Google Tracking

I like Google as much as the next person (whoever that may be). In fact, I have begun to utilize Google in almost every aspect of my digital doings. I mean, there’s Gmail, Gtalk, Google Calendar, Blogger (the lone non-G). And who could forget iGoogle, my homepage, the pièce de resistence of my personal Google empire, customized with the date, time, calendar, news, RSS blog feeds, and, of course, the countdown until I leave for the Denver Publishing Institute. And those are just the things that I use on a regular basis. There are even more applications that I haven’t even gotten around to utilizing yet: Google Video, Google Groups, Documents, etc. There is even an application now called Google Web History that logs every site you visit and how many times you visit them. Whoever said that Google is taking over the world is probably right.

So it didn’t come as much surprise today when I read an article on CNN.com about the privacy issues that some people are having in regard to all of this. A lot of people don’t realize that Google tracks EVERYTHING. I found this out when I first got my Gmail account. I was writing an e-mail to someone about my fear of public speaking and as I was typing, I happened to glance at the ads on the right side of the screen. I noticed that one of them read: How to Speak Without Fear. I think I just sat there and stared at it for about a minute, then promptly wrote a blog entry in my personal blog about the creepiness of it all (because I am a nerd after all).

This article brings up a whole range of issues though. How much should Google be allowed to track? Is it even legal for them to do so? And the biggest question of all: How unaware are people about the digital footprints they leave behind? I can't even count the number of times that professors have brought up this issue, especially with social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Everything on the internet is out there just waiting to be found and we have to be careful about the information that we leave behind.

All of these issues put things in perspective... and are a little scary. But even so, Google remains a staple in my web browsing activities. It's so useful that it's easy to overlook the fact that they track everything. For now, I'll stick with the Gmail and the iGoogle, but will avoid the Google Web History. Because, let's face it, I don't really need Google to remind me of how many times I visit Facebook...