Google Suggest and Privacy

Google recently added 'google suggest' to its ever-growing suite of search related offerings. The idea is to help users benefit from Google's huge database of search queries launched by users worldwide. However, as with some of the other recent additions to Google's services (Google Desktop Search), this once again raises the question of search versus privacy. At first sight, Google Suggest service presents itself as a harmless, cool feature that makes the search experience more rewarding. However, it raises another issue which has been raising its evil head all to often recently.

As I am working routinely in my office, there are daily, countless small and large things for which I have to knock on Google's door, and needless to say, Google makes the search experience only more productive. I wonder how much boost has Google given to productivity worldwide. The point I want to raise is something about Google suggest, which makes me feel insecure on Google now. Let's put it this way. Imagine that you embark upon an idea. The first thing I would do is googleit. Apart from regular information hunting, in my case, this search also tells me if someone has already tried this idea before. Let's say there is a 'method' X, and another one 'Y'; and nobody has ever thought of combining the two together. And here I am looking up "X Y" on Google. And voila! my query is not mine anymore, its Google's! Now my search will be available for the 'benefit' of other Googlers, and who knows how many people will discover that X and Y can be combined to do something cool.

Its not that I get life changing ideas everyday. But there is something much bigger happening here. Firstly, isn't my query completely mine ? If web pages can be protected with copyright laws, I could as well ask for privacy of my queries. I'm here not concerned about the kind of privacy dating-beaureus guarantee you, I'm only concerned about the privacy of my idea, not necessarily its association with me. Its not that Google is doing something wrong. One can say that, its in the nature of search and information retrieval, that, if you try to be helpful beyond an extent, you would end up breaching somebody's privacy. In the case of Google Suggest, the problem is not so severe currently, for example, Google only 'suggests' those search strings which have been tried out a certain number of times before. So if something is popular enough, its not such a private idea after all. However, Google Suggest still gives us a hint of where the search world is headed for in terms of issues that it is going to bring up in not-so-distant future. In coming months/years we are probably going to see more, and possibly more serious forms of this issue.

Google can handle the above mentioned problem in many simple ways, like offering a private-search capability, searches from which are not available to Google Suggest. However, the bigger question of information search versus privacy still remains. Google is continuously redefining large scale information search, constantly breaking new horizons in search technology, and over past several months, I've almost gotten used to expecting pleasant surprises from Google on a regular basis. At this speed of innovation, it is quite conceivable that in the future, there are going to be more clashes between the open search and privacy.

Interestingly, until now, Google doesn't seem to have given any thought to this issue. There was some fuss recently about the danger posed by Google Desktop search to user privacy. However, AFAIK, Google didn't officially say anything about it. It all looks quite straight-forward to them: If you are installing Google Desktop, you gotta know how it can screw you.

There are two directions the search-privacy tussle could take. In one, the search world would solve this problem by coming up with a revolutionary new scheme which will change the very architecture on which search systems work. The other possibility is frightening. What if the concern about privacy suffocates the currently-so-dynamic search industry, driving innovation out of what matters so much to the entire computing industry now - Internet search, mostly redefined by Google. To me, it is evident that one day easy availability of information was destined to clash with privacy issues. However, it took a search engine of google's strength to actually bring up this issue.