Google is watching you...even closer...

[GTaudiophile]

The CIA's greatest intelligence gathering service, aka Google, is going to pay even closer attention to what you search for, view on Youtube, or do with your (Android) phone.

Google 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.

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As for me, I just may re-think my next phone purchase but I doubt Apple or MS are any better.

 

[OverVolt]

Might actually switch out of Gmail I've had it long enough. I read it today and was thinking about it.

 

[FoBoT]

already being done
Carnivore, ECHELON, and NarusInsight

 

[Printer Bandit]

 

[TridenT]

Ok. They can watch my weird massage video habits and the weird voodoo magic shit I watch then combine that with SC2 commentaries, cooking videos, and the occasional ludacris music video. Then combine that with what I search for in Google and what I search for in my email... Their circuits are gonna be blown to shit.

Honestly, I don't give a shit. I already assume this happens. If I was some big CEO of some big company then maybe I'd give two fucks. Or if I was some serial killer, ditto.

 

[janas19]

Yeah it figures. Silicon Valley companies start out innocent and idealistic, but over time they are corrupted. I think Google is heading down that path, sadly.

 

[zerocool84]

Just like I said when Apple got caught tracking people, if you're worried about being tracked, don't buy a smartphone. They all track you, no matter who makes it.

 

[lxskllr]

Rooting your phone should allow you to remove spyware. You may cut off access to the market, but there's ways around that, and if you're concerned about privacy, it's a worthwhile trade.

DuckDuckGo is a good search that doesn't spy on your activity.

 

[SandEagle]

when you sign into google, it records your search history. google sucks

 

[Red Squirrel]

I think everyone should make it a point to view and search for the weirdest stuff ever. We'll flood them so bad with stuff that they'll be forced to look at themselves. Gay animal porn, dumpster sex, and all the wild stuff you can imagine.

Then immediately search for cupcake recipes, then a BSOD error code. Confuse the hell out of them.

Yeah it figures. Silicon Valley companies start out innocent and idealistic, but over time they are corrupted. I think Google is heading down that path, sadly.

Yep it's sad. I always saw Google as being a model company, they are big, but yet not evil. But sadly I can't really say that anymore.

I'm starting to wonder if it's time to switch search engines. But I'm sooo used to using Google, and what do I know if the alternative is not already doing the same anyway?

I've actually thought of how neat it would be to start a search engine. In principle it's not that hard, but then getting the search relevancy up, as well as keeping the fast search speeds, is where it gets quite complex. So by far an easy task, but would be a cool project.

 

[FoBoT]

...if you're worried about being tracked...

go off the grid :awe:

 

[TridenT]

go off the grid :awe:

time to get my shell!

 

[lxskllr]

go off the grid :awe:

In the end, that's what it comes down to. Cell phones by their nature and design are tracking devices, even my dumb phone. Getting rid of Google will eliminate that facet, but you're still being tracked.

 

[l0cke]

Too late for me to get away from google anyways. I've got a chromebook, android, every google service possible, etc.

Maybe they will have fun looking at all the dumb stuff I look at.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

iF*ck Google

sh*ts n giggles

 

[gevorg]

I think everyone should make it a point to view and search for the weirdest stuff ever. We'll flood them so bad with stuff that they'll be forced to look at themselves. Gay animal porn, dumpster sex, and all the wild stuff you can imagine.

Then immediately search for cupcake recipes, then a BSOD error code. Confuse the hell out of them.

I think there was a firefox extension that does just that.

 

[Arcadio]

You guys make it sound like there will be some guy at google analyzing your data...

 

[lxskllr]

You guys make it sound like there will be some guy at google analyzing your data...

It can get turned over for the asking. Laws are much looser regarding 3rd parties than they are with seizing information from 1st parties.

 

[flexy]

The "problem" is that whatever Googles does is USUALLY good (with the exception of Google+)...so people voluntarily use it and like it.

I heard that soon Google will release their own ipad-style tablet computer also.

Google wants total net domination and monopoly and they are on the best way to get there if there wasn't "threats" like facebook etc. Google still totally fails in terms of social marketing....but otherwise it owns as good as each aspect of the net.

And this is NOT good.

 

[Atty]

Fix: Private browsing through a 128bit encrypted hard drive running off of a leech of your neighbors internet connection, ran through a proxy server that changes which server in a variety of countries with no extradition laws, and install one of those viewing angle blockers on your screen so people around you can't see what is going on. Do nightly restores of your hard drive with a program that writes zeros to your hard drive 7 times for ultimate deletion.

Or realize that most of us do nothing wrong on the internet and they can't gig us for shit. The stuff we do wrong though isn't enough to get in trouble and everything we do every day is tracked somehow and in some way and has been for years. There is a paper trailer somewhere.

Lets black out anandtech in protest anyway!

 

[lxskllr]

Or realize that most of us do nothing wrong on the internet and they can't gig us for shit. The stuff we do wrong though isn't enough to get in trouble and everything we do every day is tracked somehow and in some way and has been for years. There is a paper trailer somewhere.

Lets black out anandtech in protest anyway!

It starts somewhere, and once the data is in the wild, it can't be retrieved.

http://donttrack.us/

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I don't really see what's so insane about this. You already give google your information voluntarily, now they're telling you that they actually have the ability to combine the information you voluntarily give them from all their seperate services

 

[Doppel]

I posted this on P&N, too. I don't like it at all. I just tonight switched Chrome to search with bing. I wonder if it's logging it anyway

I don't really see what's so insane about this. You already give google your information voluntarily, now they're telling you that they actually have the ability to combine the information you voluntarily give them from all their seperate services

The bolded part is why. And no i don't "give them" my info voluntarily. I do use their search engine, but I do not happily give them the ability to log it all attached to my name. That is novel and it allows them to create a picture, for free, of me that I do not want them to have and thus will take measures to avoid it. That means no more logged in youtube viewing. I have a gmail account I'll keep using, though because I love that client, but otherwise use other services if possible so that it's harder to keep together and aggregate.

 

[Joseph F]

I think everyone should make it a point to view and search for the weirdest stuff ever. We'll flood them so bad with stuff that they'll be forced to look at themselves. Gay animal porn, dumpster sex, and all the wild stuff you can imagine.

You mean your regular search routine?

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Already switched to DuckDuckGo for my primary search engine. Rarely use Gmail, never stay signed into google when viewing Youtube (use google cache for viewing restricted content), always block ads especially doubleclick, etc, etc.