[Gloucs] Browsers.

[Keith Edmunds]

> Do you have an opinion on the "data mining" aspect of browsers ?

I have an opinion on almost everything! 

People's attitude to data security varies from "don't care" to "paranoia".
Generally speaking, I'm in the middle. I don't care if Google knows what I
search for or what pages I visit: that's a price I'm happy to pay for
being able to use their (mostly) very good software for free. If they use
that information to target adverts - well, if I have to see adverts at
all, I'd sooner see ones that are relevant to me than random adverts.

> It it my understanding that one of the reasons for their existence is
> to covertly  collect information on the interests, contacts, and habits
> of their users.   How does Chrome compare, being part of google ?

Matt Cutts gives a mostly reassuring answer
(http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-chrome-communication/); naturally
some people won't be happy with that (or perhaps won't believe it). The
truth, today, is that the phenomenal power of the major search engines,
including Google, is paid for by the advertising; in turn, the advertising
is effective because Google can target it.

At some time in the future, there will be a different funding model for
search, but for now this is pretty much it.

As a complete aside: I think a significant proportion of today's
advertisers have no idea whatsoever of how to advertise effectively.
That's not limited to the web, either, although it certainly includes it.
In a nutshell: being invasive, putting your metaphorical foot in the door,
getting in the way, are all very 90s. We consumers have moved on.
-- 
"You can have everything in life you want if you help enough other people
get what they want" - Zig Ziglar. 

Who did you help today?