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Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

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Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#12
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use alternatives? For example, https://duckduckgo.com for search.

Has DuckDuckGo email and an app suite?

Why does your search engine need to provide email? The two are pretty unrelated.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#13
post #11

Cool. Yes they deliberatly block chrome extension on mobile chrome, as then ublock usage on mobile would explode. Together with myth of mobile ads. Do not evil. Riiiight. As long as it does not hamper our profit.

Some googler will come in and say "That's not our motto anymore, dummy". To which I'll say - Think about that. Is saying, "Well, we can be shitty now that our motto no longer prohibits it" really a good excuse?

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#14
post #11

Cool. Yes they deliberatly block chrome extension on mobile chrome, as then ublock usage on mobile would explode. Together with myth of mobile ads. Do not evil. Riiiight. As long as it does not hamper our profit.

Some googler will come in and say "That's not our motto anymore, dummy". To which I'll say - Think about that. Is saying, "Well, we can be shitty now that our motto no longer prohibits it" really a good excuse?

Technically "Do the right thing" also inherently suggests not doing evil. Though the full motto should probably be "Do the right thing for Larry Page's yacht budget".

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#15
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use alternatives? For example, https://duckduckgo.com for search.

Has DuckDuckGo email and an app suite?

Do you want them to? So they can eventually turn into Google? Diversify and avoid cloud apps and closed source applications as much as possible.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#16
post #11

Cool. Yes they deliberatly block chrome extension on mobile chrome, as then ublock usage on mobile would explode. Together with myth of mobile ads. Do not evil. Riiiight. As long as it does not hamper our profit.

Yup, use Firefox for Android if you want proper mobile adblocking. In fact it works on several download sites which fail in Chrome for some reason.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#17
Google seems no better than Facebook when it comes to privacy, and I'm not just talking about how far they're willing to go in tracking users, but also how they are willing to lie and violate their users' trust so they can collect more data.

Facebook is now getting into trouble in the EU for breaking their promise about not sharing WhatsApp data, and yet Google still goes ahead and does this. I hope the European Commission adds this as one more charge against Google.

Without real enforcement the companies will continue to do whatever the hell they want.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#18

> “Some new features for your Google account.” Oh, yeah, I remember that. I totally clicked "Ok, whatever." How does one not be herded like cattle by the corporations, without making a full time job of resisting it?

Google do provide a privacy checkup screen where you can review and tweak your settings: https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup/1

And you can opt out of ads here https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/authenticated

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#19
I think duckduckgo often becomes an alternative that isn't an alternative, in the sense yes its there, you are frustrated with Google's behavior and you persist for a whole day and then have to revert back to Google with tail behind legs so it's more of an alternative in name.

With the sheer scope of Google properties there is always going to be a tempation for 'value searchers' within the organization to give in to dark patterns and compromise users. I have been trying Yandex search and email and its fairly decent. Email is good, search appears to be a much more serious offering compared to duckduckgo but still some way to go.

However we need diversity and decentralization to prevent concentration and inevitable abuse of power.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#20

> “Some new features for your Google account.” Oh, yeah, I remember that. I totally clicked "Ok, whatever." How does one not be herded like cattle by the corporations, without making a full time job of resisting it?

Use alternatives? For example, https://duckduckgo.com for search.

Unfortunately their results are pretty abysmal.

https://www.startpage.com/ or ixquick is a better option in terms of results.

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