I once heard someone quip that, “Google is worth three times as much as Facebook because Facebook knows what you tell your friends, but Google know what you do in the privacy of your room.”
It’s certainly true that people ask search engines about personal and sometimes very private matters. These queries provide the searchers with (mostly) useful information. Records of these searches and other types of Internet data also have a second life. Search companies, for example, use anonymized search records to operate and improve their services. These data can also be a treasure trove for researchers who want to study public health, sociology, and even how earthquakes spread.
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