Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 296 posts

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#31

Post by optionalparens »

Kenji wrote: post #22
rdslw wrote: 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.

On mobile, rooting and using a hosts file to block malicious/ad domains is better anyway.

True to some degree, but rooting can be a pain on devices that make you do it again after an update.

For me, the bigger issue with a hosts file is that it doesn't cover conditional cases. For instance, there are times when I want to read some comments or play a video, or even unblock a single page element, but otherwise I want to block that stuff entirely. Facebook comments is one example.

My recommendation is still to do both. Hosts file covers other apps nicely like stupid in-app banner ads, while using Firefox or something with ad-blocking extensions still lets you browse the web without breaking some sites entirely.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#33

Post by chillingeffect »

inanutshellus wrote: post #26
problems wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately their results are pretty abysmal. https://www.startpage.com/ or ixquick is a better option in terms of results.

I've used them for years now and their search is rarely insufficient. When it is, I make my search more specific or I hop over to another engine for that specific search. Really, I just like using products of companies that try to do "the right thing". Anything from the Mozilla Foundation and DuckDuckGo are two examples. I'd say I do a Google search once or twice a month.

Same here. Been "ducking" for years now. I used to go to google when I couldn't find stuff on ddg, but lately I've noticed if it's not on ddg, it's not on google, either! I'd say about 1% of 1% of the time I find something on google that I couldn't find on google.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#34

Post by dredmorbius »

problems wrote: post #20
jsingleton wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

DDG has been my preferred search for years. I'd tried it pre-Snowden, off-and-on. Since Snowden or before it's been fully acceptible:

1. Results close to as good if not better than Google.

2. No tracking.

3. Bang searches. With the "too clever by half" search dialogs many sites are implementing (Wikipedia, Internet Archive, Google Ngram Viewer) it's often superior to the native on-site search as I don't have to set focus 2-4 times to actually type in the bloody search dialog.

4. No tracking.

5. Did I mention no tracking?

6. Proxy bang searches, e.g., StartPage.

7. Search customisations -- light page (good for console and commandline search), night mode, and others.

8. Unmangled URLs. I can copy/paste URLs straight from DDG. No-can-do with Google.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#35

Post by amelius »

bitJericho wrote: post #21
atrilumen wrote: post #2

> “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?

Start paying for your services from companies that exist by charging. Don't do business with ad companies.

Any good search engines in the paid space?

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#36

Post by dredmorbius »

_nalply wrote: post #4
jsingleton wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Has DuckDuckGo email and an app suite?

No, and that's a feature.

Google's path to the dark side hit a major milestone with Gmail, and the fact that you now had a reason to personally and identifiably log in to your search engine provider.

No, no, no, nope, fucking bloody hell no!

I'm thinking it's hard time to give https://Sandstorm.io a really good looking at.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#37

Post by omouse »

The marketers and advertisers have finally won. Google hasn't been an engineering company for the last 5 years maybe, but this confirms it. It's like Facebook, they're beholden to the non-developers and non-software engineers who frankly don't care about other people's privacy and only see the dollar bills.

So glad I'm evaluating other email providers and use Privoxy for ad-blocking.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#38

Post by runeb »

0xmohit wrote: post #9

Earlier: We will not combine DoubleClick cookie information with your personally identifiable information unless we have your opt-in consent. Now: Depending on your account settings, your activity on other sites and apps may be associated with your personal information in order to improve Google's services and the ads delivered by Google. So opt-in becomes opt-out.

To opt out, or "Pause" as Google is tellingly calling it, from the article:

   To opt-out of Google’s identified tracking, visit the
   Activity controls[1] on Google’s My Account page, and
   uncheck the box next to “Include Chrome browsing history
   and activity from websites and apps that use Google
   services." You can also delete past activity from your
   account.
[1] https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#39

Post by j_s »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #32

Like I have told under other similar discussions. Something in ToS has no relevance if data is collected. If data is collected then it will eventually be used (against you).

That's a good point: is this change retroactive (will old data be associated)?
Post reply on HN