Google announces privacy settings change across products; users can’t opt out
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-tracks-consumers-across-products-users-cant-opt-out/2012/01/24/gIQArgJHOQ_story.htmlGoogle said Tuesday it will require users to allow the company to follow their activities across e-mail, search, YouTube and other services, a radical shift in strategy that is expected to invite greater scrutiny of its privacy and competitive practices. The information will enable Google to develop a fuller picture of how people use its growing empire of Web sites. Consumers will have no choice but to accept the changes.
The policy will take effect March 1 and will also impact Android mobile phone users, who are required to log in to Google accounts when they activate their phones.
The changes comes as Google is facing stiff competition and recently disappointed investors for the first time in several quarters, failing last week to meet earnings expectations. Apple, perhaps its primary rival, is expected to announce strong earnings Tuesday.
Googles changes are appeared squarely aimed at Apple and Facebook, which have been successful in keeping people in their ecosystem of products. Google, which makes money by selling ads tailored to its users, is hoping to do the same by offering a Web experience tailored to personal tastes. If youre signed in, we may combine information youve provided from one service with information from other services, Alma Whitten, Googles director of privacy, product and engineering wrote in a blog post.
snip
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All the easier for Google to toss you over to the copyright goons for watching YouTube videos. The bill is in the mail/email.
Or when a private detective/cyber bounty-hunter or public copper subscribes in 2013 to the new 'GoogleSleuth' info database and you end up in civil court or criminal proceeding for thought crimes.
dmallind
(10,437 posts)....oh yeah - we can have different accounts for these things. My phone-linked gmail account is used for precisely zero. My youtube watching is on an entirely different account used for nothing, and I register for every single web service using a "Mr. Register" account which is used for....guess what? Free and anonymous email accounts are hardly limited or genius-level resourcefulness.
stockholmer
(3,751 posts)All your work-a-rounds can be overcome, and it becomes easier to do so each day. In fact, it is an a priori part of the inherent interface now given to humankind for a portal into cyberspace.
The 'publicly admitted to', 'publicly battled over' panopticon (within a controlled paradigm promulgated by the corporatist mass media) of the track-trace-database surveillance society grows daily not just by by scales of economy, but also by the loss of legal safeguards and systemic zeitgeist modification. Furthermore, the undisclosed power they already have and use would take our collective breath away.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)is the front where the move to totalitarianism has the most momentum and downhill conditions. Hard to see how this can be stopped, slowed or ever reversed.
msongs
(67,420 posts)IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,076 posts)... pretty soon they take over the whole tent and inject their lack of ethics, hammered into them at business school. There is a reason why when you were in college, the business majors were generally avoided and barely tolerated in social settings.
Broderick
(4,578 posts)is the way of Myspace. Can't happen too soon. All these companies like Facebook and Google are too big.
Remember Me
(1,532 posts)and links would be nice as well. I'm seriously bummed about this and would like more info.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)I can only assume that Google will get shafted too.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Back on the computer now.
Process started last year : EU wants Facebook, Google to comply with new data rules.
(Reuters) - Social-networking sites such as Facebook, or search engines such as Google, may face court action if they fail to obey planned EU data privacy rules, European Union justice chief Viviane Reding said on Wednesday.
Reding will propose an overhaul of the EU's 16-year-old laws on data protection in the coming months to enforce more safeguards on how personal information is used.
Much of the revamp would target sites such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft or Yahoo, because of rising worries about how they use information they collect about users' personal habits.
Reding wants to force companies to allow Internet users to withdraw any data held by the websites, calling it the "right to be forgotten," as well as make the firms provide more information on what data is collected and for what purpose.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-eu-data-privacy-idUSTRE72F69S20110316
There are some later progress links lurking around from the past week or so. Agreement to proceed should occur 29th January, next week, but will then need approval of individual states to beome law and that will take a while.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)stockholmer
(3,751 posts)Am I misreading your comment?
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)for the purpose of generating advertising revenue.
stockholmer
(3,751 posts)is unleashed and enabled. Following your line of logic and labeling leads to the calling of environmental regulations the 'fucking of big oil, big coal, big nuke' and the 'shafting of GM, et al', as the regs impact their profit margins.
I will take my privacy and liberty over Face Book's and Google's multi-billion revenue streams being enhanced EVERY TIME.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)As should we all be. My concern is what if big coal and oil, GM, and the rest of the corporates decide that they have a "right to be forgotten" too? How far can they abuse the regulations to scrub the electronic record of anything they consider bad news for them?
stockholmer
(3,751 posts)their ability to share this personal data. If that is indeed the case, dipsydoodle would thus be against the EU guidelines.
