started out this post with the idea that, as Danah Boyd observed, “privacy is not a set of information, but a feeling.” I was planning to use the Facebook “privacy” fiasco to probe the idea that users demand a certain level of comfort and security from the web, conceptualizing privacy as a sort of dance between the user and the web, where the former is seducing the latter with cool gizmos, control over a personal space of the web, and free storage space in return for a relaxation of privacy. visit this ; drow last names

In the offline world, a lot of us are suspicious enough to give the grocery store clerk a fake phone number, but online, it's a different story. When Google offered me 2GB storage space and the promise that I would "never delete again," well, ok, I trusted them and now a computer reads every last one of my emails.

I trusted Google, and so far, they haven't stepped on my toes. But, as I read the threads on A Search Privacy Bill of Rights in the Search Engine Watch blog, I began to wonder exactly what they were planning to do with my search queries, with my email, and my online calendar. Storing data “as long as it's useful” sounds a little sketchy. I can understand that they are on an endless quest to improve the quality of their SERPs, but maybe I agree with Tim Wu that the benefits don't outweigh the risks.

While Danny Sullivan's post did a good job of reassuring me that tracking a person down by IP address alone may be a tricky business, the recent New York Times article on Thelma Arnold, an AOL user identified solely by her search queries, was disquieting. Do I really want someone to call me up with a list of my search queries? Let's just say I bet it took the Times a lot of looking before they found someone who had never searched for “naked chocolate edible”, or worse.

Privacy policy aside, I think Google goes to a lot of trouble to sustain the illusion of anonymity, when they could say, in plain English, “We keep your searches on file forever, and they are associated with your IP address, which is a number that your provider gives you that is like your internet phone number. This information may become available to the government if we are required by law to give it”, and put it somewhere where people actually read it. They could offer on their main page the option of anonymous searching, regardless of whether you are logged in or accept their cookies. And if they think that their individualized SERPs are going to be so great, then let the user decide – if the service rendered is such a great benefit and balances out the risk, then they won't have a problem.

The only problem is if it's not. Because while Google cares about the potential of individualized web marketing, the user couldn't care less. And since benefit for marketers does not not weigh into the user's equation, but it does for Google, it seems like the current policy only appears to give the respect to the user, using the claim of better SERPs to justify an information-gathering campaign that, if undertaken by the US government, would result in widespread protest.

Because most people are not Thelma Arnold and/or have not had their search queries subpoenaed, they feel a sense of privacy on the web; they think their queries are safe. But if we agree with Tim Wu and Rand's response to him on the SEOmoz blog that the decision to store search queries by IP address is risky and makes us “vulnerable,” --and at the same time, most users are under the illusion of privacy (and perhaps ignorance) -- then what will happen when users discover en masse that the words they've so naively typed into search engines over the years are now being used in ways they have no control over?

Well, going back to the 'dance' of privacy, I think that the search engines would have to stomp on our toes pretty hard for us to stop using them, but at the same time, I think that a search engine that speaks openly of the user's need for privacy and offers it conveniently and free of charge would be a step ahead of those offering less than upfront privacy policies.

The open language that Google is so admired for would come in handy if it was backed up by a similar effort to make privacy as convenient as becoming 'user 441749.'
 
 
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