Wired published an article last night named Exclusive: Google, CIA Invest in 'Future' of Web Monitoring. Here is a snippet of that article:
The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time - and says it uses that information to predict the future.The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents - both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine "goes beyond search" by "looking at the 'invisible links' between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events."
The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online "momentum" for any given event.
There has always been speculation about Google "being in bed with the CIA" but this isn't exactly Google working with the CIA, not exactly.
In any event, people read Wired and people are searchers on Google. Some may stop using it, like this concerned young guy at Google Web Search Help.
Zac Jackle Reala has his username reads said:
Ok, I've been reading about the whole CIA/Google cracking down on the criminal race on the Interwebs. I've been using Google for a while. And I'm just a kid having fun on Google/Youtube. My privacy is a big deal... I don't like my "space" invaded. I'm sorry.
I find it interesting he took the time to set up a Google account and post his concern in a public Google forum.
Do you think we should be concerned?
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
