We all claim to want privacy online, but that desire is rarely reflected in our online behavior. OTM producer Sarah Abdurrahman looks into the futile attempts we make to protect our digital identities.

Johannes Brahms - Violin Concerto op.77 in D Major

Aspirin, zipper, thermos, yo-yo -- even heroin was once a registered trademark. Today, they're generic product categories. Could the same happen to Google? It's already a recognized verb. Bob speaks with University of Michigan Law Professor Jessica Litman who says that though Google is unlikely to lose its trademark soon, there's a long history of 'genericide.'

New Country Rehab - Ramblin' Man

In the Internet era, both companies and scientists are well aware that more and more of our daily activities have moved to cyberspace. And they know the value of understanding the meaning and trends behind the countless links we follow ever day. Facebook scientists use data to study users’ ethnicities, improve geolocation and even to predict election results. At universities all over the country, schools of information study the effects of people’s attentions shifting to screens.

This week, two class action lawsuits were filed by privacy advocates against Google, because under their new privacy policy, the company can pool user data collected from all of its web services into one place. Software researcher Tom Henderson reacted in a different way: he decided to stop using all of Google's services. Bob speaks with Tom about how he “divorced Google.”

Daniel Rossen - Up On High

With election season in full flower, pollsters have emerged to gauge the fluctuating preferences of voters. But there are some questions to which pollsters are unlikely to get honest answers. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a PhD candidate at Harvard, has found a way to plumb America’s impenetrable psyche: Google Search results. Bob talks to Davidowitz about his method.

On Monday, The Author's Guild filed a lawsuit against several universities who have announced their intentions to make available electronic copies of so called "orphan works," books for which no copyright owner can be found. Law professor and blogger James Grimmelmann talks to Bob about the sticky legal issues that orphan works present.

When most companies try to improve their search engine optimization, the search engine they're optimizing for is Google. But the ease of a Google search belies the hard work that Google engineers like Matt Cutts do behind the scenes to assure that search results aren't unfairly manipulated. In an interview from February of this year, Cutts explains how Google must set the search rules, over and over again.

Since Google began taking pictures for their Google Street View service in Germany in 2008, it has been a controversial topic in the country. So controversial, in fact, that three percent of the population opted to have their homes blurred on the service, and backlash was so vicious that in April, Google abandoned the service in Germany entirely. OTM's Michael Bernstein traveled there last summer to try to understand why it was so universally reviled.

Google was the subject of an international public relations nightmare when the public learned that the cars Google uses to take pictures for their Google Street View service were also picking up information over unsecured wireless networks as they drove by. Now, a US District Judge has said that Google can be sued for violating the wiretap act. Ars Technica senior editor Nate Anderson talks to Bob about the potential ramifications of this lawsuit.

Last week, a team of scientists at Columbia University published a study that said thanks to our instant access to nearly unlimited information via the internet, the way that we remember is changing. And almost immediately, the blogosphere lost its mind (pun intended), posting articles with titles like "Is Google Ruining Your Memory?," "Poor Memory? Blame Google," and the Pièce de résistance,"Google Turning us Into Forgetful Morons."  But is the story really that cut and dry?

Since its introduction last week as an invite only service, Google's new social networking service Google+ has added over 10 million users, and has been the subject of endless speculation by the press, techies, and social networkers alike. But just what is it? How does it work? What makes it any different from Facebook or Twitter? Former On the Media producer and unabashed Google fanboy Mark Phillips gives us the lowdown on Google's latest offering.