Does Google know too much about you?

Filed in archive Protection on June 18, 2007

Does Google know too much about you? This story never seems to go away as new service after new service appears on the net directly from Google or one of its hundreds of acquisitions.

The questions is raised again in Sydney Morning Herald's technology section under the article title, "Does Google know too much about you?".

We all have had our moments when friends, enemies and first-time daters have been "Googled" or "Google-stalked". If you have done anything on the net, like dropped a comment on a blogsite, to owning your own little patch of the Internet, with a blog, a website or even just comments in a discussion site, there will be some private information of your online. Google is so good at indexing the world of online activity that just about anyone can find the private information about you.

BUT this is not where the concern is. The concern is more to do with sampling what you are thinking about as you search online using words and phrases for information you are wanting, and more, when you click on an advertisement another little clue as to what interests you is let out into the Google memory bank.

AT THE present time I do not see that Google can do much damage; we all see Google as the "good guy". However, there is the worrying way Google has acquiesced in China to a government's demands.

Put it this way, I do not house on Google's territory any really personal information; Google Docs only contains my relatively public documents that are transmitted for all to see on a blogsite or website, my other documents are housed on my USB stick and edited using Abiword. A little caution is needed just like with anything else on the web, be careful to protect yourself against things turning sour.