There's no privacy on the internet. People just don't get it. Every time you use an internet search engine
like AOL or Google, your query is stored in their huge database and somewhere down the road, it might become public too. Just look at the fiasco that happened to when AOL published the details of 23 million searches made by 650,000 of its customers over three months this year.
The gigantic database detailing these customers' search inquiries was available on an AOL research site for a few hours before the company realised that substituting numbers for users' names did not really protect their identities. The company apologised for its mistake - and removed the database from the internet. The researcher who published the material has been sacked, as has his manager, and last week AOL's chief technology officer, Maureen Govern, resigned.
All of this information is stored. Google identifies every computer that connects to it with an implant (known as a cookie), which will not expire until 2038. If you also use Gmail, Google knows your email address - and, of course, keeps all your email searchable. If you sign up to have Google ads on a website, then the company knows your bank account details and home address, as well as all your searches. If you have a blog on the free blogger service, Google owns that. The company also knows, of course, the routes you have looked up on Google maps. Yahoo operates a similar range of services.
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