Google founders defend website after Big Brother claims

[Hum]

Google has tried to dismiss fears it is becoming the "Big Brother of the internet" by storing details of people's personal searches.

The founders of the world's largest search engine said that those who were worried about their privacy should be more concerned about posting photographs and personal information on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

The company was accused of breaching privacy after it emerged that it was planning to "read" customers' Google Mail emails to offer them targeted advertisements. However, Sergey Brin, 34, who with Larry Page, 35, founded the company 10 years ago, said social networking sites were the "number one privacy concern".

"There are things that end up there, especially if you are young and you are going out to parties and getting drunk and then decide to take a few pictures and put them on social networking sites," he said at Google's Zeitgeist conference in Chandler's Cross, Herts. "These things pop up and may haunt you for days, months or even years later. We go through a huge amount of effort to protect people's private data."

He said targeting customers with advertising that matches their hobbies would improve their internet experience.

source

[Knife Party]

its a good thing that i do dont post my man whoring pictures on facebook then :p

[Brian M. Veteran]

I really wish companies would stop with the "targetting ads will improve your internet experience" crap. Ads are there to make money, not improve experiences.

Granted, most websites wouldn't survive without them, however, stop trying to push them off as a "feature" or "benefit".

[BigBoy]

That's pretty cool you got to admit.

The defense here seems to be that "you can (and many are) doing things that are worse for their privacy than what we do".

Right.

And how many people do those things in comparison to using Google stuff? So - which is a bigger problem?

[C_Guy]

I really wish companies would stop with the "targetting ads will improve your internet experience" crap. Ads are there to make money, not improve experiences.

Ha ha ha ha! Yes and I wish Google would stop their "do no evil" crap. How stupid do they think we are?

So now, let me get this straight:

"The company was accused of breaching privacy after it emerged that it was planning to "read" customers' Google Mail emails to offer them targeted advertisements." and yet "{Google goes} through a huge amount of effort to protect people's private data." Interesting.

" {Google} said targeting customers with advertising that matches their hobbies would improve their internet experience profitability." Ahhhh there ya go!

[primexx]

being a privacy zealot, i personally don't see any problems with machine-targeted ads as long as they're not making a separate copy of the data (which includes identifiable record keeping). And as far as I'm aware, Gmail's system falls within these bounds.

[iconoclast]

Sadly, I'm more scared of the federal government at this point than Google, although I know the USG would just take Google's files if they wanted. I do try to throw them off with this little extension, however:

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/trackmenot/

Every few seconds it sends a random search to google, yahoo, and MSN.

A log of the past few minutes:

[sTREAM] log refreshed: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:18:03 GMT

WARN:Component returned failure code: 0x80004003 (NS_ERROR_INVALID_POINTER) [nsIIOService2.newFileURI] | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:18:03 GMT |

[ACTION] saveOptions(enabled=true,freq=12000,burst=true,cookies=false) | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:18:09 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=google | query='Anorexia' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=NaN | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:18:10 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=google | query='Iceberg' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=62.893 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:18:24 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='nfl draft' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=7.958 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:18:39 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='K-Fed' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=5.959 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:18:59 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=yahoo | query='airlines' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.778 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:19:12 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=msn | query='the constitution' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.762 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:19:25 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=yahoo | query='health' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.685 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:19:37 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=msn | query='directions' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.778 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:19:44 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='Iraq' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=5.047 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:20:03 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='espn' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.724 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:20:23 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=msn | query='southern cross' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.464 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:20:41 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='kate middleton' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.329 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:20:57 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='yoga' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.269 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:21:09 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=msn | query='limewire' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.329 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:21:19 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='most popular file sharing program ever' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.402 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:21:39 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=msn | query='lost' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.270 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:21:49 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='Learn Meditation Easily' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.348 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:22:00 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='mexico' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.405 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:22:11 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=msn | query='wellness -spyware free credit report' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.450 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:22:20 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=google | query='bone cancer' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.531 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:22:34 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=google | query='love jones' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.527 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:22:45 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=yahoo | query='neopets' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.564 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:23:04 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=google | query='golf' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.464 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:23:12 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=aol | query='Spyware' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.552 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:23:27 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=msn | query='canada' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.519 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:23:43 GMT |

[QUERY] engine=google | query='music and lyrics' | status=200 | mode=timed | qpm=4.493 | Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:23:50 GMT |

[primexx]

Sadly, I'm more scared of the federal government at this point than Google, although I know the USG would just take Google's files if they wanted. I do try to throw them off with this little extension, however:

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/trackmenot/

Every few seconds it sends a random search to google, yahoo, and MSN.

