scratchpad jr. (2nd import)

Edward Tenner explores whether search engines are making people dumber because they don’t have to use as many research skills in this New York Times Op-Ed.

Just the other day, I was telling someone about how AltaVista used to be the fabulous search engine everyone would rave about and use. One of its creators, Paul Flaherty, died of a heart attack Thursday, March 16.

Scott Johnson’s blog Scott on Feedster is gone. While deleting the blog seems to make a lot of sense because he doesn’t work at Feedster anymore, it also removes a lot of information about and some of the history of the search engine from the Web. Where did that corporate history go? I’ve linked to [...]

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief explaining that Google’s concerns about privacy are unfounded because the data wouldn’t reveal the identities of users.
I wasn’t able to find the brief online after some quick searches. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.
More:

Google objected to the subpoena
Why Google objected to the subpoena

Addendum 3/1: The Center [...]

The December/January 2006 American Society for Information Science and Technology Bulletin focuses on paid search–advertising in search results, search engine rankings based on paid content, click fraud, search engine marketing, and similar topics.
In light of recent concerns over privacy and using certain search engines, a paragraph in Michael Zimmer’s The Value Implications of the Practice [...]

On their blog, Google explains why the didn’t like the Department of Justice subpoena.
noticed on LISNews

Issues surrounding the "great firewall of China" have been swirling in the news this week. The ResourceShelf has some great links.
Addendum 2/20: Amanda Michel shares details aboutBerkman Center affiliates’ roles in advising the U.S. government about Internet filtering in China.

*j whistles
Feedster’s new look is pretty sharp!

Sabrina mentions this Cnet survey of Google, Yahoo!, America Online, and Microsoft about their privacy practices regarding their search engines.

The radio show On the Media discusses 2 items related to Google. Googly Eyes looks at Google’s decision to release a version compliant with the Chinese government’s Internet filtering demands. Cloak and Swagger examines issues about Internet privacy and some ways people might be able to get some anonymity online.