Broadband (probably again...)

[Avleen Vig]

On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 11:36 PM, Dirk Koopman <djk at tobit.co.uk> wrote:
>> http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy.html
>>
>> <http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy.html>"We don't correlate
>> or
>> combine your information from the temporary or permanent logs with any
>> other
>> data that Google might have about your use of other services, such as data
>> from Web Search and data from advertising on the Google content network. "
>>
>
> And then I read the rest of it.
>
> As someone who has run a DNS server of one kind or another for getting on
> for 15 years now (yes, I am that old), I struggle to see the justification
> for keeping that sort of information (paraphrasing slightly) for debugging
> and abuse analysis - "permanently".
>
> Notwithstanding any paranoia that people might suffer from (it takes one to
> know one), I do wonder whether Google realises that, just lately, it has
> been shooting itself in the foot rather a lot. Maybe I am getting old and
> particularly cranky, but that "privacy" page gives me no warm feeling at
> all.

Disclaimer: I used to work for Google. My opinions are my own, but I
do so like to play Devil's Advocate.

I don't see where in the privacy statement they say what data is in
the "permanent logs". You're assuming it's query data. Maybe they
collect data on which ISPs people come from, so they can arrange for
peering agreements with those companies to reduce their costs and
improve performance for you.

Or maybe they store the number of queries made for particular domains,
and the different parts of the world those queries come from.

There's a ton of very legitimate reasons for them to keep permanent
logs, aside from wanting to follow Dirk Koopman around the internet so
that Scotland Yard can see exactly which Perl website he read today.

There's a point of absurdity and I think that we collectively are
close to passing it, if we haven't already.