subject: Understanding Search Engines And What They Mean For You [print this page] You may just be one of those people who hops online and does a quick internet search about this, that, or the other thing and if you are using a broadband internet connection then you will probably find that you use your internet connection a lot. After all, the convenience of broadband internet allows you to pull up a great deal of information very quickly and easily.
Internet searches done in the privacy of your own home you may think are somewhat private but even on a reliable search engine such as Google may be anything less than private. As a matter of fact since the implementation of the Patriot Act the government can call upon companies like Google to find out exactly what you are entering in your computer. And even if you aren't doing anything wrong, over time some are concerned that this information can be used to determine things like insurability as well as your eligibility for a job.
Google is a very secure engine and they only issue information to government agencies when they ask but it is important that everyone realize that this information is anything but private and will remain in the hands of search engines like Google for many years to come. Now Google assures its customers that after a period of 6 months or so all the information becomes anonymous but some of the anonymous information that was released by AOL a few years ago shows that even when this information is stored without your information or IP address that by looking at all this information together it can still be tracked back to its source.
And while it seems that currently search engines are acting responsibly with this information there are potential risks that exist down the road if this information gets into the wrong hands. Keeping this in mind anyone who is doing a search needs to realize that information doesn't vanish when the search page is closed. As a matter of fact it exists potentially forever in the hands of Google as well as many of the other major search engines.
In essence, keep using your high speed internet connection to gather the information that you need for your life but keep in mind that this information can be retrieved by others. If you are searching something that you don't want anyone to know about then perhaps you shouldn't be searching that topic at all.
