There is a brilliant new guest post up over at ProBlogger.net by Alister Cameron titled How Google Blogsearch ranks your Posts… In their own words!
It’s a long post, and very technical. Alister analyzes some of the wording found in Google’s patent application a couple years back for their Blog Search and he brings up several interesting questions.
Here’s one of the things he brings forward that might be a little disturbing for some folks.
Apparently, according to the patent application, Google goes through folk’s GMail and Google Talk accounts looking for links and somehow incorporates that data into their search algorithms. They also apparently use data gathered from their Google Reader users accounts with regards to feed viewing and clicking habits.
- If you are a user of one of these services (I use use all three), how do you feel about Google looking over your shoulder to glean information about your habits?
Do you think Google culling your email or IM conversations for links is an invasion of your privacy?
If you don’t use these services, does knowing Google is watching what you do discourage you from ever using them?
Food for thought.
Chris,
Thanks for pointing out Alister’s very informative article. Regarding links in email, it seems that a bot is crawling the links, probably ignoring the rest of the content. Yes, I am making an assumption here, but doesn’t it seem likely that the search would be for linked text rather that reading and understanding the entire text?
Still, it does make email seem less secure, though in actuality it may not be much different than before. Simply looking for links would not really be reading the entire content.
I think that looking at someone’s email and IM conversations is bad. If all they are is looking for links then I would say that’s a bad place to help with search results. A lot of my mail is spam
it gets hit and it gets hit hard! I think that would discourage me from using their services.
Tariq, Looking for links isn’t the same thing as reading the content, for sure. But Google does scan the content in order to feed contextual ads in Gmail.
Does that make a difference to you?
Jame, Google retains the right to look at any email transmitted across their service. From the Terms of Use:
A quick scan through Yahoo’s Terms of Service and I didn’t see anything like that there as far as email goes. I can’t speak to other web based email systems.
Seems to me Google is likely reading the mail.
Chris,
It might, if the number of ads increases. If the number does not increase, then not really. I would, however be concerned if the scan is done by humans and not by a bot.
Tariq, we all know that anything we post on the web is essentially “forever” since it gets cached by Google and other search engines.
Does this now mean that Google keeps email and chat data that folks might be assuming is private stashed away permanently? (I mean we know they can store it all. But what about folks who set it not to store chats for example where they take them “off the record”?)
What if they get a subpoena for one of our records by say the government of China? According to their Terms of Use it seems like they may very well turn them over.
Chris,
I think that they do keep things permanently, especially since they create and archive backups, probably daily.
Any subpoena would have to come through the court system in various jurisdictions, which Google has submitted to. That would be the only safeguard, andyes, I thing they would then turn over the information. It’s part of being on the internet. We’re just talking about the way it has been for a while. It’s not limited to Google. All companies and individuals, not just service providers, are subject to subpoena, including emails not under privilege. Even our phone calls are monitored. There’s software searching for certain words and phrases, and then those calls are recorded and listened to by humans without any permission being given.
Perhaps my threshold is too low, but it does not bother me. I know it’s happening, but can’t do much about it. I want to use the internet and phones. I deal with it, even though others see private information.
I’m with you Tariq. Like I said in my post I use all three services and am happy with them.
I just wonder if most folks have thought this through yet. How does that saying go again?
What goes on the internet, stays on the internet.
I wonder if, as a US citizen, could some other governing body, say maybe China, the EU, or even the United Nations as examples, ever legally get at my email records through the court systems? Or is that is just a dumb thing to think?
Chris,
I think it’s possible, but they would have to have legal justification. If they did not, a US citizen would then have to get the State Department involved. There would have to be sufficient reason for that, too.
It really helps being an American. Other countries treat our citizens with more respect that they do citizens of other countries. It’s not pretty, but that is a reality. It’s a useful one if a US citizen or US company gets into trouble.
Interesting to think about. I hope I never have to find out answers to questions like these first hand!
I feel the same way.