Search Engines – Page 8 – MichaelZimmer.org

How Google Blew It with Street View

Posted by Michael Zimmeron October 2, 2007in Privacy, Search Engines, Values In Design11 Comments

As I just mentioned, Google recently announced plans to blur or otherwise obscure people's faces in the Canadian version of the Street View product. After a brief conversation with my colleague Chris Hoofnagle, I've come to realize that in their…

Catching up – link dump

Posted by Michael Zimmeron October 2, 2007in Privacy, Search Engines

I've been incredibly busy lately, and need to quickly catch up on some recent items of note: Siva Vaidhyanathan has launched a new blog for his forthcoming book, "The Googlization of Everything"... ...while Cory Doctorow provides his fictional vision of…

Privacy and Quaero’s Quest for the Perfect Search Engine: Threats and Opportunities

Posted by Michael Zimmeron September 29, 2007in Privacy, Search Engines, Values In Design5 Comments

I'm in Maastricht today participating in the "Forum on Quaero: A public think tank on the politics of the search engine." In my talk, "Privacy and Quaero's Quest for the Perfect Search Engine: Threats and Opportunities," I call on the…

ISP Lunch Speaker Series

Posted by Michael Zimmeron September 17, 2007in Events, Information Ethics, Information Law & Policy, Internet, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

One of my duties at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School has been to organize our weekly lunch speaker series. Last week we welcomed Samir Chopra, a philosopher who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer…

Update on Quaero Forum

Posted by Michael Zimmeron September 15, 2007in Search Engines3 Comments

The program for the "Forum on Quaero: A public think tank on the politics of the search engine" has been posted online (along with a promotional flyer): Quaero: isn’t that the search engine that former French president Jacques Chirac declared…

Google to Blur Personal Data on Street View Upon Request — But Requesting Remains Difficult

Posted by Michael Zimmeron August 23, 2007in Privacy, Search Engines1 Comment

Given the obvious privacy concerns with Google's Street View imaging system (as well as Microsoft's Windows Live Local Virtual Earth), you would think providers of such services would make it easy for privacy-threatening content to be flagged and removed. While…

Does the EU Data Retention Directive Apply to Search Query Data?

Posted by Michael Zimmeron August 22, 2007in Information Law & Policy, Privacy, Search Engines4 Comments

I am unable to reconcile an inconsistency between the common appeal search engines make that data retention laws require them to store user search query histories, and what these laws (where enacted) actually require. For example, this post at Google's…

Perspective: Companies need guidance to face censors abroad

Posted by Michael Zimmeron August 17, 2007in Information Ethics, Search Engines

John Palfrey and Jonathan Zittrain have published a wonderful opinion piece at CNet about how Internet companies struggle with certain "gray zones" of complicity with oppressive regimes and their desire to filter and censor Web content. They try to provide…

CNet: How Search Engines Rate on Privacy

Posted by Michael Zimmeron August 14, 2007in Privacy, Search Engines2 Comments

I'm under deadline pressure currently, so very quickly: Declan McCullagh and Elinor Mills at CNet have surveyed the major search engine providers about their privacy practices related to retention of user data and behavioral targeting. Full story here, and the…

Google Tests New Ad-Serving System with Privacy Protections (but if a tree falls in the woods with no one around…)

Posted by Michael Zimmeron August 10, 2007in Privacy, Search Engines

Google is testing new ad-serving technology with added privacy protections: In our ad-serving tests, we're introducing an opt-out mechanism so people can opt out of the test ad-serving cookie if they wish. In addition, we’re going to experiment with ways…