Privacy and search engines

The explosive growth of the internet since its inception in the late 1990’s has seen tremendous developments across , new technologies , services , etc. One of these services that has gained a significant popularity and relevance is the search engine. This growth is mainly due to the increased dependence of internet users as they rely on more search engines to filter relevant information in the vast data stream that the internet offers. Due to the publicly accessible nature of the internet , majority of these search engines threaten user privacy by deliberately sharing or inadvertently revealing personal data to others; information that would otherwise be hidden under normal circumstances.
Why search engines
In order for us to better understand search engines and their impact, it is important to understand why people use them at all. Since the invention of the internet by DARPA in the late 1960s we can clearly see that the internet and scope of data has grown exponentially from what the initial founders every intended. Data has become widely available and used for four main things; Research,e-commerce, entertainment and manipulation through exploitation. Without any means of accessing this vast information online, information dissection would not be possible. this realization came early with numerous search algorithms emerging from the woodwork to aid the knowledge sharing process. Gerard Salton, was considered the father of modern search technology as his team at Harvard and Cornell developed what was known as the SMART informational retrieval system in late 1960s’ (Wall 2015). Since then we have seen a vast among of newcomers, to the most recognized and largest of them all Google.
security and privacy concerns
Search engines are pivotal to how we interact with the internet today, from research to e commerce. The we find ourselves utilizing one of the search features offered by one of the 3 major search engine offerings; Google, Bing and Yahoo. when users submit their search queries it gets manipulated by sophisticated algorithms that often times become the center of controversy as they distribute personal data into public domains.
Darker side of the internet
We have heard of stories that cement the concept of a dark internet; a place where popular search engines such as Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo cannot reach. It is referred to as the darknet and contains websites that are considered anonymous due to their ability to operate without being indexed by popular search engines. Search tools such as memex and ahmia provide users with the ability to search underground websites for illegal drugs,guns, etc. Can we say that monitoring these tools and the users that access them invasion of their privacy?

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