Search 2.0: Is Privacy in Danger?

For today’s class I have read the article “The Externalities of Search 2.0: The emerging privacy threats when the drive for the perfect search engine meets Web 2.0,” which was written by Michael Zimmer. The article focuses on how the increase of personal information through Web2.0 applications and search engines can store information and make predictions within personal searches; but my attention is on how the collaboration of all this information is harmful to one’s privacy.

“Perfect reach” and “perfect recall” both are described by Zimmer to be the key components to a new wonderful creation: Search 2.0. Perfect reach makes search engines a whole lot easier with the advantage of being able to index the information available on the internet. At the same time, Zimmer mentions its ability to bring you results based on “past searches” and “general browsing history.” These searches can include texts, pictures, video, audio and even other websites that you may be interested in. Perfect reach has the ability to observe other searches you made prior on the same search engine and make an assumption of your interests and future searches. Perfect recall basically keeps a profile of what you searched and what websites you visited from the use of that search engine. The gathering of all this information creates a very powerful tool called “datavelliance.” According to Zimmer, this is based off the fact that many Web 2.0 applications are based on “a new cultural force based on mass collaboration.” Since many people have increased their share of personal information online, your information easily accessible to someone that may want to find out more.

Many students and teenagers like me share information about our personal lives and interests through websites like Myspace and Facebook; but who ever though that would be harmful to us in the future? As mentioned in Zimmer’s article, people can “Google” someone else and find more information about a person than that person ever wanted to reveal. Many employers and co-workers can do their research on a person through the click of a mouse. I would have never thought that the jokes I made with my friends on Facebook would be looked at by the people I work with, making it easy for assumptions to be made. It’s amazing how many people have been denied jobs or even lost jobs because all your information is on one provider, releasing personal conversations and even more. I always felt that my information was safe, and it is amazing how wrong I actually was.