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More on Google

Adam Sharp, of Maryland-based Sharp SEO, actually read through the Justice Deptartment's Google subpoena. He posted a blog entry excerpting and linking to the actual Google subpoena which is, in turn, hosted on Ziff-Davis' website:

In Google’s understanding, Defendant would use the one million URLs requested from Google to create a sample world-wide web against which to test various filtering programs for their effectiveness. Google objects to Defendant’s view of Google’s highly proprietary search database—the primary reason for the company’s success—as a free resource that Defendant can access and use, some levels removed, to formulate its own defense.

Now here's my take on Internet privacy.

Astute readers may notice that Sharp's blog has no link to biographical information, nor does his "under construction" corporate site. Really astute readers will notice that he has a link to my blog entry on this topic and figure out how I knew about his blog.

When Sharp linked his blog to mine, our blog engines shook hands, and my blog engine made a log entry commemorating the event. I saw the log entry and clicked on the referring link to find out who was linking to me. I expect he's going to do exactly the same thing in reverse shortly after I hit the "Post to Weblog" button.

Since I wanted to link back to his blog, I wanted to give him proper attribution. I haven't written for a newspaper since college, but I like to think I still retain some journalistic sense about sourcing my material. So I first looked on his blog for an "About" page or some other identifying material. Finding none, I browsed to his corporate website and found the "under construction" page. No info there.

Next, I ran a WHOIS query on his domain name, and got exactly what I wanted: his name and state of residence, which is sufficient for proper attribution.

(I also found out, in preparing this post, that my own registration is quite out-of-date. My apologies to any stalkers who have wasted time lurking in the wrong place.)

My point is this: Privacy on the Web is difficult to maintain. You have to take active steps to limit what people can find out about you, especially where public databases like the Internet registry are concerned. And, every Website you visit logs your IP address, browser, referring page (where you were when you clicked on the Website's own link), and click-stream (how much time you spent viewing each page, and in what order you viewed them).

That said, if someone wants to find you, they will. The Internet doesn't really make that any easier than it was 30 years ago when most people could be found by calling 411. Oh wait: most people can still be found through 411. Never mind then.

We as a people have always given up certain kinds of privacy as a cost of having an open society. Ours was the first country where land records were made public, the better to have good title to property, which helps everyone. Corporate documents, including personal information about coporate ownership, is public information: it encourages corporate responsibility, among other things.

The Internet is the same. You get all this information at your fingertips, but in order to give it to you, the provider needs to know where to send it (your IP address) and how (your browser type). If you want to have your own piece of the Internet, you need to tell some registrar somewhere who you are—at the very least so you can pay the registrar.

This is a complicated topic on which I will write more after I shovel the walk.

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