world_end_soon - 6:51 pm on Jun 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

The weirdest thing of all?

If you have the google toolbar installed, you get different results than if you have it uninstalled. Creepy!

Even stranger? It doesn't matter if you search from the toolbar or if you search from the google URL. The result is always the same, so long as the toolbar is installed.

The only way to get the different result is to uninstall the toolbar (or search from another computer of course!)

What funny plans does Google have for us now? Perhaps they're watching what we do with the toolbar? Wouldn't it be easy to catch a SEO expert by scanning which keywords he searches for, and then checking which "cached" results he is checking? It sure beats trawling the results with some fancy algorithm. This is entrapment!

Check this out from the google toolbar privacy statement:

"Google may collect information about web pages that you are viewing when the advanced functionality is enabled. However, this advanced functionality is optional, and can be easily disabled and re-enabled at any time (by selecting "Privacy Information..." in the Toolbar's "Google" menu.)....."