What Do Your Searches Say About You?
from the how-much-can-you-interpret dept
With so much hype being focused on the government asking search engines to turn over data, on searches conducted, it appears that at least a few people are seriously starting to ask questions about what this all means. There's the question of how much you should trust your search engine? Then there's looking for ways to stay anonymous while searching, or suggesting that search engines stop keeping data altogether. A few people are dealing with the cognitive dissonance of being worried about all the data, but still being willing to hand it over for a buck off a box of cereal at the grocery store. Still, one question that we haven't seen addressed very much is what do your search terms say about you? This is one of the reasons why we were a bit worried to hear rumors of banned search terms on major search engines. There are plenty of reasons why someone might search on something that could look bad in retrospect, without the context of why they were searching for those terms. While we've already told the story of the guy accused of killing his wife whose Google searches included "neck snap break," it's still a bit worrisome to realize that out of context search terms could potentially implicate people of things they are completely innocent of.
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Welcome to Techdirt Hyperbole
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Re: Welcome to Techdirt Hyperbole
Also I bet the lawyers also have some say in that. If little johnny can search for something "evil" and finds it, mommy and daddy will be out to sue.
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Re: Little Johnny's searches
Here's a Google image search with filters off:
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.all4u.ro/tonka.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.all4u.r o/&h=288&w=400&sz=26&tbnid=sZ_CZ5lSpO5NRM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=120&hl=en&start=16&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtonka% 26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_en%26safe%
3Doffbr>
http://www.all4u.ro/tonka.jpg
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Re: Little Johnny's searches
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Re: Little Johnny's searches
Parents should be responsible, when my son gets old enough to use the web, I will be the type or parent using draconian measures to be sure he is not seeing that type of stuff until he is ready(assuming I have a clue when that is.) But when google helps to keep some, they will never be able to block all, of that content, I can rest somewhat easier.
The key to remember here is that google is a private business and must balance community ideals with business goals.
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Re: Welcome to Techdirt Hyperbole
It wasn't meant to be hyperbole. To be honest, I see banned and blocked as pretty much synonyms. If you couldn't search for the terms, what's the difference?
We're not "looking for an angle" to attract readers. We just write what we find interesting. Sorry if you feel we chose the wrong word, but I think you're reading WAY too much into it.
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Beat the system
If someone makes a website with a single line of text with a link at the end like so:
Welcome to my site. Click 'here' to enter.
And then they make the word 'here' a link to something like www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=INSERT_BAD_SEARCH_TERM_HERE&btnG=Google+Search
You now have an unintended search being performed by anyone who visists your site. In court you can create a website that does this, not tell anyone whats going to happen, and then ask the judge to look at the website on your laptop. She will click the link and *BAM* she is now a criminal if you lose the case to the government. So naturaly you will be deemed innocent, to protect herself.
Mwahaha
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Re: Beat the system
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neck snap break
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another question
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/google/gonzgoog11806m3.html
What exactly does it proof, if Google's index contains URLs with sexually explicit content? What exactly does it proof, if Google users search (for example) for female body parts?
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neck snap break!
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Re: neck snap break!
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Re: neck snap break!
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If you can't stand behind what you say.
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Also on the search engines information.
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