# Google: A fly in the ointment?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-a-fly-in-the-ointment/95402>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [November 27, 2001, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-a-fly-in-the-ointment/95402 "2001-11-27T00:35:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![omni-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8dc957/32.png) [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)\
**Post date:** [November 27, 2001, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-a-fly-in-the-ointment/95402/1 "2001-11-27T00:35:53Z")

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> **[Technology News](https://www.cnet.com/news/?tag=dd.ne.dht.nl-sty.0)**
>
> CNET news editors and reporters provide top technology news, with investigative reporting and in-depth coverage of tech issues and events.

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**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [November 27, 2001, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-a-fly-in-the-ointment/95402/2 "2001-11-27T04:33:15Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> “Our specialty is discovering, crawling and indexing publicly available information,” said Google spokesman David Krane. “We define public as anything placed on the public Internet and not blocked to search engines in any way. **The primary burden falls to the people who are incorrectly exposing this information.** But at the same time, we’re certainly aware of the problem, and our development team is exploring different solutions behind the scenes.”

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**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\
**Post date:** [November 27, 2001, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-a-fly-in-the-ointment/95402/3 "2001-11-27T04:41:57Z")

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Several years ago, when I was quite new to searching, I remember being quite surprised to have a search (I believe it was on Alta Vista) turn up an email I had sent a few months before.

I generally just don’t trust anything to the net whose public disclosure would cause me discomfort.