Quickly, as I'm rushing out the door to teach: Google has announced it will (reluctantly) shorten the amount of time it holds fully-identifiable information, and will “anonymize” search records after 9 months, rather than the current 18 months. This is…
Category: Search Engines
Cuil not so Cool
Following up on the experience of others (here, here, and here), I've run some test searches of my own on the hot new Cuil search engine. The results were not cool. I performed three different kinds of searchs: information-seeking, navigational,…
New “Cuil” Search Engines Decides User Logs Aren’t Necessary
Some former Googlers have launched a rival search engine named for the Gaelic word for knolwedge, Cuil. Cuil (pronounced like "cool"), which claims to have an index three times the size as Google and ten times as Microsoft, aims to…
Read More New “Cuil” Search Engines Decides User Logs Aren’t Necessary
Visibility of Googe’s Privacy Policy Depends on Where you Live
Following up on Google's recent decision (over the 4th of July holiday weekend) to sneak a link to its privacy policy onto its homepage and SERPs, Ted Byfield did a quick analysis of the realative visbility of the privacy policy…
Read More Visibility of Googe’s Privacy Policy Depends on Where you Live
Google (Quietly/Oddly) Adds Privacy Link to Homepage
After coming under attack for refusing to add a simple hyperlink to help users find their privacy policy, Google has added the word “privacy”, with a link to its privacy policy, to its home page (image via Google): Google, for…
Read More Google (Quietly/Oddly) Adds Privacy Link to Homepage
Court Orders Google to Give All YouTube User Histories to Viacom
Video privacy be damned. Louis L. Stanton, a senior judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, issued an order (PDF) Wednesday requiring Google to turn over every record of every video watched by…
Read More Court Orders Google to Give All YouTube User Histories to Viacom
Disrupting Google’s homepage with a 14-charater string
Much of Google's resistance to adding a link to its privacy policy on its homepage seems to boil down to little more than aesthetics. As Steve Langdon, a Google spokesman, puts it: "We do believe that having very limited text…
Read More Disrupting Google’s homepage with a 14-charater string
Searching for Google’s Privacy Policy
As we know, Google refuses to place a link to its privacy policy on either its homepage or search results pages. It has been pointed out (thanks, Chris) that the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 requires the operator…
Comparing Search Engine Privacy Policy Visibility
Prompted by Google's resistance to cluttering its homepage with a link to its privacy policy, I decided to take a quick tour of the major search engines to compare the relative visibility of their privacy policies. AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo!…
Google Wants You to Search for their Privacy Policy (and they get to record that query!)
I've long complained about how it takes at least 2 clicks to get to Google's privacy policy from its homepage (3 clicks if you count its new Privacy Center splash page). And that's only if you happen to click on…
Read More Google Wants You to Search for their Privacy Policy (and they get to record that query!)
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