Google is getting creepier

[Brad Wood]

Who has that sort of capability, to record and keep such useless material and to do what they did with it?

Is that a rhetorical question?

First guess would be "No Such Agency"



Back when ISP's still disconnected end user internet connections when there was no activity, even DSL (which was in its infancy), I think the Pres, or Vice Pres, (or something big), came here to the Portland area. A local ISP provided internet service to the office space the FBI had set up for the event (maybe it was secret service).
This was 15 years ago
The FBI kept calling the ISP because their connection kept dropping. The ISP explained that if there is no activity on the connection for a period of time, the connection would drop... and they would have to re-establish the connection
The FBI explained that they were using the connection regularly and it is still kicking them
the ISP examined the activity for the connection and confirmed there was no data transfer taking place, so this is why the connection was dropping.
The FBI agent said something along the lines of "Trust us, there is data. We need your system to stop dropping the connection"

This comes directly from a friend of mine that worked at the ISP in middle management, so it is a reliable source.
The two of us discussed this over lunch one day and neither of us could figure out how they could possible be passing stealth packet streams across the connection.
Conversation ended with us agreeing it was pretty "spooky" and a weee bit concerning.

In any case, I think the suggested or previously used terms is nice. It helps you use terms that have been used before and likely are going to be successful.
I think the way it drills through the database as you type is called Boolean searching

[Mitchell Andrus]

You think the internet is scary? Who has that sort of capability, to record and keep such useless material and to do what they did with it?

I'm guessing you'll not want to hear this:

I have 2 internet stores. When you enter either of my stores you bring info with you that tells me where you were just before arriving and you leave the URL of the next place you go. I can tell how long you stayed, what you looked at, your browser and it's version, your operating system, chip set, ISP, etc., etc....

If you came directly from a search engine, I can see the search engine's name and the search terms you used to get my site's URL on the screen prior to clicking on it.

BOO!

I don't recall anyone telling me I was wondering around in the internet in total obscurity. Do you?
.

[Ben Hatcher]

I like it too. It seems like they're giving you the top several searches with those letters. IIRC they used to post the search count next to each one, too. For laughs, or maybe tears, search "why do..." followed by a letter or two. For example, the top result for why do monkeys... yields, why do monkeys throw poop. Ah, the great questions of our society.

[Ron Crosby]

I was surprised, and actually a bit annoyed, when Google started trying to auto-complete my results as I typed them in. Has anyone noticed the new behavior of actually returning search results AS YOU TYPE? That's just downright disturbing.

You can disable that feature. Why don't you do that???

Then you won't be so disturbed and annoyed.

[John Coloccia]

All I do is move the cursor to the right and turn "instant off"!

You can go to "settings" and turn it off permanently there too.

You can disable that feature. Why don't you do that???

Then you won't be so disturbed and annoyed.

:::sigh:::


The point is that it's creepy to have a computer somewhere guess at what you want before you even finish typing it in. I find it pretty creepy at any rate.