I’m pleased to be still be guest-blogging here. Again, nothing in this post reflects the opinion of ReputationDefender or its employees (they said I couldn’t call the employees “reputation defenders” for trademark reasons — so don’t do that).

On to the good stuff:

There’s just one easy question: Does Google* know too much about you?

*If you use Yahoo! (and Yahoo!Mail) or Microsoft Live Search (and Hotmail) then just substitute “Yahoo!” or “Microsoft!” for “Google” and the same question applies to you.

Think about it. Let’s assume you use Google for your web search and for your email. Google knows every single search that you’ve run, and it has access to every single email you’ve sent. If you use GChat then it knows that too. Or if you use Google Documents then it has access to all of yoru documents too. From that much data, it can deduce just about anything about your personal life. Looking for a date online? Cheating on your spouse? Have an embarassing medical condition? Made a drunken mistake at a party? Google knows it all.

Google’s unofficial motto, of course, is “don’t be evil.” And that’s a wonderful goal. But goals and policies didn’t stop rogue employees at a hospital from looking over every celebrity medical record they could get their hands on.

But, let’s assume that Google has appropriate internal controls on all of its data. Assume that it has some way to make sure that no database technicians can look at data they’re not supposed to look at. But that doesn’t help if the US government forces Google to open its records. Or if a different country, without all of the protections offered by US courts, forces Google to open its records as a condition of doing business. This isn’t some abstract fear: Think about what Yahoo went through in China.

But, still, let’s assume that the government doesn’t misuse this massive collection of data for political purposes. We’re still not off the hook. If you’re charged with a crime, or sued in a civil court, the other side can still subpoena your records. Maybe most of your searches are pretty boring–looking for info about “Baltimore Orioles” or “Frank Thomas” is pretty boring stuff. But maybe there are a few completely innocent but embarassing searches — for “jock itch” or “STD transmission” or things far more embarassing than that. The lawyers will paw through all of that, looking at every record to figure out if they can get leverage over you.

The solution? One step forward is clear data destruction policies for search engines. Three years is too long — six months might be better. Destroying data makes it inaccessible. Another step forward is stronger privacy laws in the US and EU. Another step forward is encouraging other countries to adopt similar strong privacy protections. Western norms of privacy are still evolving, but we’ve happened upon a lot of good stuff.

There’s hope yet for our data.

~Fortune favors the well-prepared.

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