Search Engines: Has the Orwellian Big Brother Society Already Arrived?
Posted: Sunday, August 30, 2009
by Joel Kontinen
http://joelkontinen.blogspot.com/
Each time you do a Google search, the system records your IP address and search data or the path you followed to a particular webpage. Switching to Yahoo will not help you either as it does the same thing. As far as I know, all traditional search engines collect this information.
The IP address, short for Internet Protocol address, basically shows the location where you bought your computer. It does not disclose your street address or other details. However, people display an astounding amount of personal data on blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Add them to your IP address and search data and you will begin to see how much others can potentially find out about your web history and in the worst case scenario even sell or misuse the information.
It would not be too difficult for an unscrupulous internet marketer or politician to find out details that you would rather not share with people who mostly want your money or your vote.
So, is there any way of restoring some privacy to your web life or has the Big Brother society that George Orwell predicted in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four already arrived?
Actually, we still have some hope. There is a new search engine called Ixquick that promises it will not store your IP address or your search data. In July 2008 Ixquick was awarded the European Privacy Seal. It is the only search engine that has been approved by the European Union (EU).
There is a downside to Ixquick, however. It might not give as many search results for a particular item as Google does. To test this hypothesis, I recently typed "Searchwarp" in the Ixquick search engine and got 201,607 hits. In contrast, Google gave 469,00 hits.
But if you value your web privacy, you might want to try Ixquick one of these days.
This Article has been viewed 888 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Big Brother has been here for awhile now, and unfortunately is here to stay. I'm resigned to the fact my every move, either online or in public, can be scrutinized.Well done.Hi Michael.Yes, it seems he's here, taking note of what we say on Searchwarp. But perhaps we could make his work a bit harder.
Thanks for writing this article! I am forever amazed by this things technology is getting us into - without our knowledge! Informative. MarijoThanks, Marijo. I wonder whether I already am on Google's black list for mentioning their competitor in a positive light.
Hi Joel.I agree with Michael. Big Brother has been here for some time already. Witness those supermarket savings cards. Supposedly they are for our benefit, after all they give us discounts on certain items. But really all they are is a way for the retailer to track your purchases over time. Why should they need to do that when the computer "cash" registers collect that data and keep a running tabulation of sales vs. stock on hand? Oh well, this is just one of my soap box items.Thanks for the heads-up about Ixquick.DianneThanks Dianne. Yes, they want more of what is left of our money. The Internet is obviously their best friend.Joel
Great article. Well done.I see what yo mean. Though even if law enforcement can tell what sites you visit, when you visit them, how you found them and what computer you used they can't prove with an IP who was behind the screen at the time.Yes, you're right. The IP address does not reveal who uses the computer. And if you bought your computer elsewhere than your hometown, it can't even name the place where it is used. In this sense, cell phones are a better way of tracking people. But when you add IP tracking to this, it gets interesting.Thanks for reading,Joel
Thanks for the article. The Ixquick search engine looks interesting. After very quickly playing with it, the results look reasonable but not quite as good as Google or Bing. This is hardly surprising as the Ixquick is unlikely to have the maturity or the resources that Google or Microsoft have.Just one thing though--you are mistaken on the IP address. It does not identify where the computer was bought. Rather it is a unique identifer assigned to you by your ISP. It cannot normally be used to identify you as an individual, but can be used to identify all the internet transactions belonging to you (whoever you are) and to identify your approximate geographic location. In order to work out who you are, a company or government needs to bully your ISP into handing over your contact details.Thanks, Andy. Ixquick hardly challenges Google at present. Also, thanks for your more detailed explanation of the IP address. I should have said approximate location, which, in some cases is the same as the location where one buys the computer (This recently happened to me).
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.