It’s long been touted that there’s only six degrees of seperation between yourself and anyone else in the world. You know someone who knows someone, who knows someone….six times and you end up with anyone else you choose, anywhere in the world.
More recently this became the Kevin Bacon theory; we’re all only six degrees of seperation away from Kevin Bacon. Wonderful.
But now there’s proof. MSN did a study of MSN instant messenger chats and showed that in fact we’re all only 6.6 degrees of seperation away. So the old adage/wive’s tail actually was pretty close to the mark.
Here’s the news story on the subject:
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=4046743
WTH does that have to with with search or the internet? Well, is it just me or is MSN rooting through your instant messages? Didn’t think they would, hey? Don’t think a search engine will use your data when it suits their purposes? They can and will. But just as importantly, most people have no clue as to how much data the SE’s are actually collecting about you.
If you use gmail you are providing them every bit of info about all your email. If you have Google toolbar installed every single web page you visit is sent to Google. Every. single. page. If you surf sites that use Google analytics, they can and do track your visits - and can track you across websites. If you visit sites that run adsense, they can track you across sites. And they can compile all that data together to create one big profile over just about every site you visit. Scared yet? You’re not nearly paranoid enough.
Google, Yahoo, and MSN are compiling this data for the purposes of making money off of your profile. Don’t kid yourself - otherwise why track and collect it? The new search engine Cuil doesn’t track this stuff. But what should be even more of a concern is what happens if either they get hacked, or the government decides to serve them with a ‘cough up the data’ order. Do you want the government to have access to your surfing habits?
This ‘analysis’ by MSN for the purposes of some stupid study should show you that your data and online habits are not safe with the search engines. They’re collecting the data, using it, and we don’t have a clue.
(I swear, I’m not a crackpot theorist! Honest! My concerns are based on fact…and others have the same concern. You’ll develop this concern too the more you get into the habits of the SE’s. They’re the new telco’s. Huge power, little accountability. They just haven’t tripped up publicly yet.).