most of their systems, allow for an opt out, or a history clear.

urchin tracker is an odd one though, that might be the Achilles' heel, though the irony is I used google to look up how Achilles was spelt :)

And of course they do keep the search terms, it is not so much private personal data, it is being privy to all the macro data, at any given time google has a fair impression what most people are thinking overall.

Sure, most of us could guess the big topics, but they can see many more than nearly any company on the planet, this is echelon and an early warning system all out there in the open. Respect to them, nice search engine, most of their projects are cool, and they use technology well, but the temptation for them to do evil must be huge.

I wonder what their internal data access setups are like, perhaps no one person or group owns the keys to all the data, but who knows could be like the San Francisco drama, there could be a few god key keepers wandering the corridors.

Man Joseph you really care about privacy!

Never really understood the big deal. If google know my searching habits then they can give me better ads, that seems to be a plus to me?

The analytics script has always been the one that worries me with regard to data collection. Yet not a word about this.

As long as Google continues with its stance of 'does not correlate data regarding use across our products to offer advertising' I will rest a little easier.

For the rest, it is interesting that Google feels a need to obfuscate the unique cookie ID which could identify an individual. Will other users of unique cookie IDs follow suit?

They need to sort out (be forced by EU law?) their uber-cookie.

Now instead of expiring in 30 odd years it will expire a year after you stop using Google. Which for most people will be when the company folds. In which case you can guarantee they will sell and give out all the information before they have a chance to destroy it.

So in effect what they've done is made a cookie that never expires. Meanwhile, half of the computer users out there don't even know what a temporary cookie is, or the fact that Google saves everything they type in.

Also, it is not clear when using many sites internal search engines, that the enquiry goes through Google.

Lets face it, if Viacom got that ridiculous amount of information from Youtube then I don't see Google holding out much longer from other companies or governments. They might as well hand it over. Why did millions of pieces of irrelevant, private data concerning innocent people have to get passed on ???

If they wanted to know how many more people watched illegal videos versus legal ones, the total viewing number alone would be enough.

They are collecting too much information anyhow, without making it clear. Millions of people are using sites every day, 'agreeing' to terms and conditions they cannot see, let alone agree to. The information is being collected automatically without informing the user. Very personal information. Even if you do find a privacy policy or terms of use, it's likely to be extremely vague, and will undoubtably contain the phrase "we at _____ take your privacy VERY seriously" but it doesn't even matter because by then it's too late, and you either agree to the ridiculously invasive T+C and uber disclaimers on every site, or you basically do not go online at all.

The sites need regulated in regards to privacy and data collection.

https://ssl.scroogle.org/

The "Customise Google" FF extension also has a very nice checkbox in the options: 'anonymize Google cookie.'

I don't think they're out to get me - I'm just prepared in case they change their mind. (",)

I like to load www.ask.co.uk as my default homepage as I feel it helps stop Google being the only search engine. You could do similar and use Yahoo or someone like that. Ask is similar to Google in that the front page does not take an hour and a half to load so it is a good homepage. I normally use google but set Ask as my homepage and load that every time I open my browser.

I don't want privacy issues to have an impact on my life but I feel this applies just as much in respect of going out of my way to avoid handing over details as it does with my data being handed over without my control.

This is really about the government taking control of the Internet.

RE- perhaps the EU should regulate... why do you think ISP's and other Internet organisations go to all the trouble of collecting your data in the first place? Are they trying to run a profit making company and is it free for them to collect and store your data and to buy and write and manage all of the software and to run all the datacentres required to support all of this data collection... I think not... so I conclude that the snooping is a result of regulation and is not going to be solved by additional regulation unless that regulation simply says that no data collecting facilities may exist anywhere on the Internet and that the only data collected must be handed over by the individual at the time of entry and with the users knowledge and consent. That will never happen.

I don't support the idea of 'nothing to hide, so why not' - mistakes will happen. You will be locked up for a crime you did not commit. You will lose your job, your wife, your home and your children while men from the Government probe your life looking for evidence to bang you up. If you are detained without notice and without charge then this scenario is entirely possible. If you really have nothing to hide then it will be assumed that you are trying to hide something and that you have deliberately covered your tracks. It will take them longer to investigate.

... of our privacy practices are three fundamentals: providing transparency, choice, and security."

Nu labouriouspeak is contagious.

> I think the Phorm Model of Future Supply based upon Virtual dDeep Packet Inspection XXXXtrapolation is the Better Beta Model, At least then, Customers/Societies would be more Likely to Get what they want rather than what somebody else, and an unknown IDEntity to Boot, wants to give them.

Antennae up for Phorm then. But what do Them want? Choice is not permitted - only the illusion of choice from a hyperreal dropdown selection list. But were it not so, what a funny way it would be to provide Them with what they want - two subterfuges in cascade to arrive at the truth (Phorm and The Lie). Function composition involving functions with opposing side-effects is of course equivalent to redundancy. But double negation is not always equivalent to assertion in every logical system. Take your pick.

Sitting on an open plan loo in the courtyard of four blocks of flats gives more privacy than the Phorm's BT / DPI / WebWise interception of our data.

"Nu labouriouspeak is contagious."

"Antennae up for Phorm then. But what do Them want? Choice is not permitted - only the illusion of choice from a hyperreal dropdown selection list. But were it not so, what a funny way it would be to provide Them with what they want - two subterfuges in cascade to arrive at the truth (Phorm and The Lie). Function composition involving functions with opposing side-effects is of course equivalent to redundancy. But double negation is not always equivalent to assertion in every logical system. Take your pick."

So is amanfromMarsspeak.

You confuse style and substance - a nu laborious win.

I used to have a couple of piss-poor blogs on blogger.com. I let them go dormant for a long while. When I went to update them, discovered they had been assimilated into Google & I had to set up a Google account to "reclaim" them.

I did so, "reclaimed", then immediately deleted the blogs, deleted the account, and made sure my browsers don't accept Google cookies.

So much for their users trusting them. At least *this* user.

"You confuse style and substance - a nu laborious win."

And you confuse buzzword-laden bollocks for a coherent argument.