Google and Ashcroft sittin' in a tree...

Net Users Try to Elude the Google Grasp

The article makes some good points and some bad points. The bad point is that google is to blame for indexing information. This is what google does. If you put information on the web, you should expect people to see it. If you don't want this to happen, there are very simple solutions to make sure your information is not indexed. You could use a robots.txt file on your web server, or you could password protect your site. Both are faily trivial, and if you don't know how, call the tech support at your hosting company.

The information you put on the web is in a public forum, unless you put it in a private one. It is your responsibility to keep private information private. If you throw your private paper records in the trash, somebody at the dump can read them. If you put you private records on the web, which is like an information dump of sorts, people can read them.

Now the good point is that government agencies are putting records online. This isn't so good. If only you were able to access your records, by authenticating yourself somehow, then it would be fine. But as it stands, this is something government should be very careful with.

Of course, when I was going to Chico State, they used to post test scores with our SSN number in the hall. Oops.