On a side note, if you have a browser with a decent script blocker, like Firefox with NoScript, you can block Google Analytics to lessen the effect. You can also turn off Google History, though I have no idea if that actually helps in any way.
The Internet and changing expectations of privacy
- Thread starter innonimatu
- Start date
On a side note, if you have a browser with a decent script blocker, like Firefox with NoScript, you can block Google Analytics to lessen the effect. You can also turn off Google History, though I have no idea if that actually helps in any way.
Mise
isle of lucy
I use Ghostery on Firefox and ... some different one on Chrome to block all tracking cookies (i.e. not just Google's but Facebook and other ad companies too). I also opt out of any "send usage statistics" thing in any browser I use. And for things that I absolutely don't want to track, I use private browsing / incognito mode. However, there are things that I do want Google to track, in order to provide me with better search results and adverts. I turn off ghostery for those things. I want it to track things that I look up that I think are cool (e.g. when I look at the latest phone from Samsung), but I don't want it to track things that I look up for personal reasons (e.g. medical products / problems).
You need to know how they track you in order to do something about it. Telling people to simply not "put" personal data on the internet is a dangerous kind of ignorance, frankly. It's like telling someone to not drive a car if they don't want to get into a car accident: you can get into a car accident as a pedestrian, bus user, cyclist or taxi passenger, too.
You need to know how they track you in order to do something about it. Telling people to simply not "put" personal data on the internet is a dangerous kind of ignorance, frankly. It's like telling someone to not drive a car if they don't want to get into a car accident: you can get into a car accident as a pedestrian, bus user, cyclist or taxi passenger, too.
I do see your point - do we not have legislation in place to regulate the use and misuse of personal data? I mean, BT knows every phone call I've ever made, and my bank knows every transaction I've ever made, but I don't fret that BT are going to expose my six Thai brides or that the bank will lift the lid on my shafy donations to the Conservative Party (not sure which of those two is worse). Basically, I feel the same about Google - less, in fact, since I don't get a telephone bill or equivalent from them, so if I were married my wife wouldn't be able to regularly see my search history.
Mise
isle of lucy
Yes, BT or Barclays are incredibly tightly regulated on the use of data for purposes that are not related to the provision of telephony services or banking. But Google is a fundamentally different company, an as such, the law offers much flimsier protection.
Data Protection laws in the UK stipulate that data can only be stored and used for the specific purpose for which it was collected. It also stipulates that the information cannot be sold or passed on to 3rd parties without the permission of the user to whom the data concerns. So BT or Barclays can only use the information they have on you to provide you with better telephony or banking services, and can't sell or even freely publish that data to anyone else.
Google, on the other hand, expressly collects information in order to serve up adverts, and automatically opts you in to consenting to allow Google to share that information with 3rd parties*, though you can opt out through your account settings. This means that it can (and does) give your information to other companies, in order to provide better advertising.
Furthermore, it's not even obvious that Google, as an American company, even has to abide by British data protection laws at all. If I send a letter to an American company, do they have to abide by British data protection laws?
If you have a Google account (and if you use YouTube, Gmail, or any other Google service, then you do), your search history is stored here: https://www.google.com/history/
In any case, imagine you didn't know that BT sent you a phone bill every month that contained a list of all of your phone calls, when you made them, and their duration. That's basically the assumption under which the vast majority of people who use the internet are acting. They don't even know what BT is recording, who they share it with, or how to change their behaviour to avoid unwanted intrusions by their wives, neighbours, post man, or government. People absolutely need to know how Google and companies like it operate, rather than simply assuming that the "common sense" that they apply to privacy in real life can be equally applied online. Because everything I have learnt about how internet companies make money as taught me that it can't.
*-This is true if you have signed up for a Google account to use e.g. Gmail. However, if you do not have an account, then there is still no guarantee that your data won't be sold or shared with 3rd parties, for the simple reason that there is no 2nd party. Since you are not entering into any sort of agreement or contract with Google to provide a service, and Google are merely storing information about a cookie (i.e. data about a piece of data), then there's not much to stop Google from selling that data too.
