MichaelZimmer.org

There has been a lot of movemnet recently regarding how search engines treat the vast amounts of user data they collect. In early 2007, Google announced it would “anonymize” its user search logs after 18-24 months. Later that year, Google reluctantly decided to add an expiration date to its web cookie, while Ask.com (unsuccessfully) tried [...]

A collection of information and communication companies, advocacy groups, and academic centers have announced the formation of the Global Network Initiative, aimed at protecting free expression and privacy on the Internet on a global scale. From the announcement: In an effort to protect and advance the human rights of freedom of expression and privacy, a [...]

Prompted by Google’s resistance to cluttering its homepage with a link to its privacy policy, I decided to take a quick tour of the major search engines to compare the relative visibility of their privacy policies. AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have visible privacy policies on both their homepages and search results page (which is especially [...]

Yahoo has issued a press release on their new ad sales system, AMP! that provided a few new insights into this “powerful new online advertising platform.” The New York Times broke this story earlier, which I blogged about here. Interestingly, the Yahoo release avoids using the phrase “behavioral targeting” (which is mentioned in the NYT [...]

The New York Times is reporting details of Yahoo’s forthcoming new advertising system which will allow targeting of ads based on users’ online activities: Yahoo said the system, called AMP and still months away from being ready, would greatly simplify the task of selling online ads, allowing Yahoo’s publishing partners, for instance, to place ads [...]

Breaking news that could shake up the search industry, as well as having broader implications for concentration of user data (if we can convince the FTC of the connections between antitrust and privacy wrt online businesses rely on user data for their products and services): Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Bid for Yahoo Microsoft said Friday [...]

I’ve been incredibly busy lately, and need to quickly catch up on some recent items of note: Siva Vaidhyanathan has launched a new blog for his forthcoming book, “The Googlization of Everything“… …while Cory Doctorow provides his fictional vision of Google at its most evil extreme, working with Homeland Security to monitor and track citizens. [...]

I’m under deadline pressure currently, so very quickly: Declan McCullagh and Elinor Mills at CNet have surveyed the major search engine providers about their privacy practices related to retention of user data and behavioral targeting. Full story here, and the search engines’ actual replies here. Excellent summary, but much remains unknown…

In my dissertation I outline the quest for the “perfect search engine” – a search engine capable of indexing all available information and providing fast and relevant results. The perfect search engine will have to have “perfect reach” to deliver any type of online content from all online (and, increasingly, offline) sources, as well as [...]

An important press release came out this week regarding a coalition of Internet companies, IT providers, human rights organizations, and academics joining forces to address human rights violations enabled by technologies and practices by some of the member organizations, such as providing means of surveillance for regimes like China to identify and jail dissident citizens. [...]