Yesterday I wrote a post about privacy. Today I realized that a very much related discussion – about Google data collection and privacy issues – has been held on the web recently, and I totally missed it because of .. well, my changing feed reading habits.
Here is a link to “Google and privacy” post written by Matt Cutts, one of the Google employees. Here is a link to “Google and Privacy” post written by Tim O’Reilly, someone who doesn’t need any introductions. And there are more views, as usual, in Google’s own search results for “google privacy“.
If nothing else, you can pick more examples of your data collected without you knowing it or most people caring about. Bonus cards in supermarkets track your shopping history. Telephone companies have all access to your phone calls, both incoming and outgoing. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have much more information about your Internet usage than any web site can dream of. And the worst part of it (from the privacy point of view at least) is that all that data is not anonymous. Most of those collectors know your name, age, passport number, credit card number, and other sensitive information. And the absolutely worst part of it all, is that they often sell this information to marketing agencies.
How is that for a little privacy shock? Me on the other hand, I don’t care about all that…