Surf Web in Private: Google Is Spy

United States
May 1, 2011 4:47pm CST
Did you know that Google is a major spy? Google stores your online activities and will supply them upon court order or by request of other government officials. If you value your privacy, then start avoiding most Google products and services. Google Subpoenaed - http://slappedintexas.com Google Cleared to Launch Online Software - http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2008/12/15/story7.html You can Search and Surf the Web/Internet by using Privacy Search Engines such as StartPage.com. By the way, be very careful on Facebook and other social websites: Some employers navigate these sites for information on job applicants.
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SpikeTheLobster
@SpikeTheLobster (6403)
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1 May 11
Just about every online company stores logs of every activity on their servers, from ISPs to search engines to fan pages. Any of that information can be requested by government or justice officials - though it'd be a tough job actually getting the information, thankfully. e.g. Log in to a Wordpress blog and you can see your stats going all the way back to when it was created - those stats come from the accumulated data of incoming reuqests and outgoing content. Your Facebook comment is very valid: far too many people forget that everything online is visible to *anyone*. Always amuses me to see idiots losing their jobs for posting pictures of themselves getting drunk and partying when they're on sick leave. Duh!
SpikeTheLobster
@SpikeTheLobster (6403)
•
4 May 11
Again, unless I see proof, I doubt VERY much that IE or any other browser has programmed functionality to stop you saying something. I've used IE, Firefox and Chrome over the years and have never, ever, ever had anything I said silenced. Ever. Even when it was downright confrontational. Forum moderators might squelch you but the program? Nah. That'd require an enormous amount of clever programming or some kind of back-door: a whole pile of code monkeys around the world would have spotted it immediately. And as for the subpoena thing, it's the same one you posted in this discussion and, as I already said, it'd be a tough job getting it to stick. In fact, that very blog says it was chucked out of court, unless I'm reading the wrong thing. I have no doubt they could be forced to release info but it'd only be in extreme circumstances such as criminal cases (and maybe severe civil ones), not just because someone asks. Like I said above: sounds like scare-mongering.