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Google is watching you
24/05/07 - The search engine giant Google has unveiled plans to create an Orwellian database of its user's web preferences and personalities.Speaking during a visit to Britain the company's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said: "The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job shall I take?'.
"We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms [software] will get better and we will get better at personalisation."
It follows the company investing £2m in a human genetics firm, 23andMe and its $3.1bn bid to takeover DoubeClick, a company that builds up user profiles of people's online behaviour by storing web search information and tracking what sites people view.
By utilising a combination of genetic and internet profiling Google could build up a huge database of information on every single person who uses the site.
This would give the search engine the edge in understanding the behaviour of internet users in the increasingly competitive online market.
However civil liberties and privacy campaigners are worried that this move could constitute a stealth invasion of the basic civil right to privacy.
According to a report in The Independent the European wide data protection body, the Article 29 Working Group, has written to Google requesting more details of its information gathering.
A spokeswoman for the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK agency responsible for monitoring data legislation and part of the Article 29 Working Group, said: "I can't say what was in it only that it was written in response to Google's announcement that will hold information for no more than two years."
The spokeswoman also advised that no action against Google is being planned due to the voluntary nature of the information being collected.
Google has revealed that a response to the request from the working group will be made on the company's website in June.
Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy Counsel, advised that the search engine was only collecting the information as it was what its customers wanted it to do.
"This is about personalised searches, where our goal is to use information to provide the best possible search for the user. If the user doesn't want information held by us, then that's fine. We are not trying to build a giant library of personalised information. All we are doing is trying to make the best computer guess of what it is you are searching for," he said.
However privacy campaigners have argued that the information being collected by Google could be used against users irrespective of Google's own privacy policy.
They advised that law enforcement agencies could force the company to reveal the information under certain circumstances, in effect turning Google's database into a tool of the state despite the search engine's intentions.
Speaking to the Independent one campaigner said: "The danger here is that it doesn't matter what search engines say their policy is because it can be overridden by national laws."
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Published Date: 2007-05-24 14:44:40Subscribe to our RSS News feed:
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