Think Before You Search

The homepage of Google has always amazed me. Of the little that I know about how the net works, I do know that websites need to advertise to earn income. And as we can see in almost all the sites that we visit, this is more or less true. This being my mindset, I find it fascinating how Google can be one of the most profitable companies without using ads in it homepage. At least until I read a piece about the company.

In the article, it was said that Google apparently makes money by customizing the search results of people who use them as a search engine. This means that companies pay premium dollar to be placed on top, or on the first pages, of the results for searches. And guess how they facilitate this customization? By recording everything that we enter into their search engine! That means that all those searches that I made during those times of boredom (admit it, I'm sure you've done the same) is stored in one big computer somewhere, wherein they can link said searches to me because of my IP address. Granted that I harbor no delusions that Google is interested in what I search for since I'm not a famous or powerful person that can give them something they want; however, I do want the assurance that I won't be blackmailed by someone who has access to those file in case I do become famous someday. Hey, a guy could dream, right?

Whether what the article said about Google is true or whether it is one of those conspiracy theories, I'm not taking any chances. So I guess I better be more prudent when I use Google from now on...or at least use my brother's computer to make those searches.