Robert Kuttner: The patriots at Google are watching you

[billr]

By Robert Kuttner
American Prospect

The New York Times recently reported that in a North Carolina strangulation-murder trial, prosecutors introduced as evidence the fact that the defendant's Google searches had included the words "neck" and "snap." The Times noted that the evidence had come from the defendant's home computer, but could just as easily have come from Google.

Google's business model includes keeping track of users' searches by putting "cookies" (tracking devices) on users' own computers and then using the results to customize ad offerings that pop up when we use their ingenious free search service.

In the era of the misnamed USA PATRIOT Act, which allows warrantless police searches that are not even disclosed to the target, Google plus Dick Cheney is a recipe for undoing the liberties for which the original patriots of the American Revolution bled and died. Under the PATRIOT Act, anyone suspected of enabling terrorism can be subjected to these fishing expeditions. Depending on a prosecutor's whims, that includes all of us....

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10688

[hobbit709]

1. One of the reasons

I wipe my cookies once a day.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. I googled "you". Check it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hobbit709

[hobbit709]

4. True but

who is hobbit709?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. Mmmmmmm, Frodo's 709nth friend?? Heh heh heh.... :)

[Skittles]

9. of the seven Hobbit kids, you were 7 of 9

:D

[Uncle Joe]

10. I have heard of this term before, but what is a cookie, other than Oreos?

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Information a website asks your computer to store for it

so that it can remember things between your visits, eg your preferences for the website, or the last time you visited it. You can always set up your browser to not allow them, or to ask you for each one (which would probably get incredibly tedious- they get used wuite a lot), or to allow or disallow them from certain sites. See (though some of it is highly technical) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie .

[Uncle Joe]

14. Thank you, muriel_volestrangler. n/t

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Google your DU name... go ahead... just for fun. :)

[WhiteTara]

5. I am positively sick to

my stomach. I can't believe this. Isn't this an invasion of privacy?:scared:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. What privacy? You forget where you livin.... :)

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Both Firefox and IE allow you to block cookies from named sites

under their 'options' panel. You're making use of a service that Google provides - I think it's reasonable for Google to attempt to remember which of their users are which, especially when the users have the chance to make themselves anonymous if they want to.

[WhiteTara]

11. okay, but where in Opera

is the same option?

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Sorry, I don't know

but I'd expect a well-thought-of browser like Opera to have the ability.