Last Friday, Google told the world that an SSL-encrypted version of its core search engine was available at https://www.google.com(Notice the extra “s”).
In adding SSL encryption to its primary search engine, Google isn’t just protecting your traffic from anyone sniffing your network. It’s also preventing third-party webmasters from tracking the search terms you used to find their sites.
“If you click on a link to some non-SSL page…then when you arrive at that page you will arrive with your referrer stripped,” Brandt said. “The webmaster on that site won’t know that you came from Google, and won’t know what search terms you used to get there. He won’t even know if you used a search engine (you could have just keyed in the URL in your address bar, which would also cause no referrer).”
A Google spokesperson (rightly) points out that this is not specific to Google’s SSL implementation. “This effect is the result of the way browsers interact with HTTPS generally,” he tells us. But Google controls a good 60 to 70 per cent of the US search market according to the big-name web research firms — if not much more in reality — and some have complained that with SSL search, the company will destroy web analytics as we know it.
Is this truely a ‘privacy’ consideration or is this a strategic move by Google to monetize Google Analytics and its search engine queries? In a data minded world, this move by Google will have much impact on the day to day business of a web analyst such as myself.
The power of knowing how a visitor arrived at your site is crucial. How will SEO specialists deal with this problem? How will they quantify there findings and efforts? I am confident that Adwords data will still be available, but what will this mean for bloggers or Joe Average with his low budgeted webshop that he is trying to get kick started?
Of course, there is no need to get worried yet as much will depend on the user adoption. What kind of users are those who rely heavily on online privacy? With Swiss politicians now crying for better laws against data collecting by firms like Google and Facebook neglecting to put its users first, but only second to revenue, this topic is sure to be discussed at large between web analysts all over the world.
What are your thoughs on the matter? Will you adopt a more safer approach online personally? How will your work be affected by this?
If you have seen the movie ‘Das Leben Der Anderen‘ (2006) you will understand this drawing. I guess the sad fact is, that nothing has really changed, just the machines that track our phone calls and data traffic. The current system (that is publicly known) is ECHELON:
ECHELON was reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s, but since the end of the Cold War it is believed to search also for hints of terrorist plots, drug dealers’ plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence.
I wonder who defines the term ‘terrorism’? Aren’t we all, in theory, a potential threat to our government, country and fellow human beings? What would you do with power like this? Stick to the rules and only snoop on those worth snooping? Or just simply eavesdrop on all forms of communication performed by even the most honest of people?
What really gets me, is the lack of knowledge and resistance people show for this breach in privacy. I will readily admit that I have dreams of all people living in peace with each other, but I do not believe and will not concede to the fact that I have to give up my sovreignty, privacy and freedom to do so.
As a (semi) American, I would like to use The Bill of Rights as an example to show how the US government (and others) and abusing your personal rights:
The U. S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy. The Bill of Rights, however, reflects the concern of James Madison and other framers for protecting specific aspects of privacy, such as the privacy of beliefs (1st Amendment), privacy of the home against demands that it be used to house soldiers (3rd Amendment), privacy of the person and possessions as against unreasonable searches (4th Amendment), and the 5th Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination, which provides protection for the privacy of personal information.
The problem I have is that there is no hard evidence of a real terror threat other than that reported on by mainstream media. An amazing documentary called ‘The Power of Nightmares‘ (view trailer) sheds some light on how fear is being exploited by politicians in order for us to give up liberties in exchange for protection. Think twice when there is talk of a threat. Ask yourself:
- who will it benefit financially or politically?
- what will be asked of you as a sacrifice to feel safe so that we can continue to live our life the way that we are used and accustomed to?
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”
Benjamin Franklin (A Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania)
This video clearly shows how a so-called terror threat is used to enforce legislation removing yet another layer of our privacy and personal freedom. I agree that air travel must be safe, but how much are you willing to give up for that guarantee? Who can promise us that recordings made by body scanners will not be abused or shared with other agencies? Who will benefit from all of this? This is what you must ask yourself, because who are we going to blame when a technical problem sends a plane crashing the earth? More planes have crashed in history from technical failure then from terrorism. Are governments stepping up control of airline companies’ maintenance regimes? Think twice before you decide what is really scaring you, make sure to check you facts before chosing for fiction.
“Hegel’s dialectic has allowed globalists to lead simple, capable, freeborn men and women back into the superstitious, racist and unreasonable age of imperial global dominance. The only way to completely stop the privacy invasions, expanding domestic police powers, land grabs, insane wars against inanimate objects (and transient verbs), covert actions, and outright assaults on individual liberty, is to step outside the dialectic. This releases us from the limitations of controlled and guided thought.”
soucre: http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/dialectic.htm
