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Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

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Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I dont disagree with your point I took the phrase to refer to e.g. political dissidents and the like.

Fair. Whatever case you want to call it, the point is that privacy shouldn't have to be a conditional, special-case thing (a "specific" "concern" or "need").

I think the point he was making is that the average person doesn't need to (or want to) care about these kind of things.

I mean, the mentality I'm seeing on HN and Reddit and other sites nowadays is "How DARE $company tie my activities using their service to the IP address I accessed it from!"

It always seemed like common sense to me that any data I give a company (whether implicitly or explicitly) would be combined and reused and remixed in almost any way possible.

Google is welcome to my web activity, as far as I'm concerned, that's my payment for some really awesome web services that don't really have an equal anywhere else, especially wrt. integration.

But then again, I'm not a political dissident and I don't really have anything to hide during an average day on the internet. (And if/when I do have something to hide, I take steps to anonymize myself)

There most certainly is something as a need for a certain degree of privacy, but please do not confuse "need" for "justification". A soccer mom's average activities might not need privacy, but any justification she has is none of anyone's damn business but hers. If she wants to keep everything she does private, fine.

Someone who has a need for privacy would be the usual, political dissidents, unpopular opinions, etc.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#142

I'm pretty sure EFF is wrong here. Google's Web History is basically a public version of your search history. You can turn on or off whether you want Google to rub your face in its knowledge about you. But it retains that knowledge even if you turn off the rub-in-your-face personalization part. Google retains a complete history of your interactions with them, which is not subject to this Web History setting, not dele…

Yeah, I've had this feature disabled since it launched and google still seems to return "personalized" search results. If you don't want google to track your behavior, you probably shouldn't be logged into google in the first place.

Do they not track your behavior if you are not logged in (genuinely asking), using cookies or IP address for example? Sorry if you find this to be a naive question.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#143

Someone should write a Firefox plugin to allow people to anonymously exchange google cookies, like you can with the grocery store club cards.

I have found Firefox add-on OptimizeGoogle [1, 2] quite promising. I'm not sure if it does exactly what you are looking for though. Unfortunately the development is being stopped due to resources issues.

[1] http://www.optimizegoogle.com/ [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/optimizegoogl...

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I distinctly got the impression that 'opting out' of the search history feature meant that google would not be saving my search history and I'm quite surprised that this is not the case. It is of course possible that I'm alone in this but somehow I doubt that.

I'm surprised that you would come to that conclusion. I would think that most "mega power-users" (as I'm now labeling you :) would simply assume that they were turning off some kind of public-facing display of their search history, and that you were not opting out of their ability to target ads at you with greater precision. I would not be surprised if many people got the same impression.

I think what blindsided me was a combination of two factors: (1) I want to believe that google tries to be the 'good guy', (2) the specific wording of the history feature which states that "Get results and recommendations that are tailored to your preferences.", as in "before you enable this feature we can not do that". That feels like an opt-in.

The fact that it is only available to logged in users and that - as far as I can see - it is not public facing, but just to you specifically further increased that expectation.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that you would come to that conclusion. I would think that most "mega power-users" (as I'm now labeling you :) would simply assume that they were turning off some kind of public-facing display of their search history, and that you were not opting out of their ability to target ads at you with greater precision. I would not be surprised if many people got the same impression.

I think what blindsided me was a combination of two factors: (1) I want to believe that google tries to be the 'good guy', (2) the specific wording of the history feature which states that "Get results and recommendations that are tailored to your preferences.", as in "before you enable this feature we can not do that". That feels like an opt-in. The fact that it is only available to logged in users and that - as far…

Yeah, I can see now why it would give off that impression. That feature is going to give them so many issues in the future. I wouldn't be surprised to hear about its removal one day.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#147
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've had this feature disabled since it launched and google still seems to return "personalized" search results. If you don't want google to track your behavior, you probably shouldn't be logged into google in the first place.

Do they not track your behavior if you are not logged in (genuinely asking), using cookies or IP address for example? Sorry if you find this to be a naive question.

I doubt they would be using your IP address to track anything, since a house full of people can be behind the same IP address. I don't know if they use cookies to track you if you're not logged in, but to be safe I would use incognito mode if you are worried about that.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what blindsided me was a combination of two factors: (1) I want to believe that google tries to be the 'good guy', (2) the specific wording of the history feature which states that "Get results and recommendations that are tailored to your preferences.", as in "before you enable this feature we can not do that". That feels like an opt-in. The fact that it is only available to logged in users and that - as far…

Yeah, I can see now why it would give off that impression. That feature is going to give them so many issues in the future. I wouldn't be surprised to hear about its removal one day.

> "Google maintains a separate logs system"

Could the difference be that Google associates data with your Google account if you have Web History turned on, but only uses IP addresses in their "logs system"?

If this was the case, IMHO, it would be consistent enough with expectations.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#149

Someone should write a Firefox plugin to allow people to anonymously exchange google cookies, like you can with the grocery store club cards.

Look at http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/ it will do random queries so that the data that is collected does not make sense.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also has a legal obligation to the US government and the US courts, a government I have no right to elect and a legal system I cannot afford. Generally, if you're not in the US (and I'm assuming that's what you mean, not that you're disenfranchised but live in the US), then Google and other US companies have an obligation to comply with the laws of your country, assuming their terms of service allow use in your na…

I simply explained what my concerns are and why I'm opting out. I think that is a perfectly appropriate thing to do and has nothing to do with villainizing anyone. I also think that it would be appropriate for you to disclose that you work for Google if you contribute to a discussion like this one taking the side of your employer.

I appreciate your view on that, but I'm expressly not posting on behalf of Google or in my role as a Google employee. I don't think it would make sense to clutter the HN threads with disclaimers considering that just about every topic here that involves a tech company will have folks from that company posting, or who have investments in those companies. It's not as if I keep it secret who I work for.
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