Google News (Not all Good)

Google has been in the news a lot these last couple of weeks, and not just for their incredible stock prices. As reported here recently, they have refused to cooperate with the federal government and their quest for more information on pornography...and they have set up a special search engine for China that blocks the listing of web sites that the Chinese government deems unacceptable (mainly anti-Chinese government sites).

What follows is a reprint of an article that appeared in the most recent edition of the CounterSpy Newsletter, distributed by Sunbelt Software. There is some good information here and in the supplied links. Also, be sure and look at the last link on the bottom of the page on how to search anonymously on both Google and Yahoo.

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If you haven't already been reading multiple articles about Google and the Feds or Google and China I am sure you will be. One of my biggest concerns with Google is its overall pervasiveness into our lives and the fact that they keep and maintain every scrap of what you search in their database. Now the Feds have subpoenaed them as well as Yahoo and MSN. Yahoo and MSN gave the government the info wanted but Google is fighting back. I have compiled several articles for you to read if interested in what is going on here and what is at stake.

Security Expert Bruce Schneier (Counterpane Internet Security Inc.) puts it very well when he stated the following: "Google is amassing an enormous amount of information about people, and it's not just public Web pages. There are enormous concerns that Google knows too much about you."

Google's Achilles' Heel:

LINK: www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/01/26/1316407.htm

Why Google Won't Give In:

LINK: www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/2006/01/24/internet-search-porn_cx_ckrr_0124google.html

Court Documents & Summary Of United States Versus Google Over Search Data:

LINK: blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060119-161802

Google Agrees to Censor Results in China:

LINK: news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060125/ap_on_hi_te/china_google

Google Praised, Chided for Sanitized Site:

LINK: news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060126/ap_on_hi_te/china_sanitized_web

Smith Criticizes Google for Caving to China's Demand for Internet Censorship:

LINK: www.house.gov/apps/list/press/nj04_smith/printernetchina.html

Scroogle

Scroogle basically anonymizes your search so you are not being tracked. It works on Google and Yahoo.

LINK: scroogle.org/