Google Watching You

[N.O.R.F]

Google Watching You

 

CAIRO — Internet search giant Google is building the most comprehensive database of personal information, a step that sparked fears of an online Big Brother society, The Independent reported on Thursday, May 24.

"The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job shall I take?'" said Google's Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, unveiling the new plan.

 

The information users seek and their physical location will be collated and used for lucrative personalized advertising.

 

Company chiefs believe gathering more facts about users is a logical step to organize the world's information.

 

"We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms [software] will get better and we will get better at personalization," Schmidt told a conference in London this week.

 

The company recently started its mission by launching iGoogle, which allows users to personalize their own Google search page and publish their own content.

 

Another service, launched two years ago, allows users to give Google permission to store their web-surfing history - what they have searched for and clicked on - and use this to create more personalized search results for them.

 

Set up in 1996 by two students at the US University of Stanford, Google is the world's leading search engine, taking billions of requests in 100 languages.

 

As well as the standard search, it offers an e-mail service and last year it bought the popular video-sharing site YouTube for £884million.

 

The name comes from a misspelling of the word "googol" which refers to the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

 

The verb "to google" - meaning to search on line - was added to the Oxford English Dictionary last year.

 

Privacy

 

Google argues that its ambitious plan should not raise privacy concerns.

 

"This is about personalized searches, where our goal is to use information to provide the best possible search for the user," said its privacy counsel Peter Fleischer.

 

"If the user doesn't want information held by us, then that's fine. We are not trying to build a giant library of personalized information."

 

However, privacy protection experts fear that governments can compel search engines and internet service providers to surrender information.

 

"The danger here is that it doesn't matter what search engines say their policy is because it can be overridden by national laws," one expert told The Independent.

 

Google has also raised concerns when it proposed $3.1bn acquisition of DoubleClick Company.

 

Fears have been stoked by the potential for Google to build up a detailed picture of someone's behavior by combining its records of web searches with the information from DoubleClick's "cookies", the software it places on users' machines to track which sites they visit.

 

The Article 29 Working Group, a body representing Europe's data protection watchdogs, has already written to Google requesting more information about its information retention policy.

 

Ross Anderson, chairman of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, said that Google will make it impossible for internet users to protect their privacy.

 

"A lot of people are upset by some of this," added the professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge University.

 

"Why should an angst-ridden teenager who subscribes to MySpace have their information dragged up 30 years later when they go for a job as say editor of the Financial Times?"

 

"The precise type and size of this problem is yet to be determined and will change as Google's business changes."

 

islamonline.net

[Jacaylbaro]

can i ask: What kind of women i will marry ??

[N.O.R.F]

LoL, you can access the records of your child's future potential husband/wife when they come to ask or before you go to ask

 

Google :cool:

[Valenteenah.]

How scary is that?

[Jacaylbaro]

not that scary ,,,,,,

 

so i can get the info of anyone in case i need to get to know about someone ,,,, Interesting ! ! ! !

[Malika]

^^^why dont you just ask them? or better get to know them..

[Jacaylbaro]

As long as it is based on the information you inter before hand ,,, what is the benefit of someone writing his info in Google ???

[hodman]

google is outgrowing itself

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

Castro's topic here about Google Trends is shocking to say the least. I am sure Saudi Arabia has taken drastic steps to "block" some keyword searches as their rank for the keyword "gay sex" dropped to number 8 now. Whatever you heard about Arabs, google seems to "validate" it somehow.

 

May Allah protect the birth place of the Prophet SAW.