This definitely goes under the category of Life on Other Planets. Anyone who thinks that what Google is doing is inherently more evil than what happens at any brick and mortar library must have been watching ‘The Matrix’ a few too many times. The author, Elinor Mills, seems to think that some horrific breach of privacy is involved. No doubt she never visits real libraries, with their card files full of personally identifiable customer lists and ID tags (i.e. library cards). If she had, there’s no doubt she would never have bothered to write this piece.

Well, Elinor, when you first visit a real library, they hand you a form and make you write down all manner of identification aids, such as name, address, and phone number. Then they hand you a user ID with a number on it so they can follow your every reading habit. This information can be used to track your requests and can be reported to any government agency that wants it.

So, that’s how it works - in the real world. At least Google is nice enough not to ask you for such information. They may track what you’re after in order to serve a few text ads, but they have to pay the bills just like a real library.