Google plans comprehensive personal databases

[Bijo]

I wonder how this will work. If I search for "9/11" "Al-Qaeda" "Bomb", will the google service recommend me to become a suicide bomber today?

They would probably at least mark you as suspicious or "in need of investigation."

[Rodion Romanovich]

Why? What if I do this to search for news articles? Similarly, I heard some story about someone being arrested and interrogated for borrowing some communist book in either a European or American country. The problem was, he was a student in history and reading the book for research, but assumed to be a communist-terrorist for requesting it from his library. I don't believe a computer algorithm or human being either for that matter can draw very accurate conclusions about people's intentions or desires from looking at their log in a particular place.

One more example are those "customized ads" that appear. If you search for something that you have a temporary interest in, but don't want to hear a thing about once you've looked it up, you will still end up seeing ads within that particular field for months before they go away - really annoying. I actually tend to click more on banners that are randomly chosen, than about customized ads based on my visitor patterns. The customized ads incorrectly assumes that what I looked for once is something I'll keep looking for, whereas in fact I tend to NOT want what I've just looked at, because I hopefully found it and have no reason whatsoever to search for it again. Some of the "customized ads" are really bad, because they start customizing for you even when they only have data from 1 visit from you. Then this effect tends to get even worse.

[Bijo]

Why? (...) Similarly, I heard some story about someone being arrested and interrogated for borrowing some communist book in either a European or American country. The problem was, he was a student in history and reading the book for research, but assumed to be a communist-terrorist for requesting it from his library. I don't believe a computer algorithm or human being either for that matter can draw very accurate conclusions about people's intentions or desires from looking at their log in a particular place.

Because they don't know which is why they would investigate the person.
It's not at all meant to be a perfect concluder of facts (though if they are really that illogical (or stupid), they should not even be in the position to judge in the first place), but as a hint to "possibly dangerous ones". Then when they have investigated they can be sure whether the person in question is really dangerous or not.

By the way, you used the word "Similarly" as if your hypothetical idea of...

I wonder how this will work. If I search for "9/11" "Al-Qaeda" "Bomb", will the google service recommend me to become a suicide bomber today?

...was similar to the first quote in this post. It did not include something as... "noticeable" as "Bomb", then again what I've read about the story of the student wanting to do communist research is hearsay at best without factual detail.

Or "Similarly" was used to refer to the idea of...

What if I do this to search for news articles?

...but we don't know if it is similar because the story about the student is (presumably) true, and whether you've done the search and have been investigated and arrested and interrogated.
If we would have to judge with the current information, it is probably false that you yourself have been arrested and interrogated, though the registration of your search, if true, can be assumed to be true at least.

[Blodrast]

Resistance is futile. You will be classified.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Because they don't know which is why they would investigate the person.
It's not at all meant to be a perfect concluder of facts (though if they are really that illogical (or stupid), they should not even be in the position to judge in the first place), but as a hint to "possibly dangerous ones". Then when they have investigated they can be sure whether the person in question is really dangerous or not.

By the way, you used the word "Similarly" as if your hypothetical idea of......was similar to the first quote in this post. It did not include something as... "noticeable" as "Bomb", then again what I've read about the story of the student wanting to do communist research is hearsay at best without factual detail.

Or "Similarly" was used to refer to the idea of......but we don't know if it is similar because the story about the student is (presumably) true, and whether you've done the search and have been investigated and arrested and interrogated.
If we would have to judge with the current information, it is probably false that you yourself have been arrested and interrogated, though the registration of your search, if true, can be assumed to be true at least.

For the record I haven't made any of these example searches I posted above as far as I can recall nor have I been arrested or interrogated for search phrases, because thank God I don't live in a country that does surveillance - but the government is of course trying to introduce it, like all governments at present (though I think there would be civil war if they succeeded in introducing surveillance laws). But I do recall having made other searches which were intended to find news articles, but, when the search phrases were seen alone, would give a far from flattering picture of me if interpreted in the way one would suspect the algorithm to do it.

[Lord Winter]

The gentic compony and cookie parts worrys me but I think everything else is blown out of proportion. How is this different from a waiter remembering what you ordered to try to perdict what you want again. This is just a way of gathering data and trying to customize google even further to each indivual users. Done correctly it can be a no problem but if done wrongly then it can turn into a threat to civil rights.