A log of the past few minutes:

...or you could just randomize the cookie ID, which seems to be a more secure way as well as less wasteful of bandwidth.

[PL_ Veteran]

The company was accused of breaching privacy after it emerged that it was planning to "read" customers' Google Mail emails to offer them targeted advertisements.

Doesn't this already happen?

[mad_onion]

yeah, they already read people's emails. it's always happened. it's surprising how little these journalists need to know about technology to wirte articles about it.

[Eoin]

The problem isn't if they read emails to offer you targeted ads, the danger is that they might store that information to build up some sort of profile about you. Werther they do that or not I really don't know.

But beside all that, if you want to keep private you shouldn't use the likes of Gmail. Find a provider who guarantees privacy, you'll probably have to pay but you can't really expect such service to be free. Or set up your own email server, it's actually very simple if you've an always on connection :)

[Osiris]

But thats the thing people dont know gmail scans their emails for advertising keywords/phrases (although it sounds alot sinister saying they "read" them). I mean I think the journalists could probably do a lil more research but realistically it still shocks people reporting about it know because the masses do not know. If anything this is probably one of the few areas where government regulation would be handy so that lilttle things like this cannot be stuffed into EULA or pages of pages of terms of conditions that you cannot expect the majority of people to read.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Search Profiling + Email Reading + medical information + satellite images of your house. Some governments would kill (and most have) to get this kind of information about you, and we all cry out when they do. Yet by some strange quirk of fate, Google can do this and no-one says a thing.

[+Ryster Subscriber²]

Google, stop trying to shift attention away from yourself... just because Facebook is a privacy risk, doesn't mean you aren't.

[Steven P. Administrators]

Thing is, people choose what they want to disclose on Facebook/MySpace. Not so on Google, and despite the claims it's very hard to "opt out" of Googles data crunch on you.

[TurboTuna]

I don't see the big thing, people CHOOSE to use googles services, and are surely more then entitled to track what a user does on THEIR website, no?

[macf13nd]

Thing is, people choose what they want to disclose on Facebook/MySpace. Not so on Google, and despite the claims it's very hard to "opt out" of Googles data crunch on you.

Surely by never using their services. Its not obligatory...!

[Angel Blue01]

That's why I only use Google search

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

I don't see the big thing, people CHOOSE to use googles services, and are surely more then entitled to track what a user does on THEIR website, no?

What about adsense? That's everywhere, and Google will still get stats about it.

[Eric Veteran]

Search Profiling + Email Reading + medical information + satellite images of your house. Some governments would kill (and most have) to get this kind of information about you, and we all cry out when they do. Yet by some strange quirk of fate, Google can do this and no-one says a thing.

Could? You don't think they're scraping that info already? ;)

[dead.cell]

Personally, I don't mind the "targeted ads". Honestly, if they're going to put up ads, I'd like them to just put up:

• ads of nifty tech stuff
  
• ads for games
  
• ads with yummy girls on them :p
  

Don't really agree to breaking into our privacy to do it though. I feel they'd be better off offering a couple bucks or some sort of incentive for answering their survey of "what we like." I mean, just because I've searched for a kind of spider, medicine, house repair stuff, etc doesn't mean I'm interested in it. :rofl:

As for MySpace, I do agree with a bit of that though. However, that's occurs through their own stupidity. People sit and wonder,"Humm... why won't they hire me?!" Maybe because you're getting stoned on your MySpace?! :woot:

Though... I think those stupid people should uhh.. keep on doing what their doing.

:pint: + :camera: = :heart:

[Mike Frett]

I don't see the problem either. If a guy wants info on you, he's gonna find it, Google or not.

[cardg]

I just don't understand, since in my country the number one site of this kind is google's Orkut, and not facebook.

Google is telling people to worry about one of it's produts too?