HMM: Google’s growth makes privacy advocates wary. “Perhaps the biggest threat to Google Inc.’s increasing dominance of Internet search and advertising is the rising fear, justified or not, that Google’s broadening reach is giving it unchecked power. . . A bigger long-term concern for Google could be criticisms over something less tangible — privacy. Increasingly, as Google burrows deeper into everyday computing, its product announcements are prompting questions about its ability to gather more potentially sensitive personal information from users.”

UPDATE: Toren Smith writes: “I recommend Scroogle. It ‘scrapes’ Google, allowing you to use Google’s capabilities without giving them any of your personal information. You lose out on a few of Google’s features (most notably cached pages) but it provides a lot more privacy.”

UPDATE: You really want to follow the link above, which goes to Scroogle.org. If you just type in Scroogle.com you get something very different, and not at all safe for work.