notts_al_qaeda_manual_case/). The US find this interesting enough that they pass the information back to the UK police, who now have reasonable suspicion that you have committed an offence, and arrest you (again). They then find a copy of the manual on your hard drive, and under the new laws you go to jail for 4 years.

This might sound crazy, but there are enough precedents of these new laws being misused (old man removed from Labour party conference using terror laws for example). All you need to do is combine in some Google/law enforcement cooperation (forced by the courts if necessary) and you are basically screwed...

It's nice to live in such an Orwellian society.

Grumpy, try google, not igoogle.

My home page is set to: http://www.google.co.uk/ig (iGoogle). At the bottom of this page is a direct link to their privacy policy. It's only if I click on 'classic home' that I'm presented with the 'clean' version.

Is this really what all the fuss is about? Indeed if I really want to know what the legalese bullshit says I click on about and there it is at the bottom again. What a pointless waste of time and money to go chasing after this.

ah - the good old - "if we can't beat them, persuade some small minded toady barstool slime merchant quango to litigate on our behalf" aroma surfaces once more.

The difference here is trust. I trust Google not to use the information against me. Not something that certain competitors enjoy.

I respectfully suggest that the Californian Coalition declare their motives before launching this attack on what is, in my view beyond a shadow of a doubt, the single most trustworthy and long established source of reliable information ever made available. (except of course for www.donkeydanglybits.com)

Well, lots of white space indeed.

But I counted 15 links there (accessing from Brazil, it includes a "Go to Google Brasil", or it might have been "just" 14). What harm would another, small one cause?

<joke>You guys don't understand. Google does no evil, therefore it is implied that your privacy is safe, so why should they bother quickly telling you about such policies? </joke>

Having a misguided sense of one's own importance.

Ad Progs - BS - About - Privy

Business minions will decipher the BS part right away,

though can't vouch for the privy part being that clean...

Paris, because she always comes clean.