LegendaryLife Blog

Although Al Gore didn’t invent the internet, he is one of the few pioneers in this world who saw the possibility it offered and pushed its development far beyond its original confines.

The power of search engines

You may not think about it often, but search engines have incredible global power and influence – far more then the vast number of countries in this world. Search engines are now the gatekeepers to information not only about what is on the internet but what YOU do online. I bet that the search engine that lead you to this article has an extensive record of YOUR personal surfing, posting and other habits you do online. It does this by tracking your IP address which is as unique as a finger print. Based off an IP address, you can trace a person to a specific computer anywhere in the world. Scary? That is just the beginning.

I am quite active online, make a search for Jon Cantin and you will find me all over the place, some stuff I posted over 10 years ago still appears in search engines! Well, the IP I used to search the web can easily be traced back to me personally, you see, if IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx posts a msg on a message board with their name (even address), guess what is able to read and capture this information. You guessed it, the search engines Why do you think search engines like Google, Yahoo, Altavista and many more need vast warehouses full of servers, findings on the net is one, finding out your habits and giving you results that YOU find relevant is the other.

I got your number… who cares?

The fact that my name, IP address and many other personal information about myself is online, does it bother me? No, I don’t care if google knows my home address and phone number, I don’t even care if they keep a record of everything I ever wrote online – why should I – I live in a free country (Canada) and I can do as I wish (sometimes). Let me add that unlike many other search engines, Google has a long history of sticking their middle finger up when ever the US government makes a request for their users databases… the others are a little too quiet on the subject.

Hypocracy of the internet and search engines

I like search engines but I find that they are becoming hypocrites. You see, the internet started as a wild-west of sorts, do or pretend to do whatever you want and nobody can really do much about it. The internet is the ultimate exercise in democracy and human freedom. Because search engines control so much information about a user, it can easily be used AGAINST a user at any time. Take for instance, China.

China and search engines

If you live in a “free” country, search engines are no big deal but if you live in an oppressed society where human rights and freedom is a very vague term, search engines are nothing but trouble. You see, many of the top search engines have given up the idea of “free speech” for “censorship”.

If you live in China (and a few other countries), posting something against the government can be a one way ticket to jail. If you try to look for “democracy” or other “free” terms in google from China, expect to not only find NOTHING but a knock on the door later – you see, search engines in China must share their entire database with the government… NOW THAT IS SCARY!

What is even scarier is that search engines are setting a precedence that will be hard to turn around on. The most effective negotiating tactic in the world is probably “if you did it for this guy, why can’t you do it for us?”. Search engines and governments are no different.

The Bottom Line

Don’t post anything on the internet (including e-mail) that you wouldn’t want a total stranger to know about you.

Links of interest:
New Arab search engine to challenge Google

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/04/26/arabic.search.reut/index.html

Chinese sites to purge ‘unhealthy’ content

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/04/25/china.web.sites.reut/index.html

Yahoo accused of helping jail Internet writer

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/04/19/yahoo.china.internet.reut/index.html

China’s ‘Net policies in spotlight

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/03/08/china.web/index.html

U.S. Web giants slammed over China