The context based search idea behind Y!Q search sounded good, but in my limited testing I didn't get any better results than I did by using Google. I was searching for "concern about the loss of personal privacy inherent with online search tools".
Amazon's A9 search tool is interesting to me in that it keeps a record of your searches (same as Google) and I imagine most search engines. The thing that was interesting to me was that I hadn't used it for months, and only a few times at that - and when I brought it up it had the search I did 6 months ago.
I'm not really concerned so much with the collection of information I provide search engines or websites. I don't feel a need to remain anonymous and have faith that as a generally law abiding citizen I have no reason to fear some sort of Kafkesque scenario where my search habits cause me to be unfairly accused, tried and convicted.
There are certainly insiduous ways that online search and archival of information can be unsettling and possibly creatively chilling if you have to think that anything you search for, write or view on the web is stored somewhere forever.
I don't think this storing of my search habits or webpages I look at, is really all that big a deal given the anononymity of the crowd. The fact that I searched for hot sexy babes, breeding farm animals for fun and profit or how to make a cruise missile is probably not going to go, as they used to say in high school, "on my permanent record".
So what's my major concern?
Let me tell you a little story (it's short so bear with me please).
A few months ago I found a story on the The Smoking Gun, well not actually a story...it was a link to a police report about a young woman who had alledgely stolen a steak off her neighbor's BBQ and took it to her apartment. The neighbor did what anyone would do - CALLED THE COPS. I've had similar problems with crows...but I digress.
The police captured the miscreant with some great detective work that included following a trail of "meat juice" that led them to the culprit's apartment and ultimately to her bathroom where the half-eaten steak was found hidden in a kleenex box.
I thought that story was bizarre and funny and was going to post a link to it.
Then I started to think...
That young woman is not a public figure who may have volunteered to give up her privacy by accepting the role of star, politician or sports figure (not sure if it's correct that those people give up all rights to privacy either...but that' not the point of this little piece).
This young woman was unknown, just a person who made a mistake and got arrested for it. Hmmmmm sound familiar? I'd be really bummed out if anyone had instant access to every faux paux / illegal act I'd ever been involved in. I'm not a criminal but I was not the smartest or tamest person in my younger years, and some of that "public" information would be embarassing to me taken out of context (or in context for that matter). I like to think I've matured out of some behavior at 51 that involved me at 15 or 22 or 44...48..49. I've grown up a lot in the last year :-)
Public records - say of a divorce, child custody, court room proceedings, police reports are public, but because of the anonymity of the crowd - not really. Someone would have to go into the courthouse files to find stuff and unless they knew what or why they were looking it would be pretty futile to find something funny, sad or interesting enough to publish.
I wasn't even sure I should link to the Smoking Gun website since they trade on personal pain/mistakes in the name of traffic. On the other hand there is stuff in there that's interesting and doesn't bother me because it's either truly public ie. widely disseminated or should be. The FBI report of their interview with Monica Lewinski for example...it's a bit sad, somewhat touching and tawdry but interesting - not nearly interesting enough to spend a year or so of national hand wringing and news coverage on...but that's another story too.
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