Am I wrong? I re-read the comment tree and still come to same conclusion.
cheers
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)and it's very silly of us to play this game of parsing words, but irresistible to Webheads, so: Maybe dipsydoodle is saying hurting ("fucking" FB and Google is a worthy price for upholding more important values? You know, like if someone says the Patriots will be fucked, they might be a Giants fan.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)As in, it's good that the EU is throwing a wrench in their wheels. Fuck 'em! That's my interpretation.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)I don't use FB because I just don't trust it for a host of reasons, privacy just one smidge on the list.
Glad the EU is taking the lead on this. Thanks for that, Europe.
So what are your thoughts on the Galaxy? I want to get a tablet later this year but am not an apple person, so Galaxy is on the short list. Would you do it again?
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)you're talking to an idiot who sometimes just buy things because they seem a good idea at the time....lol.
I'd got a Galaxy S 'phone about 18 months ago so the Galaxy 10.1 seemed a reasonably natural choice. I got it when I had a problem with the broadband - the fixed line telephone line in the house went down for a fortnight and I'd had a second broadband run in for backup from the cable company - not being able to do work can lose me more than the cost of gizmos like tablets etc. Now I use the tablet on the sofa while watching DVDs to keep an eye on here and ebay etc. To me its a convenience device.
I did download the full instructional manual onto one of the PCs but have yet to plough through it. Doubtless all will become clear in time.
Meanwhile if I want to post anything which needs cutting and pasting I use one of the PC's. Must say I do find touch screens very aggravating - you wouldn't believe the number of adverts I open by accident. I'd suggest you search both the latest models of each manufacturer to see which is better - I can't draw that comparison. There may be some chatter on the subject elsewhere on DU and there are loads of internet links on that subject too.
As a side issue it does take really good pictures using the camera and screen shots are simplicity itself - just press a button.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)we have learned that one can turn a Color Nook into an Android tablet with the use of one MicroSD card.
total cost for the converted ( and fast) Nook "tablet" being around 200.00/250.00.
( You can get "re-conditioned" Color Nooks for around 140.00)
Here is the sentence I read that led me to exploring the idea:
"N2A 16GB Micro SD card that allows you to dually boot up into full Android without rooting the machine. "
I was reading about buying a Color Nook here:
http://www.buy.com/prod/nook-color-by-barnes-noble-wifi-ereader/221376447.html
and down on the page found a bunch of reader comments on how to convert.
I found out there are lots of how to videos up on You tube.
There is a company selling n2a card, ( I found it on Amazon) pop it in and you have Android platform.....kinda cool.
It does not void warranty.
Others who are more skilled have figured out how to partition the Nook drive to use some of the RAM to speed up the now-tablet functions.
who knew?
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)Poll_Blind
(23,864 posts)PB
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)specific sites that I know are google related sites, google doesn't have a clue what I'm doing. I have to re-"allow" aspects of google when I go to those aspects. I guess it helps that I have little use for google services, not being a social media person, nor spend much time on youtube, or any of that. So for me it's mostly blocked, even though I have a hotmail account, and I think that's google, isn't it?
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)I don't like appearing too ignorant in public, but does the OP refer to anyone who ever uses the google search features, or is it just about people who have google email acounts?
And I am copying your info, Lionessa, so I can have it in my journal for future reference.
Response to stockholmer (Original post)
Wed Jan 25, 2012, 12:30 AM
Lionessa (1,063 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
8. Firefox NoScript allows me to block google/google analytics/googleapis, so except when I'm on
specific sites that I know are google related sites, google doesn't have a clue what I'm doing. I have to re-"allow" aspects of google when I go to those aspects. I guess it helps that I have little use for google services, not being a social media person, nor spend much time on youtube, or any of that. So for me it's mostly blocked, even though I have a hotmail account, and I think that's google, isn't it?
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)social media. What I do know is that Google has its tentacles throughout the web, social media sites, and I think youtube as well. So when I use those sites I allow google related scripts, as soon as I leave I disallow google scripts. What's nice it that after installing the NoScript add-on, you can click on the icon and it tells you all the sites that are trying to use scripts on each page, so you can allow only the necessary ones. Between it and AdBlock, I never see ads or have videos running or ads blasting at me when I arrive on a site. If I want to watch a vid or because I want to unlock a scripted game, I have to watch an ad. The just all overt the page ads I never see.
Anyway, you have to learn to use noScript or you'll get frustrated with pages not loading completely and some elements not showing. Just always know that if a click doesn't work or media that is mentioned but you can't see it or it's controls, check your noScript, probably you have to allow something.
bathroommonkey76
(3,827 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)those "secret" cookies that flash and other programs put on your computer that do not show up in the "cookies" folder?
I have Better Privacy, another Firefox add-on, that makes the invisible cookies go away.
used to run No Script until it was revealed that No Script was actually allowing some scripts in that were paid for.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)allow anything but my own site.