Since I don't have an account with Google - which I presume would entail signing up to an EULA, as with most software - it seems that most of that doesn't really apply to me?
I'll reserve judgement on this, since I'm not IT-literate enough to know precisely what a cookie is.
Mise
isle of lucy
It does still affect you, possibly even more so because you have no control over the data that Google has on you. I'll try to explain why here, starting with cookies.
A "cookie" is a little piece of information that websites store on your computer to identify who you are. So for example, when you log in to CFC, the forum will store a cookie on your computer so that if you close the window/tab and reopen it later, you will still be logged in from your previous session. CFC knows who "Flying Pig" is, because it stores a cookie on your computer that links your computer with the account on CFC. Those kinds of cookies are really useful, because otherwise, you'd have to log in to CFC every time you wanted to post something.
But this page you're looking at right now also puts another kind of cookie onto your computer. The Google ads at the top and bottom of the page also put cookies on your computer, and read the cookie whenever a webpage with a Google ad is loaded. This cookie will be unique to your computer: no other computer will have this particular cookie, so it will identify "you" uniquely. It doesn't require you to sign up to any website or have a Google account; all it requires is that you have visited a webpage with Google Ads or Google Analytics on it (which is the vast majority of websites), or to have used Google search at least once in your life. This is how Google collects information about "you", and how it personalises adverts so that they are relevant to your unique interests. When you visit CFC, Google will know that you are interested in Computer games (specifically, strategy games). Now lets say you're in an argument about World War 2. You go to Google and you search for information on WWII. The tracking cookie that was implanted by the Google ads here on CFC will then be read by Google search; therefore, Google now knows that you like Strategy Games and are interested in WWII. Now lets say all that war stuff has got you horny, and you go and search for black girls with large rear ends. Google reads the tracking cookie, records your search, and thus now Google knows what kind of porn you like. And so on. As I said, it does this to personalise adverts: adverts that are relevant and useful to the user result in far greater click-through, and so are worth a hell of a lot more than adverts for random crap.
Of course, Google doesn't know that this is "you". It doesn't know what your name is (because you don't have a Gmail account), it doesn't know what your phone number is, or your address, and so on. But it will still know roughly where in the world you are: if you ever use Google Maps to find the nearest cinema, it will know that you searched for cinemas in East Grinstead or whatever, and so will know that much about you. It might know how old you are, based on what other websites you go to. It might even know roughly what you look like, if you ever search for information about baldness or acne. If all that information got out, someone you know could easily put two and two together and twig it: This is information about Flying Pig. It may not be strictly "personally identifiable" in the legal sense, since your name, address, DOB, etc is not recorded, but it is identifiable enough that the "you" that Google is tracking can be traced back to the "you" that is reading this right now.
Hopefully this all makes sense to you, but let me know if it doesn't. What I'm trying to impress upon you is that just because you have never specifically told Google what your name is doesn't mean that your privacy isn't being violated. Google's entire business model revolves around knowing as much about you as possible; that information clearly represents a threat to your privacy. Like I said, even if you don't ever "put" anything on the internet, Google still knows a hell of a lot about you.
A "cookie" is a little piece of information that websites store on your computer to identify who you are. So for example, when you log in to CFC, the forum will store a cookie on your computer so that if you close the window/tab and reopen it later, you will still be logged in from your previous session. CFC knows who "Flying Pig" is, because it stores a cookie on your computer that links your computer with the account on CFC. Those kinds of cookies are really useful, because otherwise, you'd have to log in to CFC every time you wanted to post something.
