Everything you would like to buy through http://froogle.com
Everything you post through http://Blogger.com (even your private/unpublished/draft posts)
The photos you store through http://Picasa.com
Which news groups you read through http://groups-beta.google.com/
which keywords you care about (if you set up an alert at http://www.google.com/webalerts)

Something else google does know is:
- news (and people involved) through http://news.google.com,
- images (and people depicted?) through http://images.google.com
- what remote services are most used, through the API (http://www.google.com/apis/)
- probably something out of the toolbar and deskbar (such as the version used?)
- in which directory you tried to classify your site through http://directory.google.com/
- how many books you have written (and how many times you appeared in a book) through http://print.google.com/print/faq.html

The complete amd scary list can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

Can we say that google knows about you more that yourself?

From the toolbar, yes, I forgot that ... if the PageRank utility's switched on: every web site you visit.

Under "Even if you don't use a GMail account" you should add every email you've ever received from someone @gmail.com

I think you guys are overly paraniod. We all know any site can track some of this information. Heck, the company I would be more scared of is Microsoft. They run your OS, they run IE, they run MS, they run hotmail, they run MSN messenger, they run MSN, they run the ESPN site, they run office, they run games, they run Money, they run... well a lot more than Google does. Just think if MS wrote a backdoor that allows them to track everything you do, from your finances to what porn sites you visit. I am more scared of what Microsoft knows than what Google knows.

I think Microsoft has access to much less of this kind of data than Google, legally, at least at the moment (except for IM logs, which I don't think Google has access to at all). There's no paranoia in the list above though, it's just a list of data that Google (probably) stores, which is worth keeping in mind.

if you are a blogger.com user and publish by ftp: every file you have on the web server where your postings go.

Hell, even your ISP can do most of this stuff (see: "E-Mail Snooping Ruled Permissible": http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,64043,00.html).

Online, it's all about who you trust with your data.

Things my HOSTS file knows about me: I don't care to see AdSense ads.

Things Firefox's Cookie Manager knows about me: I don't care to have Google track whether I want to be protected from dirty pictures through more than one browser session.

Things GMail knows about me: I don't think of something transmitted as cleartext as private.

Google is God

You can substitute "Google" in this nonsense blogosphere groupthink post with any of the big search engines, any of the online ad sellers and so on and so on.

What you REALLY should be worked up about is the fact that ECHELON (USUK) has access to ALL OF THIS, PLUS YOUR FAXES AND PHONE CALLS.

The blogosphere propagates useless and stupid notions as well as interesting and correct ones. The latter have a higher friction factor than the former; thats why the stupid memes spread so rapidly. They are easy to digest, so that even the most thick of bloggers can simply repeat them with consumate ease and no analysis or thought at all, just like this post that merely lists what google "knows" about its users.

Google is not a living thing by the way, it doesnt "know" anything at all. It collects information. Wether it is used by a person or not is an entirely different matter.

This post is being propagated throughout the blogosphere, mindlessly. A pointless list without analysis or any throught. An idiotic and useless thing. A frictionless meme, requiring no thought. It is pointless, and attention wasting.

Google is not a bad company. If you dont like it, you can download Mozilla and Adblock and block its ads. You can refrain from using Gmail and Google search. You can do without Google if you desire.

What you have no CHOICE about is ECHELON's spying on ALL your communicaitions. But then, if you post about ECHELON, no one will replicate your post, you will not get your 15mins of fame in the blogosphere, and worst of all...

You will have to THINK.

Calm down Jason.

