On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 2:38 PM, Arthur Corliss <corl...@digitalmages.com> wrote: > Google switching to SSL by default is as pointless as metacpan. In > the former case it's the "protection" of delivery to/from an entity that > not only doesn't have your best interest at heart, but has a business built > on exploiting *your* information for *its* benefit. Utterly pointless.
I'll take this bait, swallow it, and hopefully bite off the line: Yes, Google is going to use query data for its gain. But, Google's business model also involves *aggregation* and *respecting individual privacy*. The SSL to Google Search is supposed to protect one from eavesdropping, as has been pointed out, by "the other people in Starbucks." And it does this. Say you're sitting in Starbucks, searching for clues concerning an embarrassing medical condition. Your risk is, Mallory will intercept your packets and tell his buddies and they will huddle and point. If some Google tech sees your query among the millions of other queries and points it out to /his/ buddies and they huddle and point, that doesn't affect you the same way, if at all. They won't be pointing at you, the victim of an embarrassing medical condition, they will be merely pointing at an evidence of your existence. And such attention might actually bring more attention, in general, to the problem of severe triskaidekaphobia or whatever, which would be a good thing for you -- in the aggregate. The resulting open discussion of severe triskaidekaphobia might help lift the crippling stigma that has followed the victims for so long, without any unpleasant direct confrontations.
