The Google Spies

[Terr]

Originally posted by oblio
saving an ip address in a database with data about the person who uses the IP address is invading privacy

Not if all they are storing is the approximate geographical location. It's not really invading your privacy unless it is personally identifying or arbitrary unrelated information which you wish to keep secret. If you feel that your IP address gives out too much information about you on it's own, you probably should be building your bomb shelter and stocking up on munitions.

. They offer no warning or anything, their privacy policy makes no mention of this database mapping ips to countries but they do admit that they store queries with ip addresses. They say in the privacy policy that they do not collect personal information from your browser, but it says nothing about this ip database.

They admit the store queries with IP addresses. They admit it. They show it. You use the service. So? If you don't like it, don't use it. They are providing a free service which helps you, and if they choose to take statistics (and mention it), who is the user to complain that he didn't read the privacy statement?

As for the IP->Location thing again... That's one of those things that I don't think really needs to be put in a privacy statement. It's fairly hard NOT to do, when logging certain hostnames, for instance. Blah.blah.blah.place.com.hk ... Wow! It's in Hong Kong!

[antihaxor]

Originally posted by oblio
saving an ip address in a database with data about the person who uses the IP address is invading privacy. Especially when the company doing this is providing a service which can potentially store information which has an expectation of privacy. Google makes no mention on their site of doing such things. They offer no warning or anything, their privacy policy makes no mention of this database mapping ips to countries but they do admit that they store queries with ip addresses. They say in the privacy policy that they do not collect personal information from your browser, but it says nothing about this ip database.

Dude you sound like chicken little crying "the sky is falling the sky is falling"
You admitted you visited google.ca once. Your IP was used to return the info you requested and you cry "PRIVACY INVASION" sheesh. I know what your response will be" They didn't tell me they were going to store my IP" So what? Its more of a customer service issue than privacy invasion. Start crying out against facial recognision software or something else thats a real threat to privacy.

[RiOtEr]

think about it redirecting you makes it faster for you in the long run well if you dont like it surf with a different proxy.

[oblio]

too bad that all of google's servers are located in california, probably in the same ****ing building.

[V3RIZON]

The 3rd paragraph of googles privacy states

"What Information Do We Collect?
Google does not collect any unique information about you (such as your name, email address, etc.) except when you specifically and knowingly provide such information. Google notes and saves information such as time of day, browser type, browser language, and IP address with each query. That information is used to verify our records and to provide more relevant services to users. For example, Google may use your IP address or browser language to determine which language to use when showing search results or advertisements."

Above taken from googles privacy policy.


Also I did some searching at archive.org and Google has had the IP clause in there for some time. Thats the facts!

[nsiox]

I've noticed that if I go to http://google.com/ - that's the site I stay at.
But if I go to http://www.google.com/ - that's when it redirects me to http://www.google.ca/
Hmm...

[oblio]

Their privacy policy speaks of data collection in regards to information provided by the browser and the local machine. They make it clear that any information given in forms is specifically catalogued, they also make no reference to forms found in the google cache. The concern is the fact that they do have a database of ip addresses with mapped out information to each individual ip address. This can very easily contain individually identifiable information. Google's privacy is not clear and generally sucks.

[rcgreen]

Originally posted by oblio
Google's privacy is not clear and generally sucks.

When they're killing/butchering/raping 50 million spotted
owls every day and you are worried about your privacy?
tsk.

[SarinMage]

who cares if your being redirected. making a database of ip addres is much like a business using caller ID on their phone,

(and yes i kjnow you can block caller id...but you cant ALWAYS block it.

[oblio]

do you appreciate the people that harvest your name, address and phone number from the phonebook and then use it to monitor your shopping habits so that they can better attempt to harass you into purchasing their product? to what limit should we allow corporations to gather information on us and to what limit should we allow the type of information corporations are allowed to gather on us. Make no mistake, Google is a giant corporation, and there is one goal of giant corporations: to make money. It is the shareholders that call the shots not the good intentions of the staff. Venture capital owns google and without it, they will be shut down in a heart beat