31–40 of 224 posts
Not knowing which keywords referred visitors would be terribly annoying to webmasters. Unless you're using dodgy 3rd party advertisers, I don't see what's so bad about aggregating referrer data. I have a feeling Google might be keen to hold onto their duck.com domain a little longer :)
I am inspired that one man is pulling off DuckDuckGo
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's disingenuous. DDG has legitimate claim to "Google tracks you" beyond just referrer URLs. When you search for "athlete's foot" on DDG you won't see an add for foot cream the next time you're watching a video on YouTube. That's the sort of tracking Google undeniably does do that users may find troubling (I know I do). Most users don't know about this level of tracking. Moreover, while referral URLs containing se…
I was under the impression you can opt-out of all that, is that not the case?
Edit: sorry, I meant you cannot opt-out using http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/ or other HTTP (regular Google) settings.
Not knowing which keywords referred visitors would be terribly annoying to webmasters. Unless you're using dodgy 3rd party advertisers, I don't see what's so bad about aggregating referrer data. I have a feeling Google might be keen to hold onto their duck.com domain a little longer :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
donttrack.us also rips on third-party ad networks that are non-Google for extending the tracking even further. This also seems to be the core reason why DDG rails against search terms in referral URLs, since it's a major enabler for third-party network tracking. So yes, DDG is targeting the 800# gorilla in its marketing, but it's not unjustified, nor has DDG claimed on the donttrack.us page that Google is the sole cu…
>donttrack.us also rips on third-party ad networks that are non-Google for extending the tracking even further On the site it says "Those sites usually have third-party ads. and those third-parties build profiles about you," How are they able to do this? Because Google lets them. That's the message they are sending across to people. The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature. It's not this fair and balanced re…
Which is true.
> "The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature."
Well, yes. DDG is a search engine. They are targeting their chief competitor, a search engine, in their marketing.
> "It's not this fair and balanced reporting on privacy that you're making it out to be."
Correction: it's not a comprehensive guide to everything online that violates your privacy. But donttrack.us never claimed to be. You seem to be under the impression that the intent for donttrack.us is an entirely selfless, complete, and comprehensive guide. Now, I'm not affiliated with DDG, but it seems absurd to derive that from the site.
The way I see it is: yes, they're targeting Google, but that's not exactly unfair given that Google is DDG's chief competitor. If you were Subway, running attack ads on McDonald's on the obesity angle, why would you waste your breath also ripping apart I Can't Believe It's Not Butter?
Nothing DDG has said is false, nor (IMHO) have they deceived their users by omission. Everything in this campaign is accurate. I simply don't see the outrage.
Now, whether or not the privacy issue is even worth fretting about, or whether using DDG will reverse the tide of privacy destruction that you're exposed to everywhere else, that's another issue entirely. DDG hasn't claimed that switching from Google will fix all of your privacy woes, but what they do claim is that it will fix the privacy violation that Google directly allows. That seems fair enough.
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You're free to opt out at any time: http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/
AFAIK this doesn't shut off the search leakage in the referrer header.
EDIT: It appears that at least one person disagrees with me. So, a quick question: Which takes more effort for the end user, switching to a new search engine or switching to https?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>donttrack.us also rips on third-party ad networks that are non-Google for extending the tracking even further On the site it says "Those sites usually have third-party ads. and those third-parties build profiles about you," How are they able to do this? Because Google lets them. That's the message they are sending across to people. The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature. It's not this fair and balanced re…
> "That's the message they are sending across to people." Which is true. > "The entire campaign is anti-Google only in nature." Well, yes. DDG is a search engine. They are targeting their chief competitor, a search engine , in their marketing. > "It's not this fair and balanced reporting on privacy that you're making it out to be." Correction: it's not a comprehensive guide to everything online that violates your pri…
I'm not deriving that aspect of my argument from the site. I'm deriving it from your argument that it is balanced and makes mention of things outside of Google ("third parties").
>If you were Subway, running attack ads on McDonald's on the obesity angle, why would you waste your breath also ripping apart I Can't Believe It's Not Butter?
If Subway ran an anti-obesity campaign and only mentioned McDonald's I would feel the same way about it because you're making your largest competitor seem worse than they really are by failing to tell the whole story. If you're not going to disclose the entire truth about an industry you shouldn't bother delivering the half-truth simply because it's not worth your time to attack smaller fish.
>Nothing DDG has said is false, nor (IMHO) have they deceived their users by omission
But it is disingenuous to make it appear that Google is the sole search engine or Website that does this or affects users in this way, which is what you said I was being when I made the claim that this is just anti-Google FUD, which it is.
>DDG hasn't claimed that switching from Google will fix all of your privacy woes
That's the impression that I get from donttrack.us and I'm sure that was intentional.