I read a long article in the paper this morning about Google.  The headline was:  "Does Google know too much?" and it was about how much information Google gathers and stores about users.  The internet has revolutionized the way people do just about everything relating to information.  Google and other search engines track what we search, comments we leave, orders we place and all kids of other information.  So does Google really know too much about us and should we be worried about it?

Many real estate agents keep profiles about clients.  They find out names and ages of people in a family, birthdays, anniversaries, pet types and names, favorite restaurants, hobbies and on and on.  Our insurance agents do the same thing.  So do many other sales people or organizations that we use with some degree of frequency.  We do this to have good ways to stay in touch and get referrals.  Do people worry about this?  Doesn't look like it.  Websites that we visit install cookies on our computers.  Cookies track where we do and what we look at so that websites can actually remember us for automatic logging in and other things.  Are people worried about cookies?  Doesn't appear that way.

So back to Google - do we have anything to fear?  I guess that depends on the websites we visit and our degree of paranoia.  Nobody forces people to use Google, Yahoo, Dogpile or any other search engine.  When we go there, we know (or should know) that we are being tracked and recorded.  Internet usage is voluntary.  Don't want to be tracked and recorded?  Don't use the internet.