Understanding Our Culture Through Search Terms

from the words-words-words dept

No one doubts that the internet isn't a useful source of information for people trying to get a handle on documenting our culture. Here's an incredibly long paper about how we could get a better understanding of our culture by studying the words used on the internet - specifically those used as search terms on Google. The article goes into great detail explaining how this research could be done. Near the end, though, it has this weird section talking about privacy. It seems to be (unless I'm reading it wrong) suggesting that people who complain about privacy issues online are really just having a thoughtless "kneejerk" reaction, and are really hindering any chance at real community.