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Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

propublica.org

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Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#41

Post by grzm »

dredmorbius wrote: post #34
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.

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 f…

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

Or even Google.

I've seen comments online about DDG providing only an illusion of privacy. I haven't dug into this deeply. From what I've read this comes down to DDG (including bang searches like !g and !sp) stripping identifying information, which provides protection from tracking by entities like advertisers and social networks, but not law enforcement or agencies like the NSA that may have legal options or extralegal access. Is my understanding generally correct? Any corrections/additions/clarifications appreciated.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#43

Post by kuschku »

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.

If you root, you won’t be able to use Android Pay (an advertised feature of the device) anymore due to the recent changes to SafetyNet that now trigger if even the bootloader isn’t locked.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#44

Post by FUCK__GOOGLE »

omouse wrote: post #37

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.

I'm moving off gmail today, gonna just register my own domain and set up a server somewhere. I think that and hangouts are the last ways they got me, looking forward to deleting my account.

It's so strange to be old enough to see the same mistakes of the AOL days repeated again at a much larger scale. I don't want your garden, I want my privacy, thanks.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#45

Post by kuschku »

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?

I got the screen today: http://i.imgur.com/HClXUy3.png

It only tells you that it will actually result in less privacy if you scroll down and read the fine print.

That’s seriously misleading.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#46

Post by blowski »

omouse wrote: post #37

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.

This isn't a neat split along the lines of "All developers good, all marketers bad". What has won here is the pressure to grow, and the acceptance of society and governments to let them do it by any means. We are all complicit in this.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#47

Post by kuschku »

j_s wrote: post #39
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)?

There have been several such retroactive changes, such as using GMail’s data to train the models for Inbox before, so it’s likely.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#48

Post by __jal »

hackuser wrote: post #5
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?

> How does one not be herded like cattle by the corporations, without making a full time job of resisting it? Legal protection is necessary, and that's what works in other industries. It's not a fair negotiation, between a company's teams of engineers, management, and attorneys on one side, and a lone individual on the other. Financial firms, for example, can't just put whatever they want in agreements or do whatever…

People need to start thinking of web forms, solicitations for email address, etc. like people used to think of the Columbia House record/CD club.

There may be an instant-gratification payoff, but you'll regret it at leisure.

Or, would you take a free sample to munch on if they first presented you with a 34-page legal agreement?

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#50

Post by 0xmohit »

CommanderData wrote: post #49

Is it enough to install adblock on the router level? This would in theory block all domains tracking and serving adverts.

You could also try https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts to block ads. Quoting from the description:

  Extending and consolidating hosts files from a variety of
  sources like adaway.org, mvps.org, malwaredomains.com,
  someonewhocares.org, yoyo.org, and potentially others. You can
  optionally invoke extensions to block additional sites by
  category.
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