As a confirmed "gun nut" from a long way back, I'll contribute to our paranoid Guests blatherwocky by stating that I have not been offended by anything I've seen of their purported "anti-gun" bias. (But then we anarchists only discuss such stuff in our secret meetings - definitely not on the internet. ;-)

A more appropriate issue relating to Google is related in a recent PC Magazine article - Is Google Invading Your Privacy?.

(I'll note that this site requests that you register to enter, but I think the link will work without it.)

There has been some complaint that Google "puts spyware on your machine," and keeps track of everywhere you go on the internet. There is a "grain of truth" in what is alleged, but Google is quite open about what they do; and what they are tracking seems to be essential to providing the kind of indexing service that users seem to want.

If you just "go Google," they may track you searched for, and what sites from the result are clicked, and there is even the suggestion (unconfirmed) that they may record "the people who went here went there next" kind of stuff.

If you install the Google Toolbar - which is, incidentally, a very handy gadget - and if you enable "Advanced Search," you are clearly told that it also enables a degree of "tracking" of what you search for, what you find, and which "hits" you follow up on. These seem like perfectly reasonable and necessary kinds of information that an adequate search service needs and I have agreed, knowingly, to let them do their thing.

You are also told, at the toolbar download site, how to turn the damned thing off if you decide later that you don't want them to follow you somewhere.

I've seen some pretty hysterical/paranoid ranting about this elsewhere, and the linked article takes a reasonably sane view. It does list some unconfirmed allegations about what Google may do, but if you apply a little rational thought to your reading of it, you'll be able to tell which is known and which is guesswork.

John