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For those interested in such things...
Privacy International is a UK-based privacy watchdog group. Perhaps an overzealous one, perhaps not. To be honest, I don't know too much about them. Hadn't heard of them before today, when I came across a thing about Google privacy issues.
Seems PI (now there's an ironic acronym) released the preliminary findings from its ISP privacy report earlier this week (click the "interim rankings" link for actual company ratings), and Google was at the bottom. The only company to get a "Black: Comprehensive consumer surveillance & entrenched hostility to privacy" rating. Even Microsoft did better (though they say that's only because they've started to shape up a bit in the last year or two).
Linked off of that is a slightly less than professional open letter to Google in response to some of their supposed smear tactics, which also includes a link to their legal complaint (in the EU) against Gmail (due to Google's targeted advertizing, which reads your incoming and outgoing email to search for keywords, their vague privacy policy, and some equally vague worries on PIs part regarding a possible Google-dominated future).
Not sure how much any of that is really worth, but I found it to be an interesting read. What's nice is that LJ got one of the highest ratings. One of the few to get the "Blue: Generally privacy-aware, but in need of improvement" ranking, the highest PI gave out. (There was a green level, but no one earned it.) Compare to Bebo and MySpace, which were ranked yellow (one below blue), and Facebook, which got the red.
So... I don't know. Despite my early resistance to the Evil Google Monster, I've kind of found myself sucked in of late. It is easy to use. Oh yeah, and they ate up and killed HotBot. I sure as heck am not going to use Yahoo (which also got red, only one step up from Google's black). Many sites, like Answers.com, use Google to power their search functionality. What reasonable alternatives are left?
Oh well. Nice thing about the Internet is that there are so many millions of other people to track and investigate and whatnot. You guys keep 'em all busy, okay?
Privacy International is a UK-based privacy watchdog group. Perhaps an overzealous one, perhaps not. To be honest, I don't know too much about them. Hadn't heard of them before today, when I came across a thing about Google privacy issues.
Seems PI (now there's an ironic acronym) released the preliminary findings from its ISP privacy report earlier this week (click the "interim rankings" link for actual company ratings), and Google was at the bottom. The only company to get a "Black: Comprehensive consumer surveillance & entrenched hostility to privacy" rating. Even Microsoft did better (though they say that's only because they've started to shape up a bit in the last year or two).
Linked off of that is a slightly less than professional open letter to Google in response to some of their supposed smear tactics, which also includes a link to their legal complaint (in the EU) against Gmail (due to Google's targeted advertizing, which reads your incoming and outgoing email to search for keywords, their vague privacy policy, and some equally vague worries on PIs part regarding a possible Google-dominated future).
Not sure how much any of that is really worth, but I found it to be an interesting read. What's nice is that LJ got one of the highest ratings. One of the few to get the "Blue: Generally privacy-aware, but in need of improvement" ranking, the highest PI gave out. (There was a green level, but no one earned it.) Compare to Bebo and MySpace, which were ranked yellow (one below blue), and Facebook, which got the red.
So... I don't know. Despite my early resistance to the Evil Google Monster, I've kind of found myself sucked in of late. It is easy to use. Oh yeah, and they ate up and killed HotBot. I sure as heck am not going to use Yahoo (which also got red, only one step up from Google's black). Many sites, like Answers.com, use Google to power their search functionality. What reasonable alternatives are left?
Oh well. Nice thing about the Internet is that there are so many millions of other people to track and investigate and whatnot. You guys keep 'em all busy, okay?
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