yeah, I'm somewhat saddened by google's use of our informations.

One should note that the group that rated google the lowests, also rated a number of popular sights, including, yahoo, facebook, myspace, ebay, last fm, BBC, microsoft, etc for thier study. None got the highest rating.

I think I'm more saddened that so many sites that alot of us probably use for thing or another are so poor in the way the protect our information. Its very discouraging.

An abstract of the report can be found HERE There is also a link in the document that displays every company's rating and and brief synopsis - I'm still reading them.

Its Just sad. Really

YCk! I hear ya! How do I get this cursed tool bar off of my status bar?

You can uninstall the yahoo tool bar using the standard 'add remove programs' option in controll panel.



I dunno, perhaps Yahoo only attack you with spyware if you do not use their homepage?

ElWhopO, try using a program called 'hyjack this' and it will list all the things attached to your internet. It listed about 5 Yahoo nicknacks which i promptly deleted.

Speaking of add ons, My wife got sucked in the other day,,,, she was browsing the internet with her new laptop pc with windows vista. She tried to open a website that requested active x components to be installed,,, next thing she knows the computer reboots itself and internet explorer is totally R.I.P upon reload.

Took two days to extract the trojans she had been tricked into installing!

Personally, if i ever try to open a website that requires active x or whatever to be installed, you know what i do? Yep, dump it and go to the next website, simple!

I too am confused as to the spyware complaints. I use Google for email, searching, and my homepage and have had absolutely no spyware problems (according to Adaware SE, Hijackthis, and Spybot anyway). I don't have a toolbar of any sort installed, because I don't really see the point.

Now as to record keeping, I have no problem believing that. I'm sure Google would tell you it was in the interests of improving their search algorithm, but it is a bit off putting. It is, ultimately, somewhat telling that NO company examined had a "privacy friendly" rating. Does that mean they're all privacy poor or that the organization doing the study was unrealistic in its expectations? I don't know, but both options seem worth considering.

As to alternative search engines, I'm a big fan of wisenut.com. It gives different results than Google (including some that Google never seems to provide) and works quite well IMO.