Since we're trying to get our sites good ranking on Google, why not do the same with Echelon :)!

http://www.bloggidity.com/web/2003/09/27/spook_words_email_25.htm

Things Microsoft knows about you:

Everything you search for using MSN
Every web page you visit using Internet Explorer
Which country you're in
-If you have any account with MS
Your full name, address and bank account details
-If you use a Hotmail account
Who you send emails to
Who sends emails to you
The contents of those emails
The contents of all emails received from any mailing lists of which you are a member, even if they are private mailing lists.
-Even if you don't use a Hotmail account
The contents of any emails you send to anyone who does use a Hotmail account
The contents of any emails you send to any mailing lists of which any one member uses a Hotmail account

Plus...
How long you spend on your computer, how many people use your computer, how many hours you spend on the internet, what you do most with your computer, how often you add new hardware, which hardware goes with what other hardware, what software you use
-If you use MSN
How many people you talk to, who you talk to, how long you talk to them for

I could be making all that up of course - but I trust Google more than I trust Microsoft.

Microsoft, right. A lot of that list isn't true, but even if it was, it's pretty easy to avoid most of those things, and people know that. None of Microsoft's software is recommended any more, unlike Google's.

But you missed 'if you use MSN: everything you say over IM', which I think is the most important.

Also, people trusting Google more than Microsoft is exactly the point of this post.

i've learned more from (searching through) google than they could ever learn from watching me...

so i'm not too worried

The real question is: does Google use this information? (And if so, how?)

Just having the information is harmless...

"Every web page you visit using Internet Explorer"

Uh, Microsoft doesn't know that. IE doesn't send info back to MS whenever I'm browsing. I'm all for documenting these things, but don't be stupid/paranoid because then it makes the legitimate concerns look foolish.

This is a lot of data to write down on a website. Don't you think that there are some people in the government who have found ways to bypass all this stuff?
Ok, let's say they do know. So what? Do you have something to hide? Did you do something wrong, or say someting you weren't supposed to say? Are you part of some terrorist plot? I'm not. So I don't see what they're gonna do with all this info.
It makes no difference anyway: if you truly wanna know about someone, you hire a PI, that won't cost you BILLIONS of dollars in development costs only so you get the off-chance that the person you're looking for is gonna write a blog, and choose to have ads there.
Besides, what is Microsoft or Google gonna do with it? Drown me in spam? I'll change emails. Drown me in snail mail? I have a garbage bag next to the door. I just think you guys have watched too many movies, guys. They sure as hell won't come knocking on my door to try and friggin' off me. What would be the point?
So what if Microsoft or Google know about me. Here's a cool thing they know about me now: as I write this comment on YOUR blog, I'm naked.

Yes indeed Anil, but the question in this case is what exactly are legitimate concerns, and why are people attacking Google in this coordinated and rather strange way, when there are true, more unfixable problems related to surveillance and intelligence gathering on the net. Saying that something is not legitmate without pointing to what is doesnt add any useful momentum to the debate. If it is a debate at all.

Jason, it beggars belief that you haven't read this screed:

http://www.google-watch.org/jobad.html

And how is the list illegitimate? It's not that hard of an imaginative leap to consider all the information in the Google database could be interlinked; exploited. It's about possibilities.

This image should illustrate:
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2004_05_12_index.html#108438583217050207

"You heard of that long-lived Google cookie to expire January 17, 2038. And you probably know Google shares it amongst all of its services. (Did you know this is only possible because whereever you are, it's something dot google dot com?) Which means when you log-in to Gmail, someone at Google knows what you were searching for. When you log-in to Blogger.com, Google tracks what you are publishing. Log-in to Orkut, and Google knows who your friends are, what you like, where you live and how old you are. Let's face it: now Google merged all that faithfully submitted data, they know more about you than your own mother. Time's rife for old-fashioned blackmailing or something infinitely more clever... after all, it's Google engineers we're talking about."

Free services goes one-step forward they keep tracks of everything. They do this to keep service free for all of us and make profit out of it. Remember no one forced to use the services; it is your personal choice. So don’t blem them ;)
Most of the sites, which tracks google or gmail, got AdSense. Bottom line google rulz.

I guess the question about trusting Google comes down to this: do you trust this information to be available to anyone who gets a court order for it?

