Why Google Is Evil (or at least has questionable privacy policies)
Unquestionably, the internet search engine Google website provides effective and fast searching for whatever topic that you wish, scouring the world wide web and usenet for very effective results to your searches.
However, most people are not aware of the enormous privacy violation that goes along with using Google. Google, in fact, stores a great deal of personal information about you whenever you use the site and utilizes this information to alter search results that you get.
The Google Cookie
Use the options for your web browser right now and take a look at the cookies stored on your hard drive. If you’re allowing cookies (and you are if you’re not sure), then Google is actively gathering information about you when you use the site.
Don’t believe me? Here’s how to find the Google cookie on your own machine:
Internet Explorer: Choose “Internet Options” from the “Tools” menu. When the window pops up, click on the “Settings…” button in the “Temporary Internet Files” section. On the next screen, click on the “View Files” button. You’ll have a window pop up containing (likely) a long list of files. The file you’re looking for should be called “Cookie:somename@google.txt”.
Mozilla/Netscape/Phoenix: Choose “Preferences” from the “Edit” menu (or “Tools” menu in some versions). Once there, click on “Privacy” then on the “Manage Cookies…” button that appears. Click on the one from google.com.
If you look at the cookie, you’ll see that it contains a string that looks like this:
ID=8b1353970dfc234c:TM=1423423345:LM=4323256345:S=iq4Ca68bAn8 This string contains a unique identifier (the ID= part) that identifies you to Google. Thus, every Google search you do is matched specifically to you in their database.
Even more frightening is the fact that the cookie does not expire until Sunday, January 17, 2038, at 1:00:00 PM (or so). This means that until that date (unless you actively remove the cookie), Google will be tracking all of your searches.
How This Violates Your Privacy
In conjunction with the cookie, Google can quite easily store in their database your exact location, your computer’s identification, what you searched for, and when you searched for it.
Note: Google can easily do this. The cookie information described above, along with the information your browser sends every time you make a request, sends along all this information to Google. All they have to do is store it.
This has two major implications.
Google can (and does) deliver results tailored specifically to you rather than general results. This is not optional, unless you delete the cookie before every search. Google has done this based on geographic location as well as interest profiling.
Google can (and does) sell your profile information to companies, then charges these companies to deliver ads directly based on your profile. Thus, as you become a regular searcher at Google, you’ll gradually find advertisements geared more and more towards your browsing habits.
In other words, Google utilizes your personal information without your permission to turn the site into a marketing tool geared specifically to the information that they took from you.
Longer Term Implications
Some long term implications of this data warehousing include:
Loss of searching privacy. What you search for is no longer your own business with this policy. Not only can Google reveal your individual searches (to law enforcement agencies or other groups), they can study your patterns and profile you, again causing law enforcement related issues. For example, let’s say that I am a chemist, but someone geographically near me is a terrorist. If I repeatedly search for chemical names using Google and then the geographical proximity to a terrorist is realized (and this is easy using Google’s privacy invasion technologies), it is conceivable that I could find myself in legal trouble due to my search patterns.
Loss of ubiquitous searching. Due to this profiling, Google is issuing topic and geographic-specific search results. On the surface, this seems innocuous and perhaps even beneficial, but in fact this again becomes a severe privacy violation. Without describing the service at all, Google is in fact offering up customized links, often to large organizations and corporations, rather than simply the best search results. A big part of this is that Google refuses to offer up its PageRank scheme for peer review. In other words, no one can review their mechanisms for delivering the pages to you.
No Data Retention Policy
On top of this, Google’s privacy policy is severely lacking in one major area: there is no stated data retention policy. This means that Google can store years upon years of data on individual people, detailing their interests, thoughts, hobbies, and other piccadilloes, and they don’t even bother to directly state what exactly they are storing about you. Their “privacy policy” isn’t a privacy policy at all; it’s merely a PR tool.
Evidence for the claims stated here and above can all be read clearly at Google’s very own privacy policy, found at website Some highlights:
Upon your first visit to Google, Google sends a “cookie” to your computer. A cookie is a piece of data that identifies you as a unique user.
(Note: a cookie is NOT a piece of data that identifies you as a unique user)
Google notes and saves information such as time of day, browser type, browser language, and IP address with each query. That information is used to verify our records and to provide more relevant services to users.
Google may share information about you with advertisers, business partners, sponsors, and other third parties. However, we only divulge aggregate information about our users and will not share personally identifiable information with any third party without your express consent. For example, we may disclose how frequently the average Google user visits Google, or which other query words are most often used with the query word “Linux.” Please be aware, however, that we will release specific personal information about you if required to do so in order to comply with any valid legal process such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, or court order.
(Note: Read this part carefully. Google admits to detailed profiling of individual users in this paragraph)
The Google Toolbar
The Google toolbar (which many users have added to their web browser) goes even farther beyond Google itself into invading your privacy. Using the individual profile that Google has developed (and is described above), the Google toolbar actually reports every page that you visit to Google, adding to their profile about you. In other words, every page you visit and link you click while using the Google toolbar contributes to your stored profile at Google.
Why is this scary? Let’s say I wanted to read up on philosophies of technology. I had to take a course on this particular topic during my studies, so it is not an unusual expectation. Now, if I spent a few afternoons reading such documents as The Unabomber’s Manifesto or some detailed documents on the Luddite movement. I used Google to find these pages, of course, and made many detailed searches while doing it. After a while, however, the government becomes suspicious of terrorist activity in my local area, so they subpoena Google’s databases and retrieve a list of IP addresses in my area that have been reading such inflammatory material. Suddenly, I am in deep legal trouble.
For full details, read the Google toolbar privacy policy at website
If That Doesn’t Concern You, Then Read This…
When the New York Times (feel free to look this up in the November 28, 2002 issue) asked Google head honcho Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for its stored information on users and their searching patterns and history, he had no comment. In other words, he refused to deny that Google is willing and able to hand over the search histories of individuals to law enforcement agencies when they request it. In the above section detailing Google’s privacy policy, they do in fact state that they are willing to turn over your information to authorities.
Given the broad sweep of the Office of Homeland Security in terms of the ease of gaining subpoenas for investigating supposed acts of terror, I’ve found myself being very careful what I search for on Google.
You are advised to do the same.
If you are you looking for more information about gooogle.com review the site.
