Did Google blacklist CNET?
p2pnet.net News:- “Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006, says a post on Yup, CNET.
CNET thinks the ban is down to privacy issues raised by a July 14 story in which it kicks off with, Google CEO Eric Schmidt doesn’t reveal much about himself on his home page.
But spending 30 minutes on the Google search engine lets one discover that Schmidt, 50, was worth an estimated $1.5 billion last year. Earlier this year, he pulled in almost $90 million from sales of Google stock and made at least another $50 million selling shares in the past two months as the stock leaped to more than $300 a share.
He and his wife Wendy live in the affluent town of Atherton, Calif., where, at a $10,000-a-plate political fund-raiser five years ago, presidential candidate Al Gore and his wife Tipper danced as Elton John belted out Bennie and the Jets`. Schmidt has also roamed the desert at the Burning Man art festival in Nevada, and is an avid amateur pilot.
CNET goes on to quote the EFF`s (Electronic Frontier Foundation) Kevin Bankston as saying Google is amassing data which could lead to some of the most detailed individual profiles ever devised.
As is typical for search engines, Google retains log files that record search terms used, Web sites visited and the Internet Protocol address and browser type of the computer for every single search conducted through its Web site, says the story that got CNET into trouble.
“It’s data that’s [sic] practically a printout of what’s going on in your brain, says Bankston in the post: What you are thinking of buying, who you talk to, what you talk about.”
“It is an unprecedented amount of personal information, and these third parties (such as Google) have carte blanche control over that information.”
But, Personally identifiable information that is required for consumers to register for and log in to Google services is not shared with any outside companies or used for marketing, according to Google’s privacy policy, except with the consent of the user, or if outside `trusted” parties` need it to process the data on Google’s behalf.
Google probably has more info on more people than anyone else, with all that implies – especially if the words ‘terrorism’ or ‘terrorists’ raise their ugly heads in certain quarters.
And, “We may store and process personal information collected on our site in the United States or any other country in which Google Inc. or its agents maintain facilities,” says the Google privacy policy. “By using our services, you consent to the transfer of your information among these facilities, including those located outside your country.”
But of course, what holds true for Google also holds good not just for Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask Jeeves, Dogpile but for any search engine you use and any site you give personal information to.
CNET goes on at great length and in considerable detail about what can happen, but bottom line is, Trust is the key, it concludes.
As software industry analyst Stephen O’Grady wrote in his Tecosystems blog late last year: `Google is nearing a crossroads in determining its future path. They can take the Microsoft fork – and face the same scrutiny Microsoft does, or they can learn what the folks from Redmond have: Trust is hard to earn, easy to lose and nearly impossible to win back`.
However, getting back to the ban, CNET doesn’t say anything about the apparent policy that suggests anyone who seriously pisses Google off gets blacklisted for a year. Nor does CNET say how it became aware of its own sentence, or how it knows things will again be cool by July 2006.
And googling for the answer doesn’t help.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
CNET – Wanted at Google: A few good chefs, August 4, 2005
way too much – Does Google know too much?, p2pnet, July 18, 2005
August 5th, 2005 at 10:15 pm
One simple solution is to anonymize the Google cookie.
http://www.imilly.com/google-cookie.htm