Comments on: On Google, Microsoft and Trust http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2004/12/15/on-google-microsoft-and-trust/ because technology is just another ecosystem Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:02:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Daniel Brandt http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2004/12/15/on-google-microsoft-and-trust/comment-page-1/#comment-204 Daniel Brandt Mon, 27 Dec 2004 21:12:53 +0000 http://redmonk.com/sogrady/wp/?p=228#comment-204 Nowhere in the press have any librarians or academics expressed concerns about privacy issues connected with this library project. Google has the capacity, the history, and the intention of tracking the browsing habits of anyone and everyone who visits any of their sites. Since its inception, Google has used a cookie with a unique ID in it that expires in 2038. They record this ID, along with the IP address, the search terms, and a time/date stamp, for everyone who searches at Google. To make matters worse, Google never comments on their relations with officials in the dozens of countries where they operate. Moreover, they can be very misleading about this tracking. When Gmail was launched last April, a Google vice-president initially claimed that there would be an information firewall between Gmail and Google's tracking on their main index search. Within three months, however, after the press interest receded, Google revised their main privacy policy to comply with a new California law. In it they confessed that a single cookie is used across all of their various services, and all information is shared between them. ( see http://www.google-watch.org/gcook.html ) I am asking the American Library Association to address the issue of privacy in cases where search engine digitization projects are proposed to libraries. Beth Givens from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Pam Dixon from the World Privacy Forum, and Chris Hoofnagle from EPIC are helping me with this. Here is a letter I wrote to Mitch Freedman: http://www.google-watch.org/appeal.html If you can help us get the word out on this issue, it would be much appreciated. Nowhere in the press have any librarians or academics expressed concerns about privacy issues connected with this library project. Google has the capacity, the history, and the intention of tracking the browsing habits of anyone and everyone who visits any of their sites. Since its inception, Google has used a cookie with a unique ID in it that expires in 2038. They record this ID, along with the IP address, the search terms, and a time/date stamp, for everyone who searches at Google. To make matters worse, Google never comments on their relations with officials in the dozens of countries where they operate.

Moreover, they can be very misleading about this tracking. When Gmail was launched last April, a Google vice-president initially claimed that there would be an information firewall between Gmail and Google’s tracking on their main index search. Within three months, however, after the press interest receded, Google revised their main privacy policy to comply with a new California law. In it they confessed that a single cookie is used across all of their various services, and all information is shared between them. ( see http://www.google-watch.org/gcook.html )

I am asking the American Library Association to address the issue of privacy in cases where search engine digitization projects are proposed to libraries. Beth Givens from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Pam Dixon from the World Privacy Forum, and Chris Hoofnagle from EPIC are helping me with this. Here is a letter I wrote to Mitch Freedman: http://www.google-watch.org/appeal.html

If you can help us get the word out on this issue, it would be much appreciated.

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