Long before the NSA scandal, I became aware of the power of information being hoarded on our every move. It was the government that I was concerned with as much as it was Google. CNBC did a business biography on the power of Google which enlightened me on just how powerful their data-mining efforts were.
Buyer beware -- anything you type into your Google search bar, your Gmail account, this blog or your droid phone is being stored and analyzed. Many people's search results from Google alone would be enough to embarrass you and possibly release some skeletons from your closet.
My wife is an ER nurse, and we've jokingly discussed various things she's had to search for as a part of her job. From diseases to God only knows what else, you can paint a picture on who you are based on what you search. But no one does that, right?
Well, maybe. The auto-complete feature on Google seems to always know what you're going to type, right? It does for me, and it is a feature that I appreciate. Those auto-completes only happen if enough people have already put that information into Google. For that to happen, a computer has to be doing analysis which means humans are in some way involved in reviewing our searches.
Google has maintained that results that they store, and they store them all, are not associated with any person or computer. Call me a skeptic. I do believe that someday, somewhere a celebrity or politician's search results won't be leaked to the public.
Fox Business had a story this week on that auto-correct feature, and some of the more bizarre results that we (consumers) have plugged into Google. For instance:
1,000 monthly searches for “how to hide a dead body”
1,900 searches for “how to get away with murder”
110 people a month simply search “cat dating”
Check out the entire story at:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2014/03/18/need-to-hide-corpse-ask-google/
