walkman - 2:34 pm on Apr 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

GoogleGuy,
I don't envy the fact that you have to defend this. Maybe you truly believe in this, maybe you have to defend it, much like a PR guy does. This is a privacy issue. Having a privacy policy means almost nothing, here's why: [news.google.com...] (Not to mention that 2 years from now Google quietly can change the privacy policy and barely anyone would notice). All those companies had great rules and regulations in place, yet they lost the tape or sold to Nigerian scammers.

If it's on tape, or worse, online it can be stolen, misplaced or hacked. Google has over 3000 employees and one day it might have 10,000+. Can you vouch for all of them? No one can. I don't want someone to know what I read or where I go. All it takes is a few keystrokes and G employee number 3523 knows that a married John Doe searched for "hot teens" 4 years ago.

I doubt any of us would. The worse part (cause I realize the rest is voluntary), is the fact that Google would still keep the "log" even after you delete it. That is horrible.

To the rest of the posters here: try to picture Bill Gates annoucing this at a conference. What would your reaction be?