Where is all this governmental ‘curiosity’ going to end? Will our privacy ever be safe again. On the other hand, was it really ever safe to begin with? You be the judge…

The U.S. Justice Dept.’s demand for data on how Web surfers use Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google and other search engines raises a disturbing question: Just how much do the Web sites you visit know about you? In general, they know a great deal about the aggregate behavior of visitors, and nothing about individuals unless they have chosen to identify themselves. But there are exceptions.

Operators of even the most modest Web sites can learn a lot about visitors, short of pinpointing their actual identities. I manage a site for a small nonprofit. The hosting Get Linux or Windows Managed Hosting Services with Industry Leading Fanatical Support. service, Homestead Technologies, throws in analytical tools from Media Highway International’s RealTracker. I can tell the order in which visitors viewed pages, what Web sites they came from, and what search terms they used, among many other things. This information is invaluable for designing effective Web sites. [Read the rest]

[tags]data mining,homestead technologies,managed hosting services,analytical tools[/tags]