Has Google been poking through your Gmail?

A post at Problogger (linked on Digg) may be providing Web pundits with a new reason to overuse the term "Orwellian"–Problogger guest poster Alister Cameron recently did a bit of digging into the patent application for Google’s Blog Search product to find out how exactly it ranks posts. But Cameron’s post also managed to reveal some tidbits that Google critics may find to be somewhat of a warning signal. According to the wording of section [0044], Google has the ability to trawl your e-mail and chat transcripts–in other words, Gmail and Google Talk–in order to figure out which blogs and blog posts are being talked about the most.

Posted by Caroline McCarthy

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