Dear Google,
If you are going to harvest information about me - please do it right. Some of these searches above isn´t mine. That facehole.com lookup looks pretty strange for example. I do not mind the Linda Lampelius search though. I also found out I can spy on all searches my family does on Google. In realtime!
Today Christmas day I found an interesting Tweet from counternotion leading me to the Google Dashboard. It is a summary of what personal information Google harvest from my doings on Internet. But sadly not all that information is mine. The posts between 01:44 - 02:31 my computer was shut down. No one else have access to my G-mail account - not that I am aware of anyhow.
Before you rush over to that page - Google Dashboard - it only show anything personal IF you have G-mail account you use while moving around at the web.
I do not like the way Internet business harvest information about me. I do not like the integrity problems that often arise. The case above is only one.When my daughter woke up it turned out she had done the mysterious searches. From another computer but on the same IP address. She wasn´t logged into my account. Why do you then Google draw the conclusion it is me doing these searches? This means I now can check up all searches my family does from home IP address. They can check up my searches. In real time!
Laws differs from country to country giving the Internet visitor problems sometimes. I have tried to get rid of my address at Google maps for example for several months but cannot. It needs a crime and a verdict to get me that kind of home address protection. In Sweden everyone is found on the net after she/he is 16 years old. My daughter had problems with a guy at Facebook and MSN. He found out exactly where she lived,
I fear also the semantic web where you can get structure in the unstructured search results you today find at Google. Look at 123people.com for example. Look up a friend with a unique name - or try mine. It takes days to make that summary by your own from separate search engines. Until recently they even had a "Criminal records of Bettina" button (there was nothing ;-) 123people serve all this information on a silver plate. It is too easy to access and combined with poor local laws this can be an integrity problem.
A friend of mine always say that as soon as you publish anything at Internet you are lost. It will be there "for ever" out of control. And that is true - but how many knows about this? How many take precautions before they publish anything. Or like in this case - do a simple search that can be seen by other people than oneself. And should they really need to take precautions?
But I am not sure what is worst - Google harvesting of information about me or the interface making it easy to spy on family members and colleagues . If I go to my work - the result might be enormous. There are 56 000 persons sharing a few outgoing servers' IP address. I can spy on these too as easily as on my family members. But the worst case is a small office with one outgoing server - then a individuals search easily can be traced.
Who knows - perhaps my colleagues one day will discuss my Google searches just like in the fake top picture. I know II apartment can already without Google dashboard but with Google dashboard everybody can do this.
Is this the way we want it to go?
I do not like the way things go - but what can I do? Except for writing a post on Christmas day sitting right beside the fire.
Merry Christmas all of you!
It has to be fun, or else we cannot make it
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