f) In the lobby of an internet search engine company’s headquarters in California, computer screens display lists of the words being entered into the company's search engine.
d) Although it says the system is designed to filter out any scandalous or potentially compromising queries, the fact that even a fraction of searches can be seen by visitors to the world’s biggest search company is likely to come as a shock to internet users who think of web browsing as a private affair.
a) People generally believe that using a search engine is the equivalent of talking to a priest or a rabbi, “says Larry Ponemon, head of the Ponemon Institute, a privacy think-tank. “The public in general doesn’t seem to fully understand how their privacy may be at risk.
b) However, that may be changing.
e) Over the past year, a series of privacy gaffes and government attempts to gain access to internet users' online histories have, along with consolidation among online search and advertising groups, thrust the issue of the issues of internet privacy into the spotlight.
c) This presents a challenge to internet search companies, which have built a multi-billiondollar industry out of targeted advertising based on the information users reveal about themselves online.
