another reason to delete those cookies!

If you're concerned about your privacy in a world that is growingly more reliant on the Internet everyday, read on. I'm not particularly paranoid about my information being available for the government or individuals to see, but then again, unless it's confidential information like my social security number, the biggest threat I can imagine is being embarrassed when sees how many gossip sites I look at instead of news or educational sites.

Anyway, apparently if you don't block cookies, Google will keep track of every search you ever conduct until 2038. That's surprised me, I must admit and also concerns me b/c who knows 20 years from now where any of us will be and what searches may come back to haunt us? On the surface, the cookie cache doesn't seem to be especially threatening, but it's obviously ripe and vulnerable to abuse and misuse.

In light of a new federal anti-pornography law in the works, the government has subpoenaed records from AOL, MSN and Yahoo as well so it's not just Google. But considering that Google is the search engine giant, the subpoena ramifications for Google are obviously much greater. This in itself poses a privacy threat, naturally, but what if such information about who searches for unsavory or highly humiliating sites gets in the hands of the wrong people? Where else can that information go and who else can use it?

Just off the top of my head, I can imagine how this cache could be used to target pedophiles and such. In that case, well I suppose the end justifies the means, although there must be better ways of accomplishing the same without violating the privacy of innocent and unsuspecting individuals in the process.