RE: [xml-dev] Google, Web services and privacy

["Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>]

Shouldn't this be something you email to Google as a
suggestion/complaint or post on Slashdot to start flamewars instead of
posting to XML-DEV? Google has records of your searches if you use their
service, big deal. 

-- 
PITHY WORDS OF WISDOM 
Freebees will only arrive at work on your days off.


This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. 

>  
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: K. Ari Krupnikov [mailto:ari@cogsci.ed.ac.uk] 
> Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 9:59 AM
> To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> 
> I have a lot of respect for Google. They are the best search 
> engine I know of.  They have the best Usenet archive I know 
> of.  They use some of what I consider to be the coolest 
> technologies around.  And they let you access their data as 
> XML, making them one of the few "Web services" that actually 
> work.  "Google XML API" [1] gives you access to the same data 
> that are available through the HTML interface, with the 
> important difference that non-interactive user agents are 
> allowed and expected [2] to use this service.  As with the 
> HTML interface, the service is free to users with the minor 
> difference that users of the XML API are limited to 1000 
> queries per day and 1000 results per query [3] -- neither of 
> which seems unreasonable to me; I don't think I ever came 
> anywhere near that number using the HTML interface.
> 
> To enforce these limits, a service needs to discriminate between users
> -- and indeed an XML API query must include a license key 
> assigned to a user when he or she signs up for the service.  
> Google's terms of use prohibit acquiring more than one key 
> per (human) user[4]; to enforce this, Google tie codes to 
> email addresses.  Which leads to the observation that with 
> the XML API, every Google query is linked directly and 
> unambiguously to user identity, whereas an HTML query is only 
> linked to an IP address [5].
> 
> Do I care if Google know I searched for "offshore exploration oil"?
> No.  Do I trust them not to release that fact to, say, Inland 
> Revenue or IRS? Yes. Do I like that fact sitting in a 
> database somewhere[6] FFU?  No.
> 
> Ari.
> 
> 
> [1] http://www.google.com/apis/
> [2] http://www.google.com/apis/api_faq.html#gen6
> [3] http://www.google.com/apis/api_faq.html#gen7
> [4] http://www.google.com/apis/api_faq.html#gen10
> [5] Unlike an IP address which may or may not give hints to 
> user identity, a license key is an assertion by the user that 
> she is who she claims to be. Using another's id is a 
> violation of the terms of service.
> [6] And being XML, the data are likely to outlive the application (TM)
> 
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