A summary here :
http://gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

How many millions of people use google a day? I'm SURE they're really interested in searching through all that knowledge to find out what kind of stuff little johnny from nebraska is searching for - a government may scan this stuff once in a while or even continuosly, but then, this stuff is going over the internet - if you're so paranoid about it you don't want any of it to be remembered, stop using it. Not difficult, just go out, do something in the fresh air, lose a few pounds, feel better, and get yourselves a life of some kind, rather than worrying about the scary companies who are essentially trying to make you spend all your money on them, rather than suspect you of having deviant fetishes. Relax, you can all sleep well at night...

For more info visit:
http://www.gmailinvitation.com

I sometimes forget information about myself: what I did last Thursday; who I told I was going to be somewhere, when really I was going to be somewhere else; my British colleague's email address, and the dates he said he was going to be out of town; my mother-in-law's birthday; the name of that stuff I bought once to clean the bath and it was really good; the flight number of my trip to Amsterdam next week; where I put my glasses...

It's nice to think that someone's paying attention to all that stuff. Well, most of it. If only Google would come up with an app that to search for my glasses.

Most of these comments have been about what google knows about people using their service.
Read my short essay about the potential problems with google controlling the access to the information in the first place.
If google doesn't index it, it effectively is invisible:

http://robertdfeinman.com/society/google_monopoly.html

Ugh... While Google DOES save your Emails, and DOES scan them, those Emails are NEVER read by any human being. This is practiced by almost every major email provider, including Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.

Get over it! In a major US city, you are photographed an average of 20 times a day. If you want a real opponent, try looking at the US Gov't.

I give it a year at most before Google goes self-aware. By all that is holy, nobody give it information on the US defence network :)

I've been quite aware that almost anything you do online is trackable. I delete my cookies, use Opera 7.5.4 as a browser, I have a robust firewall, Ad Muncher kills most intruding ads and spyware. On top of that I have Peer Gaurdian blocking hostile IP addresses. If I'm using gmail I fire up Mozilla and consider everything I send open for reading to the public. Heck if I want privacy I'll use Hushmail and spoof my IP address via a couple of proxy servers. Just be aware that every single thing you do electronically is trackable. Then deal with it and live your life!!

dudes...its a search engine...its supposed to find things...its gotta know everything...

something google doesn't know about me. All the results they;ve compiled on me are the result of someone else using my machine. I don;t find it to be a great example of a search engine (unless of course I;m searching for ads.)

Nice info.
thanx for enlightening us!
:-)

So if Google knows more about you than you do, does Google also know more about itself than it does?

I would like to know now if i have installed GGL Desktop what knows more about me ..

If you use desktop.google.com,
google knows all the files in your hard disk.

I think you are not right Paolo, Google desktop only search in C://
If you have a hard disk partition or more units google won't be able to search the files in this units.

I'm only beeing sarcastic ... What can GGL do with this information (private and confidential information). It's amazing ..

(if you use desktop.google.com)
- every file in your filesystem,
- every file in your Internet Explorer cache,
- every email in your Outlook, every chat/instant message in your AOL

See http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2004/10/15/what_google_knows_about_you.html

See you this article from Search Engine Watch (Danny Sullivan), abot what said Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer web products:
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3421651

"...Once installed, the application starts indexing information on your computer in the file types it understands. At the moment, only files on your primary hard drive (the C: drive for most people) are indexed. Those on additional hard drives won't be searchable...."

The idea of syndication is to share information.
The idea of p2p is to share ressourcen.
Build it together with distributed computing.
Maybe this is Googles Aim.

I like Google

would Google be connected to (or infiltrated by) the CIA or any other highly secret USA KGB organisation, typical for american "freedom" and "democracy"??

As long as Rumsfeld or Cheney don't see how much time I spent on the internet, I don't care.

if msn and google r that good why dont they find mt grandmother and the births of her 4 children cose i can't and i hate the damn computer,

You know, I guess I'm not sure why I should care what google knows. If it knows all this info about 100 million or more people, will it ever affect anyone as individuals? Just my thoughts.

here's where you can go to disable Googles cookie and become anonymous:

http://www.imilly.com/google-cookie.htm

Tim

Aren't the core activities of a search engine to have an excellent CRM and to know the people who are editing datas?

i hate google

If a tree fell in the woods and no one was there to see it, would google know?

