Google search tool tracks emails from Gmail users
August 13, 2012
Meanwhile, Facebook promises more respect for user privacy.
By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | AUGUST 13, 2012
“We want our results to be truly universal,” says the company.
The technology company Google has announced on his blog the launch in test mode of a system to incorporate the contents of user emails in the results generated by its popular search engine.
This service is part of Google’s experimental programs and is available in English through Google.com for users with Gmail.com accounts.
“A search is a search and we want our results to be truly universal, so we are developing a way to find this information useful for you,” said Amit Singhal, senior vice president of Google Search.
The emails that are generated for each search are displayed in a new window located in the upper right of the screen, while the public results are displayed as usual.
Besides this novelty, Google announced that its database known as Knowledge Graph that increases the accuracy of search results, is accessible to English-speaking countries.
Facebook Pledges to Respect Privacy?
Not only is it difficult to believe that Google has the benefit of its users at heart, but it is much more difficult to believe that Facebook, whose founder said that users were a bunch of dumb f*****s because they trusted their information to his company, has compromised to respect user privacy. Neither of the two technology companies have the best interests of their users in mind, because they are both military operations to collect the largest amounts of data possible.
Publicly though, Facebook and The Federal Trade Commission (FTC for its acronym in English) have reached an agreement to “improve” its privacy policy, whereby the company agrees to obtain consent from users before sharing their information beyond what is in your privacy settings set. Wouldn’t it be better if Facebook pledged not to even start collection any information at all?
After a consultation period, the FTC has reached a final agreement with Facebook to resolve allegations in stating that the network had misled clients by telling them they could keep their information private and then repeatedly allow them to be shared and made public. Not only this. Facebook also tracks their mobile phone users equally as it does with those who access their accounts from personal computers.
The agreement calls for Facebook to give “several steps” to ensure that it fulfills its promises in the future, which includes providing consumers with “clear and significant” and obtain their consent before sharing their information beyond what is in your privacy settings. To this end, says the company must maintain a “comprehensive privacy program” to protect user information and conduct biennial audits of privacy by an independent third party.
The Commission gave its approval to the agreement with three votes in favor and one against, states that after extensive research conducted, there is “compelling reason” to believe that this decision is in the public interest and leaves clear that Facebook will be responsible for any misleading conduct.
I wonder how many bureaucrats will be overseeing Facebook’s daily operations in order to certify that the company is actually implementing the new more privacy sensible policies. None is probably the right number, and given Facebook’s past of user privacy violations, it would be foolish to actually trust a military spying operation to suddenly become reasonable in its collection and use of personal information.