Yes, it means every time I restart Firefox and go to a page I like, I have some rightclicking and allowing to do, but that way I'm not stuck with their choices of what's safe.
That being said, I want cookies from some sites, like DU, or I'd never know where I'd been (ie the links all remain blue even if I had visited them) so I'd not like something that stopped all cookies. I prefer to do it site by site. And by that I don't mean everything on a site. For example on this page I have DU allowed, but I have about 10 still blocked including facebook, linkedin, google, googleanalytics, doubleclick, and more. So only the site is allowed. If I go to a video OP, I'll have to allow youtube and yming, and so on.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)And I am copying your suggestion(s) into this reply so I can put it all in my folder
dixiegrrrl said:
Star Member dixiegrrrrl
31. Does No Script block Long lasting Storage Objects..?
View profile
those "secret" cookies that flash and other programs put on your computer that do not show up in the "cookies" folder?
I have Better Privacy, another Firefox add-on, that makes the invisible cookies go away.
used to run No Script until it was revealed that No Script was actually allowing some scripts in that were paid for.
sarge43
(28,941 posts)msongs
(67,420 posts)Tunkamerica
(4,444 posts)AllyCat
(16,193 posts)Is that the one you are using?
IDemo
(16,926 posts)and it's astonishing the number of objects that it finds and blocks on some pages. It also provides a "What is Google Analytics" or whatever item in the list you want more info about.
AllyCat
(16,193 posts)FailureToCommunicate
(14,014 posts)easy:
CherylK
(2,774 posts)Upward
(115 posts)You are the product.
Beartracks
(12,816 posts)Broderick
(4,578 posts)Beartracks
(12,816 posts)dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Just need a large pocket.
MADem
(135,425 posts)They work, too and they're attached to my walls.
Just the thing when the power goes out.
MADem
(135,425 posts)deacon
(5,967 posts)google beast is tooooooooooo big.
boppers
(16,588 posts)They're using larger collection pools.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)at whatever nasty shit the company does.
savalez
(3,517 posts)bathroommonkey76
(3,827 posts)Each time I logged into my account Google would try to redirect me to a page that asked me for my phone number. I ain't playing those games with them anymore.
It's sad though... I had half a million views on the 75 videos that I had posted. Oh well...
I know that I can make it without having Google in my life.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Or a switchboard at, say, Google, Inc.
bathroommonkey76
(3,827 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)bomb, like the Santorum thing, that directs people who search for "Internet Privacy" to a detailed article about this issue and explaining why google sucks.
It would be also helpful to direct people to useful, less nefarious alternatives to google. I think they're assholes, the way they want to know what everyone is doing and the way they keep trying to collect data on people.
AllyCat
(16,193 posts)I love going to stores and they ask for my phone number or zip code. If I have time to argue and there are people listening, I will say "I don't give that out" and then the questions and marketing starts. If I don't want to mess with them, I just make something up.
MADem
(135,425 posts)to the PBS children's program, ZOOM (that would be 02134).
I despise data collection--I fuck with them at every opportunity.
AllyCat
(16,193 posts)I like the Pentagon idea...and maybe I'd love to give the WH or Congress switchboard number, but want to save what open circuits there are for actual citizens trying to make change. Oh, US Chamber of Commerce...tie up there phone lines
MADem
(135,425 posts)cstanleytech
(26,299 posts)boppers
(16,588 posts)"OMG, this gun company won't let me be a pacifist!"
cstanleytech
(26,299 posts)boppers
(16,588 posts)Explain?
cstanleytech
(26,299 posts)Be it state law or federal.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)everything is about companies, advertising and making money. I'd rather something like public radio or libraries (run by the government or cooperatives).
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)I am switching to Opera browser's email client.
Unless anyone here knows anything bad about that email source??
sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)flamingdem
(39,313 posts)What email is safe from this crap?
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)like mail@flamingdeb.com ?
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)...and as the years have moved on, we find more and more how sleazy Google is.
Walk away people...sheesh.
MADem
(135,425 posts)AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,850 posts)I heard a long time ago they do not keep track of what you search for.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Absurd, even.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Also, pardon my ignorance, I'm still not clear on whether this new Google policy affects people who don't have gmail but who sometimes use Google.com for searching.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)I don't know how they manage that, but when I got a new laptop a few years ago for specific purpose, not to browse the web...anyway as time passed, and I became homeless, laptop became what went on the internet when I could find internet. At first, google analytics was not in the script list, after a while it was. Don't know exactly where I went that was a google site, this one actually is sort of a google site because they are connected to google ads, maybe that's all it takes.
octothorpe
(962 posts)script on their pages that load it. No doubt google uses the information for it's own purposes too, but it the site owner put it on any site you went to that has google analytics being used.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)pretty much any site using google ads or facebook icons, or any connection to a google service has google analytics listed in the scripts list.
octothorpe
(962 posts)I misinterpreted what you said. I thought you meant that once you visit a google site, you end up having every page having google analytics installed on them.
