Google Privacy problem

From the NY Times Op Ed on Monday, you should be aware that whatever you type into a Google search is being tracked on an individual level, and apparently they are planning on you keeping it on your handy dandy PC or Mac until 2038 with a cookie, though I am not sure I am planning on still using this computer in 32 years from now.

At a North Carolina strangulation-murder trial this month, prosecutors announced an unusual piece of evidence: Google searches allegedly done by the defendant that included the words "neck" and "snap." The data were taken from the defendant's computer, prosecutors say. But it might have come directly from Google, which - unbeknownst to many users - keeps records of every search on its site, in ways that can be traced back to individuals....

The biggest area where Google's principles are likely to conflict is privacy. Google has been aggressive about collecting information about its users' activities online. It stores their search data, possibly forever, and puts "cookies" on their computers that make it possible to track those searches in a personally identifiable way - cookies that do not expire until 2038. Its e-mail system, Gmail, scans the content of e-mail messages so relevant ads can be posted. Google's written privacy policy reserves the right to pool what it learns about users from their searches with what it learns from their e-mail messages, though Google says it won't do so. It also warns that users' personal information may be processed on computers located in other countries.

Daniel Solove writes in his blog

I agree with the op-ed, but I also think that businesses should use their power to push for greater legislative protections of personal information from government access. It is here were Google's interests and the privacy interests of its users coincide. Right now, the government is inadequately regulated when it comes to accessing personal data maintained by third parties. If the businesses maintaining the data lobbied Congress for greater protections, this would help to address one of the major privacy threats that their maintaining the information poses. It wouldn't solve all of the problems, but it would address a big one.

The real question is how many people besides lawyers actually read the privacy policies from their doctors, banks and other places that is keeping information on us. Probably the same amount of people who read the license agreement that we agree to when we download software from the web. Someone should come up with a synopsis of these agreements, so we can easily understand what we are agreeing to, rather than rotely agreeing to whatever is put in front of us in order to use a product. We might have a better understanding of what is happening to our personal information then.