This news comes from across the pond—but if it is happening in the UK why would it not be happening in the US of A?

According to the reports circulating, Google purposely used Street View cars to steal personal information from people in Britain for years, and then they covered it up for years.

The accusations are that Google deliberately harvested private data on British citizens for years. According to the report, they downloaded photographs and emails, documents, and messages. The Street View cars collected as they drove.

A private company spying. Interesting. Because if you paint the picture just a little differently, it could mean even war! Think if foreign spies for another nation were driving around America stealing your data? Imagine if, say, North Korea had cars to do it. Or maybe a Chinese car.. with the Chinese flag. Driving around and spying on you!

It would mean war. The government would condemn. The media would go headline-crazy. 

But in this situation, when a private company did it, everyone is silent.

The noise of crickets in the vast wilderness of the online world.. well, that noise today is deafening. The international media is the only place to turn to find out just what exactly Google has been doing.

Just Google it.

Did the room clear?
Do pigs fly?
Do cars use gas?

IS GOOGLE BREAKING ITS PRIVACY PLEDGE? 

Interesting how it worked.

The UK GUARDIAN has a good explanation:

The problem has arisen after Google paid Unruly Media, an international media agency, to get a number of paid bloggers to promote a video for its Chrome browser featuring a US flour company.

But while the bloggers did the job they had been asked to, and put up the video, some went beyond what Unruly Media – and Google – had expected them to, and included links to places where you could download the Chrome browser. Crucially, though, they didn’t use the “nofollow” text that Google mandates for paid links. That, strictly, took them over the line on paid links.

Interesting stuff.

But.. major corporate conglomerates like Google won’t …. be… evil!? Now will they?

Lieberman is asking Google to ban terrorist content..

Defining terrorism could be the challenge… banning would be easy.

This coinciding with a bill moving through the Senate allowing the Executive Branch to take American citizens to Gitmo indefinitely makes this Google/Lieberman story all the more chilling..

Google at it again…

GOOGLE Street View camera captures naked woman on her front doorstep…

And in another image, she appears to notice the street view cam photographing her nude..

People online are having a field day making light of the situation and making a lot of fun of the woman..

Laughing as our privacy dies?…. making a joke of a person, photographed by a private company, and her image posted all over the globe?

I’m not laughing… I’m not laughing at all…

An armchair astronaut declares a big find.. and he used Google earth to do it.

Sure, it suffers more down hours than Blogger.. But then why, I ask, is Blogger copying Tumblr’s successful points?

MORE: How To Make Your Blogger Look More Like Tumblr

…And Google will ride it where it likes. 

As a matter of fact, Google is now employing the use of bikes as a means of street view! 

And leave it to a big tech company to embarrass those documenting and search-enabling the world, street by street: They aren’t even using real bikes, but instead tricycles ..

How is JC PENNEY able to get its store site to come up on Google when a user does a search for practically anything? It’s actually quite fascinating.. David Segal of the TIMES reports:

If you own a Web site, for instance, about Chinese cooking, your site’s Google ranking will improve as other sites link to it. The more links to your site, especially those from other Chinese cooking-related sites, the higher your ranking. In a way, what Google is measuring is your site’s popularity by polling the best-informed online fans of Chinese cooking and counting their links to your site as votes of approval.

But even links that have nothing to do with Chinese cooking can bolster your profile if your site is barnacled with enough of them. And here’s where the strategy that aided Penney comes in. Someone paid to have thousands of links placed on hundreds of sites scattered around the Web, all of which lead directly to JCPenney.com.