Chaos Magnet

Why saving data isn't always good

I understand that you need to save some data in order to make sure your business functions. For example, I can understand why Google needs to log what searches are performed and so on. But it makes me nervous that Google (and Yahoo, and probably many of the other search engines) associate that data with a particular person. Kudos to Google for fighting an attempt by the Feds to get their logs. But if they hadn't collected the information in the first place, there wouldn't be a problem. Yahoo and AOL say they complied iwth the subpoena, but didn't provide personally identifiable information. MSN just talked about what law abiding citizens they were in abiding by lawful requests. I guess we know what that means.

Technorati tags: COPA | Google | AOL | Yahoo | Yahoo! | MSN | privacy |

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