"They do _not_ need that to refine their searches. If I search for, say, "Oracle auto-tuning", that's that. I expect the same result regardless of what my IP is, regardless of whether I searched for "WebSphere XA configuration" before, or "Fluffy tail buttplugs" or whatever. You can tune the search with just the search string. You don't need to track me for that."

First, I'm not defending Google's right/desire to keep any of this data...

That said, you are wrong. Search results are not idempotent, they change depending on your language, which data center you're talking to, and they will certainly change over time. If I search for "chevy parts" and then I immediately search for "impala", I'd rather see pages about Chevy Impalas. If I had just searched for "african wildlife" then I'd rather see results about the animals. If I search for Bush from U.S. I'd expect more weight given to pages about the President, while people in other english-speaking countries might get more landscaping pages.

http://www.oreilly.com/cgi-bin/amazon_patent.comme nts.pl

- Very, very insightful -

....was granted without adequate review of prior art, and further, that even were it ultimately found valid, such broad patents serve only to hold back further innovation.

It is plainly wrong for companies to take our IP protection on overly broad terms, which are already in the public domain - but to then seek to enforce them is clearly even worse.

The writer of the Open Letter to Jeff Bezos knew what he was talking about.

I recieved the same offer in paper mail as well with the matching NJ address and web site listed. I highly doubt there is anything phishy going on.