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Become Ungoogleable

joeyh.name

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Re: Become Ungoogleable

#81

Post by ghaff »

distortedsignal wrote: post #68
WirelessGigabit wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And did you Google yourself on a clean computer?

Tried this test three ways - from my wifi, on my phone's LTE connection, and via a VPN that my family uses, all in private windows to prevent Google using my local cache. All found my LinkedIn in the top 2 slots. It seems pretty stable to me? How could I make this cleaner?

That sounds pretty thorough for the purpose. I think the parent's point was just that if you naively Google yourself without doing anything special, your own results will tend to percolate to the top more so than if a random person were to Google you.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#82

Post by [deleted] »

superkuh wrote: post #2

It's a fine idea. But what I'm taking away from this post is the link to the Google/Chromium web DRM prototype and summary ... yikes. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environ... >- The web page executing in a user's web browser >- A third party that can “attest” to the device a web browser is executing on, referred to as the attester >- The web developers server which can remotely verify attestati…

[deleted]

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#83

Post by distortedsignal »

deltarholamda wrote: post #78
distortedsignal wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that I agree. My brother tried to set me up with a girl last week. She has a pretty uncommon name. Googled her. Found... a lot of stuff. I have a VERY common name. Think multiple (relatively) famous people (photographers, US Medal of Honor winner, enough lawyers to choke a court system for DECADES), but if you google my name and the city I live in (1,000,000+ people), my LinkedIn is like the second resul…

Okay, but now try "what's the best gaming laptop?" or something similar. This is the sort of query that, at one time, would unearth some nerd's web site alongside PCWorld or whatever. Now it's seven pages of nearly identical listicles, some of which are on bizarre domains like "DougsAutoBodyAndFlowerShop.com", and all of which are festooned with ads, also provided by Google.

Ok, I'll try that.

Top results (excluding sponsors b/c UBlock Origin):

PC Gamer

The Verge

Games Radar

Youtube (channel: Jarrod's Tech)

A giant ad showing some laptops to buy

Youtube (channel: PC Builder)

RTINGS.com

PC Magazine

Youtube (channel: Top Tech Now)

CNET

Tom's Hardware

Another giant ad showing some laptops to buy

Engadget

PC Magazine

Laptop Mag

TechRadar

These are mainstream tech press sites. And maybe the reason that it's a bunch of similar listicles is because the thing you're looking for (a laptop) is a product with relatively few entries in the market.

What are you expecting here that Google isn't giving you? I'm trying to be as charitable as possible, but, for me, the expected results are about as good as I could hope for.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#84

Post by srsQ »

Aurornis wrote: post #8

> Nobody really expects to be able to find anything of value in a Google search now This is a categorically false premise. The kind of statement that only makes sense when you're in a deep bubble and entirely removed from the average person's use of the internet. Deliberately removing yourself from Google is fine for the author who is more concerned about taking an ideological stance than they are about being discove…

From my reference frame, “being discoverable” is an ideological stance.

You can have your tribal perceptions and others are allowed theirs. Social norms are immutable physics.

Other people’s content is over rated; I’ve been soaking it up for years and frankly none of it has been as moving as the effort of making my own.

Social codependency at scale is proving toxic to the species. We can intentionally “great filter” by winding down globalism. Whether or not humanity does eventually won’t be up to us; appeals to preserve our BS are appeals to some greater good. No one will owe us that after we die.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#86

Post by ghaff »

rotexo wrote: post #75
mikem170 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a situation where a legal name change might help, changing your last name like someone does getting married or divorced?

Yes, though as I understand it, that still leaves a public record. Also, I looked into it when I got married, and the sense that I got was that name changes for men are logistically challenging.

A lot of the "deep web" stuff is behind paywalls (like background investigation sites) now. But a number of years ago when some of them were still pretty open, I was pretty floored by how much information you could get on a person if they had an uncommon name and/or you knew just a little bit about them.

There is a lot of information that's public as a matter of law--which arguably, in many cases, hasn't reconciled that a lot of public information is no longer just stored in a file cabinet in some dusty county or town clerk's office.

>sense that I got was that name changes for men are logistically challenging.

To the degree that's true I assume that women changing their names when they get married (or divorced) has been such a norm for centuries that it doesn't invite scrutiny (although I've heard plenty of complaints about what a headache it can be in terms of various IT systems etc.) I assume when men do it, there might be at least a suspicion that something shady is going on.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#87

Post by distortedsignal »

distortedsignal wrote: post #83
deltarholamda wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but now try "what's the best gaming laptop?" or something similar. This is the sort of query that, at one time, would unearth some nerd's web site alongside PCWorld or whatever. Now it's seven pages of nearly identical listicles, some of which are on bizarre domains like "DougsAutoBodyAndFlowerShop.com", and all of which are festooned with ads, also provided by Google.

Ok, I'll try that. Top results (excluding sponsors b/c UBlock Origin): PC Gamer The Verge Games Radar Youtube (channel: Jarrod's Tech) A giant ad showing some laptops to buy Youtube (channel: PC Builder) RTINGS.com PC Magazine Youtube (channel: Top Tech Now) CNET Tom's Hardware Another giant ad showing some laptops to buy Engadget PC Magazine Laptop Mag TechRadar These are mainstream tech press sites. And maybe the r…

I want to point out - if you get to the seventh page of Google, it's been known for some time that those results are... specious at best. Check out this xkcd from almost a decade ago:

https://xkcd.com/1334/

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1334:_Second

If you're really going to page 7 of Google... man, that's a desperation I've never known.

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#89

Post by lynx23 »

I have a lot of respect for Joey. But I cant help and think: it is rather easy to go full-protest-mode if you are as famous as he is. git-annex basically powers my whole long-term file archive. Not to mention all the infrastructual code he contributed to Debian. Or the fact that he apparently can make a small living off Patreons who use his Free Software. With that track record, its just a breeze to say "Google Fuck You".

Re: Become Ungoogleable

#90

Post by mikae1 »

buro9 wrote: post #76
Aurornis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But people who are more technical know it's a bit of a faff and bother to get Google to spit out what you're actually looking for, outside of "who is Chloe Grace Moretz" or something equally banal. I typed "Joey Hess" into Google. The author's blog pops up as the first result, presumably because it hasn't been deindexed yet. The first page of results also includes his GitHub and an HN comment talking about him that…

Google don't fully remove you. https://www.google.com/search?q=lfgss That will return the website as a first result (I run https://www.lfgss.com/ )... but no description or metadata. Lots of tangential results talking about it... the first result is more like a shadow profile, a more fact an exact domain match exists but nothing more. Two months ago I had almost 7 million pages indexed from that site. For this commun…

> I run https://www.lfgss.com/

Let me take the opportunity to thank you. This is a rather amazing forum. Kudos to you for listening to what the community wanted. This is probably my all-time favorite thread: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/172374/

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