Google, search engines, and privacy

Interesting article about search engines and privacy here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/business/media/20adco.html

Excerpt:

AFTER reading about how Internet companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo collect information about people online and use it for targeted advertising, one New York assemblyman said there ought to be a law.

So he drafted a bill, now gathering support in Albany, that would make it a crime — punishable by a fine to be determined — for certain Web companies to use personal information about consumers for advertising without their consent.

...

“Should these companies be able to sell or use what’s essentially private data without permission? The easy answer is absolutely not,” said the assemblyman who sponsored the bill, Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat who has represented part of Westchester County since 1982.

More recent news on Google and privacy here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080324.wrgoogle24/BNStory/Technology/home
http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1597
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2212713/google-trouble-security
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39369897,00.htm
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9894940-7.html