No doubt that google takes all the information from its various sources and sells it or whatever it does. I wonder how much information google chrome sends back to google for storage and analysis.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)a way to avoid google. I only use it to check my site, make sure it looks the same as on Firefox, I also check in IE8 but never use IE to browse. Firefox works so well that with it and a good firewall, I've never, that's right, NEVER had a virus or trojan or worm, and i don't have an antivirus program of any kind.
However others watching me browse think I'm crazy with all the clicking I go through to allow and then disallow as I go through things. Not too many people really want the hassle of a safe browsing experience. You have to learn no matter what you use. Then go through it hoops and then still browse.
Tunkamerica
(4,444 posts)you uncheck it. There's also chromium which is the generic chrome. The comments on this thread are pretty hilarious in how clueless they are. That's google's fault for not educating the public on the change.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)Very cute. Not to mention that you are tracked through google analytics site by site, not directly through the browser. So just unclicking your browser, even if I believed that they actually honor that unclick, isn't nearly enough to not be tracked.
You right, many on here are truly clueless, you included.
Tunkamerica
(4,444 posts)out of your google account, use incognito mode, get a plugin to automatically clean your browser's cache, history, and cookies (java too). I mean, how in depth do you want to go. If you're paranoid, then you can go much much deeper.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Every, single, one.
They track differently, but they all track.
"I'm still not clear on whether this new Google policy affects people who don't have gmail but who sometimes use Google.com for searching."
If you have a google *account*, your links and clicks will be related to that account.
If you use google, but do not have a google *account*, your links and clicks will be related to your usage of google.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Snoopers!
BlueIris
(29,135 posts)Appalling, actually.
Google has become a sad parody of decency and effectuality.
begin_within
(21,551 posts)or any of these other tired, old, pointless sites?
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Because we all have different tastes?
(Although I do realize that minimizing a thing by calling it 'tired', 'old' or 'pointless;' while not adding anything substantive to the dialog, is certainly a most self-validating way of feeling better about oneself... )
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Faryn Balyncd
(5,125 posts)Amonester
(11,541 posts)A bad flaw of (too many) human beings.
Sad.
Celebration
(15,812 posts)Privacy experts recommend this
https://www.startpage.com/
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)enough about me!
skypilot
(8,854 posts)Not terribly knowledgeable about these things. When I went to the StartPage home page the first thing I see is the words "Enhanced by Google" right next to the seach box.
Celebration
(15,812 posts)It is a simple way to use a Proxy--no records kept!
skypilot
(8,854 posts)*
madokie
(51,076 posts)I switched to IXquick and like it much better. Since I've made that change my spam filter doesn't have to work nearly as hard either so f**k google.
One of their data centers in about 2 miles from here but you wouldn't know it if you didn't know it because they have no sign pointing to them. Very security paranoid and low profile. The exact qualities that makes me go HMMM
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)I have my web history paused.
I don't care about my YouTube videos or email being looked at, they already display ads based on my searching and email conversations (and always have).
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)(Reuters) - The European Commission proposed new online data privacy rules on Wednesday, putting more responsibility on companies to protect users' information, and said those who breach the code could be fined up to two percent of annual turnover.
After two years of examining the shifts in Internet use and the behaviour of consumers using websites such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo!, the European commissioner in charge of data privacy, Viviane Reding, said she was determined to give individuals more control over their personal information.
>
Originally Reding had wanted to fine companies a maximum of five percent of their annual global turnover for any breach of the rules. That has been scaled down to two percent, but is still a potentially vast figure.
For Google, for example, a breach of the rules could result in a fine of up to $800 million (513 million pound), based on expected full-year revenues in 2011.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/01/25/uk-eu-dataprivacy-idUKTRE80O0WW20120125
IDemo
(16,926 posts)drm604
(16,230 posts)Ghostery
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery/
Google Disconnect
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gdc/
Facebook Disconnect
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fbdc/
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Tunkamerica
(4,444 posts)Paul E Ester
(952 posts)The social widgets from Facebook, google and twitter are a means for those companies to spy on what you read on DU. This problem, and suggestions for fixing it was brought up before DU3 went live but apparently it's ok with DU management to share their users information with these corporations. DU needs to update the privacy policy to reflect all the data they are leaking to these private corporations.
I think it's disgusting that if I log into Facebook with my real name, log out and then go to read DU. Facebook will see each and every thread I read on DU. It's insidious and big brotherish.
DU can implement social sharing in a way that protects it's users privacy. I am not sure why it doesn't.