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Privacy is very much in the headlines at the moment, not least because of the governments inability to keep hold of our private details, but also with the likes of Facebook doing a U-turn on their Beacon advertising programme.

So will a lack of privacy become a key issue in Googles future fortunes?

Google is a collection of 650 really smart people. Founded by two Stanford students, they developed some nifty algorithms which pushed their search engine light-years ahead in terms of performance.

Many have replicated the technology but Google is still the undisputed champion:

• Approximately 150 million searches per day
• Revenue between $60million and $300 million
• Business worth an estimated $1 billion dollars
• Average speed of search 0.2 seconds
• Approximately 75% of UK internet users use Google

So can anyone or anything threaten them?

According to a recent article in TimesOnline privacy could become an increasing threat to Google. They recently reported on an antiGoogle search engine called Scroogle. Daniel Brandt set it up and runs it on donations, it carries no advertising – yet it is getting more than 100,000 visitors a day and has doubled every year.

So what is the reason for it? Well it would appear that the ‘P’ word has raised it’s head again, unlike Google, Scroogle doesn’t keep a record of any searches.

Scroogle claims that there are two reasons why you should use them, personal and political. The founders state:-
“On a personal level, your support for Scroogle says that search engines should not be tracking you and retaining this information indefinitely. Not only does Google scrape much of the web, but they keep records of who searches for what. If information about your searching is accessible by cookie ID or by your IP address, it is subject to subpoena. This is a violation of your privacy. Someday Google’s data retention practices will be regulated, because Google is too arrogant to do the right thing voluntarily. In the meantime, you should not be leaving your fingerprints in Google’s databases.”

Most internet users will be surprised to know that the top search engines retain data for up to 18 months, and would be even more surprised to know that Google has even been used as a record in court cases, with PC records of search phrases being used against defendants.

Many search engines are picking up on the publics concerns about their privacy and some are beginning to take notice, but is it a case of too little too late?

Read the TimesOnline articleFears Mount over Internet Privacy.

Written by Pippa Adams [Managing Director] Prodo Ltd