Frequent Search Engine Users, Google Is Watching and Counting

This is standard knowledge that Google collects your IP along with your searches but I didn't know they were going to do anything cute with it. Now they're into customer "rewarding" (as in psychology). Will they overthrow our next generation if children by making them used to Big Brother Watching Their Every Move?

wouldn't surprise me if it was part of the grand scheme

Big Brother watching everyone's every move is part of the grand plan. Google isn't the only site to do it either, they're just open about it. I knew there was a reason why I love my firewalls so much, maybe they can provide me with a little bit of shadow.

I don't think you're paranoid here kptr...google has gotten too big IMO. At what point do we call them a monopoly?

[Edited on 6-10-2003 by kukla]

Actually... I think I know what this might be, and it's not all that scary.

SIDE NOTE: Of the top 10 technology companies to be concerned about, Google is not in the list, and I'm not saying that because we're using their ads.

First, they're not collecting personal data, nor can the content of their cookie identify you (offline data) unless you volunteer it somewhere else within the Google domain.

The plan is to provide more personal, accurate, relevant searches for people doing searches. Conceptually, they are looking for statistical patterns in the types of searches different people perform. If I often look for sites dealing with fuzzy-widgets, my searches and the sites I pick from those searches will yield a particular statistical result. Combining that result with my overall search patterns might help to build a particular mathematical profile that could be used to describe large groups of people doing searches. Now... if someone else matching my overall statistical profile searches on fuzzy-widgets for their first time, perhaps the sites I've clicked on (because my statistical profile is similar to theirs) would appear higher-up in the search results. A combination of statistical, contextual, and psychographics search result ranking.

It's all about the math.

Yeah but math is used by humans to do things. What things can they do? What potential exists? Esp. when anything and anyone can be co-opted by DHS. This is for JB1 in the future, debating about Google might be a good topic...

[Edited on 6-10-2003 by ktprktpr]

If somebody wants to track you, they WILL track you and They do not need google for that.
Interesting post, William... gotta love the math

Also it is interesting that google was cool while they were nobody and at the start... now they're not cool anymore although they are living a dream of all of us: one briliant idea and you're rich and famous over night... come on, you gotta admit, you have wished for something like that at least once in your life

Internet is a living breathing independent entity VERY hard to control, it is almost imposible to have internet monopoly, it is too unpredictable... here one day, gone tomorow, and all it takes in maybe one message on a message board which spreads like fire...