1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This
was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent
cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace
among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to
challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime
you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have
one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.
2. Google
records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time
and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly,
Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in
the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."
3. Google
retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to
easily access all the user information they collect and save.
4. Google
won't say why they need this data:
Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New
York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets
subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.
5. Google
hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security
Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they
can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.
6.
Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones
home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy
policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit
when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to
explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and
without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google
essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to
Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft,
ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates
automatically presents a massive
security risk.
7.
Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws
to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a
webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive"
meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but
webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their
sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's
cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."
8. Google
is not your friend:
By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most
websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming
they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of
some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find
themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no
detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process
for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google
doesn't even answer email from webmasters.
9. Google
is a privacy time bomb:
With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to
a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining
bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that
Google has already achieved.