But this page you're looking at right now also puts another kind of cookie onto your computer. The Google ads at the top and bottom of the page also put cookies on your computer, and read the cookie whenever a webpage with a Google ad is loaded. This cookie will be unique to your computer: no other computer will have this particular cookie, so it will identify "you" uniquely. It doesn't require you to sign up to any website or have a Google account; all it requires is that you have visited a webpage with Google Ads or Google Analytics on it (which is the vast majority of websites), or to have used Google search at least once in your life. This is how Google collects information about "you", and how it personalises adverts so that they are relevant to your unique interests. When you visit CFC, Google will know that you are interested in Computer games (specifically, strategy games). Now lets say you're in an argument about World War 2. You go to Google and you search for information on WWII. The tracking cookie that was implanted by the Google ads here on CFC will then be read by Google search; therefore, Google now knows that you like Strategy Games and are interested in WWII. Now lets say all that war stuff has got you horny, and you go and search for black girls with large rear ends. Google reads the tracking cookie, records your search, and thus now Google knows what kind of porn you like. And so on. As I said, it does this to personalise adverts: adverts that are relevant and useful to the user result in far greater click-through, and so are worth a hell of a lot more than adverts for random crap.
Of course, Google doesn't know that this is "you". It doesn't know what your name is (because you don't have a Gmail account), it doesn't know what your phone number is, or your address, and so on. But it will still know roughly where in the world you are: if you ever use Google Maps to find the nearest cinema, it will know that you searched for cinemas in East Grinstead or whatever, and so will know that much about you. It might know how old you are, based on what other websites you go to. It might even know roughly what you look like, if you ever search for information about baldness or acne. If all that information got out, someone you know could easily put two and two together and twig it: This is information about Flying Pig. It may not be strictly "personally identifiable" in the legal sense, since your name, address, DOB, etc is not recorded, but it is identifiable enough that the "you" that Google is tracking can be traced back to the "you" that is reading this right now.
Hopefully this all makes sense to you, but let me know if it doesn't. What I'm trying to impress upon you is that just because you have never specifically told Google what your name is doesn't mean that your privacy isn't being violated. Google's entire business model revolves around knowing as much about you as possible; that information clearly represents a threat to your privacy. Like I said, even if you don't ever "put" anything on the internet, Google still knows a hell of a lot about you.
aimeeandbeatles
watermelon
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2007
- Messages
- 20,112
Very much.
I see your point - Google knows that Flying Pig searches for these things - but to me, the fact that it's not linked to me in any way means it doesn't bother me (I know that you could theoretically find me roughly, but this is what I was saying earlier - the sheer amount of effort it would require means that I'm not worried, since nobody's going to go through that amount for a relatively normal person). Of course, a lot of that's probably to do with the fact that I don't really have anything on my search record worth hiding, and that I've reached teh stage where my need for PERSEC is relatively small, but I guess certain people might get a little riled up about that.
Mise
isle of lucy
Right now, "roughly" might not be enough to knock on your door and ask if you are "Flying Pig". But as time goes on, and you visit more and more websites, Google collects more and more information about you. The more you use the internet, the closer the "rough outline" of you resembles "you" -- and the easier it becomes for people (a company, a government, a nosey neighbour, a stalker or a fraudster) to marry up "Flying Pig" with "John Smith at 123 Aardvark Street, London". For someone like me, who uses the internet all the time, and who will be using the internet for the next X years, it is absolutely impossible to simply not "put" personal information on the internet. It's impossible to follow the common prescription of using "common sense" to avoid privacy breaches.
For me, there's no doubt that the information that Google has on me can be identified with my name and address.
For me, there's no doubt that the information that Google has on me can be identified with my name and address.
If they went through all that trouble to find me, I think the least I owe them is a cup of tea and a conversation. This just strengthens my belief that it would be used against terrorists and the like - because the Police are willing to invest that amount of bother to trawl through the records - but not against people like you or I.
aimeeandbeatles
watermelon
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2007
- Messages
- 20,112
Very well but when you end up needing to change your phone number because of a cyberstalker well you know.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 15,374
Yes, this is true. Google even took a patent on creating "ghost profiles" to try to trick people who want to remain anonymous to join their social network. They call them "phantoms". The promise of anonymity is a lie, of course: such people must be invited by current members and the invitation will be known to Google, thus linking these "phantoms" both to some valid email address and to one or several users already identified by Google. They really are scrapping the bottom of the barrel for more personal data.
