What would it feel like being stalked, everywhere you go and whatever you do, being watched by the eyes of the 'Big Brother' not unlike that in George Orwell's famous dystopian novel, '1984'? Horrible and scary, wouldn't it?
Do you realize that whatever you search for or browse on the internet is recorded? When you are running a Google Search, and if you are signed into Gmail, your browsing history is recorded. The claim of the Google founders, Sergey and Larry is that the search information is used to make the search better and that the information is not stored against their individual names but rather decoded with some random letters and numbers. But did you know that you could actually sign up for an option with Google Search that would let you see your browsing history since the date you signed up for. There would be a log of all websites you visited through the Search. How potential could that information be for corporations and agencies that are always looking for that kind of data to break into peoples' niche and sell their stuff.
Also, whenever you browse with the Internet Explorer, your browsing history is automatic stored and sent to the main server. It does not provide you an option to not store your browsing history unless you browse in another browser with 'InPrivate Browsing'. And if you open a new browser, the default setting is to store your browsing history meaning you would have to browse in another browser with 'InPrivate Browsing' everytime you wanted privacy. Internet Explorer does not provide any tool to permanently set your preference not to record your browsing history. Is it intentional on part of the Microsoft? Hell, yeah.
Google, on the other hand does provide you with an option to set your preference permanently if you want safe browsing without sending any browsing data. These browsers thrive on the fact that most ordinary people who use the internet do not realize this fact. And some, who do are too indifferent to care about this stuff. But this is an infringement of privacy. The ramifications of storing one's browsing data is immense. What one searches on the internet can tell a hell lot about the person's interests and personality. Potentially a very valuable source of information for their sponsors and advertisment agencies. There have been cases where browsing history has been used to pinpoint individuals, which in some cases can be very humiliating if the content of the searches are not very pleasant. Is there any public agency that is concerned about loss of peoples' privacy in this digital matrix?
Quantum Search seems to be coming up with a solution. Scientific American ran an article on the future of being able to browse without being followed and watched under the watchful eyes of Big Brothers like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo.
