On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Tim Trent <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I've just had quite a surprise. I did a Google search and saw that the results had been customised based upon My Web History.

On further investigation I see http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54050 provides information about the web history.

My earliest item as 28 September 2008 and Google has been collecting this about my habits since that date. It has asked no permission to do so as far as I can discover.

Now, let;'s look at this rationally.

I have a Gmail account for convenience. I use Big G as my search engine of choice because it beats the others hollow. My browser delivers information about me to every web page I visit, things like ISP, IP address (I think), computer O/S, Browser used, previous site visited.

One might argue that it is valid to provide the security services with these details if I have repeatedly emailed certain folk about (currently) Islamic terror attacks, liquid explosive, suicide bombings, car theft, airlines, etc. One might say that this is likely to be congruent with prevention of terrorism.

But what, now, if I am researching (say) Privacy International's complaint about Streetview, notably pictures of naked babies, and I search for those and other items capable of wide interpretation? Or what if it suddenly became unlawful to possess tulips because you could manufacture a powerful poison capable of being used in terror attacks from tulips and I had been searching in the past few months for tulip growers as well as having an academic interest in terrorism.

"National Security" interests would then force Big G to deliver this material to our security services, wouldn't it?

Or has this email already done enough inside GCHQ to get me the knock on the door already?

I have, by the way, "cleared" my web history. But I bet it is still collected anyway, just masked. And the web is not at all anonymous anyway.

--

Tim Trent - Consultant
Tel: +44 (0)7710 126618
web: ComplianceAndPrivacy.com - where busy executives go to find the news first
personal blog: timtrent.blogspot.com/ - news, views, and opinions
personal website: Tim's Personal Website - more than anyone needs to know

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