Thread: Google Tool Bar

I got this link in one of my newsletters today. I found it very interesting. Ever wonder why you had to sign the EULA when using google toolbar? Its because they are gathering information on how you search, besides the rank of pages you look at, your habits and how you search.

http://outofmygord.com/archive/2007/...alization.aspx

Karen

Atleast google takes a stance against giving that information out. I remember a couple years ago the US government were wanting information on what people were searching for and other information and google refused to give it.

No - they don't give it to the govt UNLESS they have to - they just collect it for themselves - so what's the diff?

Well the personalization idea is a good one.. but, Id rather they give me options and let me personalize it myself rather than they do it based on my habits that theyve studied.. or based on say my gender or age group, etc. I think google collects way too much data. Do you realize what could happen if google ever decided to sell out? Or if you pi55ed them off? So far theyve been ethical that we know of. Im guessing they are getting just a little bit too much info as it is, and they will force most of the internet, and already do force the majority of the internet to their rules.

Karen

The personalized search stuf scares the **** out of me. I don't want to se the websites that I have seen before if I am using Google to do research. Google is also looking at banning and penalizing sites for paid links. Now how are they going to determine this? Matt Cutts was up to about 250 responses on his blog about this. People are not happy about it. It almost seems like Google is trying to recreate the internet in its own image. Kinda scary.

Originally Posted by motoxxx

The personalized search stuf scares the **** out of me. I don't want to se the websites that I have seen before if I am using Google to do research. Google is also looking at banning and penalizing sites for paid links. Now how are they going to determine this? Matt Cutts was up to about 250 responses on his blog about this. People are not happy about it. It almost seems like Google is trying to recreate the internet in its own image. Kinda scary.

Mook..

They are going to do that by where the link comes from. Paid directories are all over the place, it wont take them long to figure out if its one company doing 200 links to your site as you paid them to do, or if you just say a paid listing in yahoo, or shopzilla. Thats why its wise NOT to do things for SE rank which i constantly harp. You do things for your customer. A well rounded link campaign wont get you penalized, doing something to fool the SE will always catch you up in the end, dont matter if its paid links, hidden text, spammy nofollow and inappropriate use of title attributes on anchored links. Penny Pixel clouds or whatever they were got caught up too, and theres millions of those out there yet. Its not just google thats going to do this, you can COUNT on that.

Karen