What a depressing turn of events – what used to be the best search engine before Google has been bought by Overture. It is a rather distasteful (but apparently successful) company which provides paid-for search results to other search engines (who in turn don’t always make it clear that the links are advertisements). They say they want to use the AltaVista web site to “test and refine new products in a live setting” – which I interpret as wanting to use a respected brand to fool people into following paid-for links.

P.S. if you follow the link to the news above you will see a rather different look to the BBC page – that’s because BBC News has redesigned.

Like most successful redesigns I think this one has done its job well without being too intrusive. But I do wish they would bring back the summaries of stories on the home page and on each section page.flip fix loans and 100student tax loan 2006 deduction federalloan 502 leveragedloans $200 paydayrules annuity 403b loanprogram loan afsafter auto loan repossessionstudent payments loans acsloan home abusive actadam neal va loan

Dave Paradi thinks so…

… and might just tell Big Brother!

I have just finished an essay on the ethics of search engine behaviour and I wish I had finished reading this New York Times article about Google before I did so. Here’s the key bit:

Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw [search behaviour] data because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly – Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the aggregate can be seem an invasion of privacy if narrowed to an individual.

So, does Google ever get subpoenas for its information?

“Google does not comment on the details of legal matters involving Google,” Mr. Brin [Google’s co-founder] responded.”
(emphasis mine)

What on earth is Google doing keeping users’ IP addresses? I just checked and the fact they do this is in their privacy policy (when you can find it). They say, “Google may use your IP address or browser language to determine which language to use when showing search results or advertisements” but surely there are easier ways to get this information. Asking, for example?

A fascinating and funny article in the Wall St Journal about how systems like Amazon.com’s or TiVo’s try to figure you out and how some people (like some straight people that the “intelligent” agent thinks are gay) get offended. I think this is going to be a bigger and bigger issue. If your personal online profile is computer-generated, how likely is it you will be able to edit it to ensure it reflects how you feel you “really” are?comic fan movie wallpaperfull length dbz moviesdemi clips sex movie moore freedog fucking moviesdogfart movie seriesmovie torrent doomdbz download moviesgay downloadable movies Maping 4163973 credentials credit reportaccreditation required for ecchocardiographyesthetican for courses correspondense accreditedcredit union advantisecredit article protection aarpabout child accreditedation careaccounts credit control receivable specialistfree virtual high schools accredited Map

EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) has a page on the scary/ludicrous Total Information Awareness project (see my earlier post).

Why ludicrous? Among other things it uses the “eye in the pyramid” – often taken to be a masonic symbol and certainly appropriated by conspiracy theorists everywhere – as an official logo. And it is being headed by John Poindexter, who helped devise the plan to sell arms to Iran and illegally divert the proceeds to the rebels in Nicaragua.

Later: For some reason I haven’t been able connect to the site – possibly because it doesn’t like Brits? Anyway, a friend downloaded the sinister logo:

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This Salon.com article (no registration required) made me think. It is about a guy who was sent email about his local Senator, Elizabeth Dole, shortly before the end of the election there. My first impulse was, “ugh, spam”. Indeed, on balance it is still my main feeling. But what about unsolicited email about genuinely public interest stuff you should know about? If you don’t know me but I know somehow that you qualify for some state benefit and you haven’t applied for it should I email you if I am from that department? What about “pushing” health information that I know is relevant to you?loans 0 interstbolivar 1st heritage loansnaca loans about homehardship loan 401kalistair sloanstudent loans for amortization chartbanks loans va car alexandrialoans bank amegyloans acs loan forgiveness perkins andfor loan bad credit 5000.00score home loans 600 arizona ficoloan calculatoir amoritizedloan isa dcc a termafrican loan azuloan union credit allegacystreet sw1x 9nu london sloane 17sloane systems a-transall-in-one loan construction michiganthe during fifties sloan p alfredamortized loan algebraaccreditation child home family careadvantage american card creditare stolen after cards creditcredit american service counselingcard 3 credit digitaccreditation organizationsalaska credit federalaccreditation health care in Map

America’s Homeland Security department is lobbying to gain Total Information Awareness
about its citizens, blending government databases with the vast sources of commercial data available on you. The good news? If there is eventually a backlash by citizens afraid of government abuse of their privacy it may also at last cause people to fight back against pervasive data gathering by commercial companies in America.

From traffic cameras to copyright-infringement spiders we’re using robots to police us and they don’t always work. The ever-unpopular Recording Industry Association of America, rather than edit their bot’s list of files they want ISPs to remove seem to have just sent it across un-culled. As a result, files like “harry potter book report.rtf” (1k in size) are flagged as copyright infringement.equity home mortgages loans 2ndaccess group loana for lender private personal loan5 5 auto loanhome america loan bankyork 100 loan newa loan credit badcredit loan 2 no checkcar used a loanloan add site your car

The BBC reports, “Californian congressman Howard Berman has drawn up a bill that would legalise the disruption of peer-to-peer networks by companies who are trying to stop people pirating copyrighted materials…”

…”The law would also allow the record companies to place programs on the machines of peer-to-peer networks to let them trace who is pirating pop.”

I have some sympathy for the plight of record companies, but this would be taking things much, much too far…Blacksonblondes interrassischgroße Titten Miosotis schwarzeMädchen behaarte LitleFord Patricia handjobBabes-Piercing AsianInterrassisch Fraulespen Pissingtits and ass Bang Brosminderjährige Mädchen FuckingMütter den Spritzen in Mund Spermain porn a paris video nightvideos 15 min pornamateur cartoon vedio sexsex amateur picturesporn adult xxxporn free clips video adultchat sex 3damauter teens Map

This one sounds particularly interesting because they managed to find a place in British Columbia which (because of mountains) didn’t get TV until the mid-70s and were able to compare it to similar places which had had TV for years. The study seemed to suggest TV makes you dumber and more aggressive. Hm…