Google Labs

I'm a little nervous about all these big companies. My browsing experience is a little inconvenient, but I feel like it's necessary. I'm running Firefox with these extensions:
NoScript
AdBlock
CookieSafe
AdBlock Filterset.G Updater
Flashblock

I default javascript off and it breaks most sites. But I can selectively whitelist websites and page elements I wish to enable.

I mention it because a couple articles I just saw. I don't like "the default option", and I think these companies are abusing the trust/ignorance/lack of awareness of most people. It was reminding me of Minority Report where you're ID'd everywhere and subsequently "spammed" with advertising targeted based on you habits.

"The Register reports that Google plans to use PC microphones to collect statistics on a user's environment. Peter Norvig, who directs research at Google, told Technology Review that this software would start to show up in Google software 'sooner rather than later'. The software collects short sound clips and removes background noise. Google then targets its ads based on the statistics collected. With the current level of online privacy, this new level of invasion would seem to have frightening possibilities."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/03 … _software/

"Ok, so the title is a little extreme, but it's a possibility. The link gives an example of how easy it is to obtain information about someone who uses Google Calendar, and is unaware of what they're allowing the world to see."
http://dumblittleman.blogspot.com/2006/ … ed-by.html

(shamelessly ripped from slashdot.org) it just goes on-and-on. Actually the number of fear-mongering tech articles is sad. Maybe it's just the sensationalism required to try and stir-up people, press their buttons, and get comments and page impressions.

Obviously, don't just blindly trust a large corporation no matter how altruistic their corporate motto is ("do no evil"), and then go watch that Tank Man documentary and pay attention to the parts about the new China and how American tech companies such as Google, Yahoo and Cisco bend over backwards to appease the Regime in power and continue the censorship and repression of the people. I think in the future peer-to-peer anonymizing technology and cryptology may become more important if you don't want them track ever last detail of what you do. Right now one tech I have heard of is TOR: http://tor.eff.org/ I'd admit I've been too lazy to run it, but with the increasing size of databases and the increasing sophistication of data-mining algorithms and custom targeted advertising it may be the way to go to help avoid some of these annoyances.

(BTW thanks for the scroogle link! I didn't know that one)