Who’s afraid of a snooper’s charter? Ask Google

Forgive me, but let’s go straight in. Readers of a sensitive disposition look away, but there’s a serious reason for the exercise I suggest that those with access to Google might like to attempt. There’s a thing called the AdWords Keyword Tool. You can find it at adwords.google.co.uk/-keywordtool. It is provided by Google for the benefit of online advertisers keen to select words or phrases they can use in order to catch as many Google searchers as possible in their net. So it will tell you how many people in the last month included in their search terms (say) ‘anti-wrinkle cream’: 22,200. But it is invaluable, too, to anyone curious to know what our fellow Britons are Googling.

This column’s focus is the blocking of the government’s plans for a ‘snooper’s charter’ by Nick Clegg. To get a sense of why I think that measure might silently disconcert more citizens than our MPs may imagine, try some terms on Google’s Keyword Tool — or take my word for it. Here are the numbers for UK searches including these expressions: crab lice: 2,400; haemorrhoids: 74,000; incontinence: 90,500; chlamydia: 135,000; vibrator: 135,000; X-videos: 500,000; masturbation: 550,000; gay porn: 1,000,000; porn: 37,200,000. These are the figures, as I say, for only one month. Added up, the totals begin to approach the entire population of the United Kingdom, so it is to be hoped that there is a degree of overlap between groups of Google searchers, and that some people are making a great many repeat visits within the same month. Ogle and Google, it seems, share millions of fans, and there are constituents’ lives undreamed of in their MP’s philosophy. Much that matters in many people’s thoughts is hidden.