Google promoted its Social Search experiment to beta status on Wednesday. Social Search adds information and images from users’ public pages to the results of online searches conducted by members of their social network. Users need a Google profile to get results from Social Search. Social has been added to other Google applications like Google Images, so when people with a Google profile conduct a search on images, they may get pictures their friends and other online contacts have published publicly on photo-sharing sites like Picasa Web Albums and Flickr.
Google's response that people need to 'keep their guard up' to protect their privacy is a bit disingenuous.
First, few people know just how pervasive information they share on social sites is. Posting on any of the social sites I am familiar with does not mean that site's privacy policy is applied to your information except on that specific site.
Most sites share your information with 3rd parties whose identity you may never be aware of, much less have an opportunity to determine if their privacy policy meets your needs.
Assuming your information is protected by a policy on one site does not mean you information is protected against actions by 3rd parties. Actions you may not agree with.
Google then goes on to state that if you don't want information found, just remove it from the web. Again a disingenuous suggestion at best.
I have had multiple experiences with trying to 'delete' information from the web only to have Google ferret it out from some server somewhere that has a copy. Copies that I often was never aware of and able to track down and get removed.
Fortunately, none of the pages were extremely embarrassing to the folks I was trying to help, but the fact these copies were seemingly impossible to dispose of was very disturbing.
Privacy policies need to be revised to assure they offer a foolproof way to limit access to information we don't wish shared and then be enforced by law against the site/service we originally posted to.
At the moment, privacy on the web is more chimera than reality. Commercial interests trump individual rights far too often.
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Google Stamps Social Search With Beta Status
Posted by: Richard Adhikari January 28, 2010 12:17 PMGoogle promoted its Social Search experiment to beta status on Wednesday. Social Search adds information and images from users’ public pages to the results of online searches conducted by members of their social network. Users need a Google profile to get results from Social Search. Social has been added to other Google applications like Google Images, so when people with a Google profile conduct a search on images, they may get pictures their friends and other online contacts have published publicly on photo-sharing sites like Picasa Web Albums and Flickr.
First, few people know just how pervasive information they share on social sites is. Posting on any of the social sites I am familiar with does not mean that site's privacy policy is applied to your information except on that specific site.
Most sites share your information with 3rd parties whose identity you may never be aware of, much less have an opportunity to determine if their privacy policy meets your needs.
Assuming your information is protected by a policy on one site does not mean you information is protected against actions by 3rd parties. Actions you may not agree with.
Google then goes on to state that if you don't want information found, just remove it from the web. Again a disingenuous suggestion at best.
I have had multiple experiences with trying to 'delete' information from the web only to have Google ferret it out from some server somewhere that has a copy. Copies that I often was never aware of and able to track down and get removed.
Fortunately, none of the pages were extremely embarrassing to the folks I was trying to help, but the fact these copies were seemingly impossible to dispose of was very disturbing.
Privacy policies need to be revised to assure they offer a foolproof way to limit access to information we don't wish shared and then be enforced by law against the site/service we originally posted to.
At the moment, privacy on the web is more chimera than reality. Commercial interests trump individual rights far too often.