Monday, October 8, 2007, 1:27pm
"It started in China," she went on, finally. "Once we moved our servers onto the mainland, they went under Chinese jurisdiction."
Greg sighed. He knew Google's reach all too well: Every time you visited a page with Google ads on it, or used Google maps or Google mail—even if you sent mail to a Gmail account—the company diligently collected your info. Recently, the site's search-optimization software had begun using the data to tailor Web searches to individual users. It proved to be a revolutionary tool for advertisers. An authoritarian government would have other purposes in mind.