>Hey,
>
>If you don't think Google is evil, check out the article
>mentioned in "Google Bugging Your Home?" on the >href="http://www.tuelz.com/big-seo.html";]Big SEO page.
>If they can pull off monitoring your microphone
>transmissions, I wonder how long before they try to remotely
>activate any cams you have. They could try to use them to
>take your pic and then compare it to other pics associated
>with suspected multiple accounts.
>
>One more thing...I don't have any Google tools/software
>installed, but I'd like to know if it's possible to
>associate the searches make with your browser with your
>identity if you use the same browser to log into your
>Adsense account. Anyone know? I may be paraniod, but right
>now I use Firefox to check my Adsense and Safari to surf.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Rich

Hi Rich

Interesting question you pose above.

The simple answer to your question is Yes! If you have 'cookies' enabled for the SE you use to 'search' and for you Adsense login, then they can be 'read' and 'compared', and a link 'established'.

The simple answer is:

(i) Disable cookies for Domains you suspect may be 'tracking/linking' your on-line activity.
(ii)Don't leave your microphone and/or your camera. plugged-in/switched-on, when you don't need them.

In similar fashion to you, I don't have any 'proprietary' toolbars installed, for the very reasons you put forward in your post. Nor do I have 'mikes'/'cams', left 'live'.

Sidenote!
In the days of 'Prohibition' in the USA, anyone working in the law-enforcement branches of the Federal Government, (FBI, Treasury, Secret Service, etc.) were known as 'G-men'. I wonder if we now have a new generation of 'G-men'?

There is a saying by someone (in)famous,(Woody Allen?) that goes something along the lines of:

'Just because your paranoid, doesn't mean that they ain't out to get you!' LOL

The other thing that always goes through my mind, when I am offered something for 'free', however useful it may appear to be, is the old 'motive' question, that used to be the opening question in any 'classic' murder investigation - 'Who stands to gain from this?'

99 times out of 100, the answer will be 'the supplying party'.

On almost every occasion, when you install any kind of 'toolbar/utility' software, you will be asked to 'agree' to an EULA( End User License Agreement). With no legal knowledge whatsoever, most people will 'sacrifice' some of their privacy-rights, to gain the 'functionality', that the software 'promises'.

My take on this is the 'classic': 'Caveat Emptor' (Buyer Beware!)
even though you don't appear to be 'buying' anything.

HTH

Kind regards

Ian