But you should keep in mind that the cost of searching through all this information, as well as the cost of storying and duplicating it, will only go down. Just as you can have the whole digital contents of wikipedia on a disk now, something unthinkable 20 years ago (it'd be rooms and rooms full of tape reels), you will probably be able to have something akin to Google's databases in a single cheap device in a couple of decades.
I have no doubt that Google is US intelligence's most wildly successful data collection project (call it a conspiracy theory if you want, but just check the suppliers of the original VC). And, perhaps paradoxically, were it used solely by that government it wouldn't be about to cause any major social change regarding privacy. Then it would indeed be mo worse that the telephone companies or the banks. State agencies must, after all, be careful with how much they use that information, lest they devalue it or, worse, create a backlash among the spied.
But, probably for the sake of disguising and financing this data collection effort, it was spun as an independent corporation, which just happens to bring to US territory all that information (allowing it to be intercepted and copied). And it is this existence as an independent corporation, and its reliance on income from reselling that information, that makes it such a game changer. It won't hold on to the collect information, it won't keep it secret. It'll sell it to others, and we all know what happens once more than a few people/institutions get hold of a secret: it ceases being one. Combine that with predictable low costs of storing and searching that information, and I do expect that we'll be forced to lead nearly transparent lives.
Of course, it it wasn't Google, it'd probably be a handful of other corporations, though perhaps not all american. The technology would still evolve towards this end of privacy as we had known it.
It may turn out to be good. It may, for example, make people more accepting of the "eccentricities" of others, as all would be revealed to have their own idiosyncrasies.
It may turn out to be a disaster. It may make everyone cynical, shall we say, [/]too accepting[/I] of some socially destructive (trust destructive) idiosyncrasies.
And the information may end up, for many years at least, until the cost of access fall low enough,, accessible only by a few wealthy groups, who'll be sure to use it to manipulate things their way.
Truly, I don't know what to make of it.
Quackers
The Frog
This thread has made me terrifiyed of Google. Google probably knows more about me then myself!
I'm not sure that would be an entirely bad thing - maybe we'd live better lives if we were accountable all the time?
Mise
isle of lucy
Just to scare y'all a little more, while Google probably knows more embarrassing, personal things about you, Facebook knows more about you in terms of your outward personality, through the Like button. But Facebook is also trying to engage in the same kind of hidden tracking games as Google: every time you see a "Like" button on a website, it's tracking you even if you don't click on it, in the same way that Google ads/analytics does. For me, that's even more scary, because your Facebook profile is a much more public thing. If Facebook ever decided to extend its "Social News" app suite (you know, the thing that says Soandso read such and such an article on the Independent [or in Quackers' case the Daily Mail 
]) to cover every website, then your privacy would go straight out the window. In theory, Facebook could make it so that as soon as you click a website, it comes up on someone else's news feed.
]) to cover every website, then your privacy would go straight out the window. In theory, Facebook could make it so that as soon as you click a website, it comes up on someone else's news feed.
DroopyTofu
Double Bass Double Bass
It's an Onion Video, but it's also probably true. And adds an interesting point to the discussion.
http://www.theonion.com/video/report-every-potential-2040-president-already-unel,27963/
http://www.theonion.com/video/report-every-potential-2040-president-already-unel,27963/
Spoiler :
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
This is true, but it's not too difficult to block these things. Of course, you have to care enough to do that, and most people don't.
Mise
isle of lucy
Most people don't even know, let alone care. I'm a huge fan of binding contracts between mutually consenting adults - it's the cornerstone of capitalism - but there's nothing mutual about this. Nobody is consenting to being tracked wherever they go on the internet: you don't even know whether a website has a "like" button on it unless you go there first, but by that point, it's already too late.
DroopyTofu
Double Bass Double Bass
Some would argue that by using the technology, you agree to it. Plus, sometimes stuff like that is in Terms of Service, and we know everybody reads those. I'm not saying it's right, but that's how the corporations view it.
One thing I was going to bring up for discussion: is it harmful for companies like Google to have your search and partial browsing history? It will never be handled by a person, only automatically when choosing ads to display. Personally, I think it's harmless, as if I want to avoid being profiled, there are plenty of ways to do so.
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