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Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

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Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#141
post #133

What's been a shame is that there is still no open source Search Engine despite this being a "solved" problem. Like not even something like there is a docker image that you throw at your cluster that gets you faster and faster search results. That's the real shame. We should've commidified the core of search engine by now with programmatic and API access as commonplace and yet here we are where search engine software…

I’m guessing that it’s impractical to self-host something big enough to be useful.

I am sure this already exists even as I type it, but this sounds like a great job for a distributed system running a federated search protocol.

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#143
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing that it’s impractical to self-host something big enough to be useful.

I am sure this already exists even as I type it, but this sounds like a great job for a distributed system running a federated search protocol.

The hard part is already solved, you don't even have to crawl the web to build the index. There is already a periodically refreshed index of the web that you can download: commoncrawl.org

Now someone just needs to configure, Apache Lucene as a proper docker image that can consume this index.

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. ... companies will gather and use what data they have access to Yet every time there's an equifax or quora data breach at the top of the front page the consensus is almost always that companies should get less data, should keep it for less time, and end users should push back…

Safety/Quality regulations reduces choices and quantity. This hits poor the most, as they can no longer buy inferior but cheap products and services. See China. Instead regulations should be focus on reducing scam and misleading offerings. If someone wants to buy/use despite knowing the risks, let him.

> Safety/Quality regulations reduces choices and quantity.

They also prevent people dying when they plug in their appliance, or dying because there's lead paint on the product, or buying flour that's adulterated with alum, plaster of Paris or chalk.

The history of food and electrical regulations, on both sides of the Atlantic, are enough to convince me that rich and poor (I have been both) are better served by enough regulation to ensure basic standards are met. In the case of the US and food, prior to such regulation, adulteration was more common than not[0].

> If someone wants to buy/use despite knowing the risks, let him.

This is never the case. The risks are hidden, the product masquerades as a genuine iPhone charger, or contains unsafe substances that cannot be known without laboratory testing. Data is taken "to provide a better service", without mention of the 206 places it's sold to, or other uses for which it is mined, or the fun psychological experiments staff might run on their users.

To relate it back to the original discussion about data, I am fully in favour of regulations that demand adequate safeguards and protections of personal data, and high expectations of diligence from companies that must use such data. It goes without saying that I am in favour of severe penalties for egregious breach of such regulations.

[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-04/harvey-wiley-us-chemi...

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking for proof of a negative. DuckDuckGo just put out a post criticizing Google for personalizing search results. They're a small company without many resources, and privacy has been their primary selling point from the get-go. Yes, DuckDuckGo could also be personalizing their own results, but if they were and people found out, there's risk of a significant outcry. Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'm i…

They are VC-funded and make money selling ads. Stop idolising DDG as the true and only fighter for privacy. Sooner or later they will bow down to Ad Cash or fuck up otherwise.

They sell ads based on your current search terms, not your search and browsing history. Your browsing history is easier for Google to summarize based on all your searches, and URLs you click which get redirected from google.com to other sites with a unique hash.

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#146
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this DuckDuckGo being sloppy, just The Verge. The real headline here is that the effect extends to Incognito mode. In the 2009 post, Google said: > ...customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser... You'll know when we customize results because a "View customizations" link will appear... Clicking the link will let you... turn off t…

Honestly, Google is almost certainly using canvas fingerprinting to track you across accounts, webpages, and more regardless of incognito. There should be zero expectation of privacy when using a Google service. I've switched to searx.me, which wraps Google and (optionally) a bunch of other search engines.

Unfortunately: "How canvas fingerprint blockers make you easily trackable"

https://multilogin.com/how-canvas-fingerprint-blockers-make-...

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#147
Youtube does that as well, and it has for a long time I guess, since I have been consistently able to reproduce the following:

1. open Youtube's home page in your main browser, while logged out and after clearing cookies

2. open the same page in a "virgin" browser (e.g. a newly created VM or even just using an incognito window)

observe that 1 has some amount of "personalisation".

When I saw this the first time I was baffled, so I did some research and found out that it's because of local storage. As per step 1, I was clearing just the cookies but not local storage.

Lesson learned: don't just clear cookies, remember to clear local storage as well

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#148
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this DuckDuckGo being sloppy, just The Verge. The real headline here is that the effect extends to Incognito mode. In the 2009 post, Google said: > ...customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser... You'll know when we customize results because a "View customizations" link will appear... Clicking the link will let you... turn off t…

Honestly, Google is almost certainly using canvas fingerprinting to track you across accounts, webpages, and more regardless of incognito. There should be zero expectation of privacy when using a Google service. I've switched to searx.me, which wraps Google and (optionally) a bunch of other search engines.

wow, we took that instance down: but here is their stat list if people still wanna try the service.

https://stats.searx.xyz/

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#150
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "even in Incognito" part of this is certainly the biggest result I see. And I agree on the study limitation; attempting to clean up localization effects after the fact doesn't feel like a strong fix. It should be possible to isolate device and location effects by using multiple devices in one location, then VPN-ing one device to multiple 'locations'. One thing that caught my eye was Google's response about Incogn…

it does not personalize results for incognito searches using signed-in search history To me this sounds reasonable. A very large number of searches are locality based, and it is entirely reasonable to localize them based on IP address (and - as you note - the device type). It's also reasonable to customize based on recent (session based) search history (refinements, spelling corrections, etc). The difference between…

> To me this sounds reasonable. A very large number of searches are locality based, and it is entirely reasonable to localize them based on IP address (and - as you note - the device type).

I wish this was trivial to disable. I regularly search for things where I want the global result, and instead get weird local results that I don't care about. It's much easier to narrow a global search to a local one by adding an appropriate region name to the search than it is to expand a local search to a global one via search terms.

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