Friday, January 20th, 2006, 7:46 am
Nanny Country Snatches Search Logs
Filed under:
‘Smile! Big brother is watching you.”
SN, AOL and Yahoo have handed over log data to the U.S. government. The controversial move has seen strong resistance from Google however.
Yahoo acknowledges handing over search data requested in a subpoena from the Bush administration, which is hoping to use the information to revive an anti-porn law that was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Exposure of one’s search history is nothing new. In fact, exposure through search giants and third parties extends beyond this . The same companies maintain mail accounts and even statistics from other Web sites (Google Analytics).
Given sheer demand from up above, will they carrying on caving and exposing their customers’ data? Also, what about the new laws regarding data retention by ISP‘s? Everything you do gets logged, unless you use encryption of course. Being watched may be acceptable, but a so-called ‘nanny country’ is not, at least in my humble opinion.
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January 20th, 2006 at 9:13 am
Surely the data gathered cannot be applied to individuals, but rather to the population as a whole?
January 21st, 2006 at 11:38 am
One of the big questions remained whether they hid the IP addresses.