This site about google is hilarious,

http://members.tripod.com/magitonez

PARANOID? Not really. But wait for a little while when everyone is forced to accept the little micro-chip then is when you should be scared.
Don't take it children, for when you do, you will become a wraith on the other side. You will become a servant of the Dark Lord, Sauron the Great. With his GPS marking every move that you make, you will never be able to hide again.

well the question is what do we do with information like this?
think about it. think of all the dirty little things you've looked up on the net. all your secrets of what you do when you're alone with your computer.
because if its true, if 'someone' were to come to you one day and bribe you with your life with that information....what would you do? swallow the shit storm or do as they ask?

ps. i forsee a day when we all wake up and turn on the news to find news anchors excitedly telling us that they found osama on google

*yoink*

Thanks for the seed for my next rant. Google is up there with:

http://www.nocards.org/

Wanna know why Google knows so much about you? their business is sponsored by a venture capitalist firm called V-Q-Tel. What do they have to do with it? V-Q-Tel is the venture capitalist firm of the CIA! This means the CIA may be able to access any Google search it pleases. Folks, Google's spyware is the Patriot Act in full effect. When you use Google, it's not just Sergey who's watching you!!! Use Scroogle, which scrapes all of Google's nasty stuff and still does the search. www.scroogle.org/

i like www.ask.com better they know everything!p.s.i am not given u my e-mail address (lol)

what u wrote is stokeing people.

Google vs. Socienty
...
It seems people start to realize the hidden price tags of monopolies like Walmart and Microsoft. Why not for Google? Is it really to early to realize the risks of Google’s market dominance? ...
http://tdot.blog-city.com/google_print_and_society.htm

why the hell is google have all the search engines we typed i wish i could sue them. i will never use their site again

Be kind to those who are weaker or unfortunate.

google knows

google knows your cats name

google knows where your keys are

google knows what you had for breakfast and the exact amount of cerial you had

google knows

Authoritarians Spying on people is not a sign of their superiority it is the first sign of their inversion.

Besides all the Intrusions done by Google, BEWARE of one big thing,
Google offers nice discounts if anyone use their Google payment (For online payments you can use Google Payment) sometimes they offer nice discounts for using their web site to make payments for any products you purchase from other web sites, here is what they know once you do this:

1. They require a Google account to make the payments.
2. Once you make a payment - you are giving out everything: Credit Card, Address, real names, Etc
3. Once you tie the google account, your I.P address and your Credit Card info - Imagine how google will/can save your information in their massive database, one example I can think of:

Mr. Jon Doe
Address: XYZ
I.P: 123
Account: a@b.com
Searched on Google for: blah blah

If you still think its ok for Google to have all this info, go ahead.

Besides all the Intrusions done by Google, BEWARE of one big thing,
Google offers nice discounts if anyone use their Google payment (For online payments you can use Google Payment) sometimes they offer nice discounts for using their web site to make payments for any products you purchase from other web sites, here is what they know once you do this:

1. They require a Google account to make the payments.
2. Once you make a payment - you are giving out everything: Credit Card, Address, real names, Etc
3. Once you tie the google account, your I.P address and your Credit Card info - Imagine how google will/can save your information in their massive database, one example I can think of:

Mr. Jon Doe
Address: XYZ
I.P: 123
Account: a@b.com
Searched on Google for: blah blah

If you still think its ok for Google to have all this info, go ahead.

what is up with all that google knows it scares me!
I think that I won't go on anymore!

Everything you type on the internet may be seen by someone else. You don't want to use google?

Fine use something else ... what makes you think that the other "thing" doesn't do the same thing?

Scary.

GOOGLE KNOWS NOTHING! ITS ALL LIES!