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Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

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Re: Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

#121

Post by Matt_Cutts »

brudgers wrote: post #93
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SSL adds latency, because you're setting up an encrypted connection. Google hates slowing down users, and we don't want to slow down every user unless it's a clear win. That's one reason. When Google switched to AJAX-based search, that temporarily stopped sending referrers, and lots of people screamed bloody murder. For example, http://getclicky.com/blog/150/googles-new-ajax-powered-searc... said "So what can we do a…

Your argument would carry more weight if, the user had the ability to switch to SSL search from the "Classic" search page or if SSL search was a setting that was accessible from "Search Settings" or "Advanced Search" on the "Classic" page. The articles you reference speak to the problems for advertisers and related interests. They do not address issues of web user privacy. Don't get me wrong, Google is in the difficu…

I can talk a bit about why we didn't launch with "click here to switch to SSL search" links. When SSL search launched, web search was supported, but not every type of search was supported. For example, Google Image Search wasn't easily supported for some esoteric reasons (some browsers have a limit of 2 simultaneous connections, and that can interact badly with SSL + fetching bunches of thumbnail images).

The concern was that people might click into SSL mode, forget they were in SSL mode, and complain because they didn't see Images or Maps or whatever search mode they wanted.

For smaller websites, switching on SSL mode can be pretty easy, but we've still got changes going in to improve various rough edges on SSL search.

Re: Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

#122

Post by LordLandon »

TheAmazingIdiot wrote: post #110
axod wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

heh true, true. I think generally though, a very very vocal minority make a ton of noise about privacy. Look at adblock. If you were a newcomer to the net and just read comments here or at reddit, you'd assume everyone uses it. But the figure is more like 1 or 2% at most have adblock or similar installed. There's this big elitist movement that supposes that only idiots click on adverts, that they only click because t…

I hate ads. I despise them. And I work as a small-time consultant along with my studies. When I install/fix a machine, I always load Firefox with adblock plus due to the amount of harassing nasty ads. Being the location where I do the majority of my business, they are almost exclusively on dialup, so even a 100kb image add is literally 25 seconds extra load time. Now, am I anti-capitalist? Not quite. I agree that som…

I do not want myself distracted from material that has no bearing on what I am looking at.

Just to play devil's advocate, but wouldn't targetted ads be more preferable then, since they WOULD have a bearing on what you're looking at?

Re: Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

#123

Post by crnixon »

I like DuckDuckGo. I use it and it's a good search service. But I'm left with a question after this site:

Isn't Google's tracking a _good_ thing in many ways? I want sites to know what I've come searching for so they can present me peripheral content I want and I want Google to know my interests so that they show me ads related to those interests.

I agree Google could do more to alert users about what privacies they are giving up, and I'm glad there's good alternatives if you don't want that info tracked. I think not enough is made of the good side of Google's personalization, however.

Re: Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

#124

Post by potatolicious »

axod wrote: post #113
extension wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average person can't decide if they care about it until they understand it. Until they do, I'm glad people like Gabriel are being paranoid on their behalf.

Reminds me of stallmans endless ranting about freedom and software. The evidence is that the masses don't care. They just want stuff that works and solves problems for them. Is it open source? Why would anyone (apart from a geek) care?

If the average person knew that their Google searches can potentially lead to credit rejections or trouble with health insurance providers (hypothetical at this point, but with recent trends not as farfetched as before), I think they certainly would care.

The reason why the masses don't care is because they don't know why kind of havoc this sort of lack of privacy can cause. I for one am glad someone is educating the layman in an accessible and non-condescending way.

Re: Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

#125

Post by potatolicious »

joakin wrote: post #54
epi0Bauqu wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I wanted to keep the lowdef look, though I'm happy to entertain any design changes within that look.

What about a scrolling format but more visually appealing? Something like benthebodyguard.com [1] In light colors avoiding the darkness but funnier to scroll [1] http://benthebodyguard.com/

I'm not sure if Ben the Bodyguard qualifies as "low-def". The problem with heavy designs like this is that they look great, but their efficacy is rarely ever supported by raw data.

Re: Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

#126

Post by mike-cardwell »

patrickaljord wrote: post #103
mike-cardwell wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume they have various methods. One of the methods I noticed by accident was that they add their affiliate id to Amazon links in search results

So amazon can track DDG users.

They can track that you came from duckduckgo yes. But that's it. They can't track what search terms you used, because that is what duckduckgo hides in the referrer. But only if the link is https so the referrer is passed at all.

Re: Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

#127

Post by axod »

potatolicious wrote: post #124
axod wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of stallmans endless ranting about freedom and software. The evidence is that the masses don't care. They just want stuff that works and solves problems for them. Is it open source? Why would anyone (apart from a geek) care?

If the average person knew that their Google searches can potentially lead to credit rejections or trouble with health insurance providers (hypothetical at this point, but with recent trends not as farfetched as before), I think they certainly would care. The reason why the masses don't care is because they don't know why kind of havoc this sort of lack of privacy can cause. I for one am glad someone is educating the…

Highly hypothetical - to the extreme. How would any insurance co. know if it's me, or someone else in the household?

Also afaik health insurance is mainly a US phenomenon thank god.

Re: Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

#128

Post by potatolicious »

danielhfrank wrote: post #43

Could anyone comment on how much of this stuff could be sidestepped by just using an incognito window in Chrome? I don't mind ads targeted to, say, me as a Java developer. But, if I'm going to look up anything I'd rather others not know about, I simply pop open an incognito window and... am I good to go? Is there anything besides my IP address that can be read when I'm doing that?

Incognito is a pretty thin layer of privacy. What many systems will see is this:

"User foobaz123 logs in from IP u.v.w.x. Here we have a no-cookie session from IP u.v.w.x. This is probably foobaz123"

Any identity management system of modest complexity can do this with fairly good accuracy. So while they don't have you confirmed via an authentication cookie, it's certainly a far cry from total anonymity.

Re: Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide

#129

Post by DenisM »

cletus wrote: post #37

I have a question: does this policy of DDG violate their legal responsibilities? Thats a serious question. I believe that law enforcement requires some form of data retention but I'm not sure what.

It's a complicated subject. By law, you can not be compelled to create a document that didn't exist, but you can be compelled to produce a copy of the document that does exist. It becomes murky when you consider that IP addresses etc do enter the memory of the computer before being discarded, and thus can be argued to have temporarily formed a document.

There was at least one court case where a judge felt this was enough to say "you have the document, you must make a copy at my request". I don't remember the details of the case, and don't remember how it ended. I hope that sanity prevailed and the "thou can not be compelled to create a document" policy was reinterpreted in a more reasonable manner.

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