Google tracks you. We don't. An illustrated guide • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by rick_2047 » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 3:59 AM UTC

huertanix wrote: post #90

rick_2047 wrote: post #64

I seriously do not get this privacy sham. All of a sudden everybody and there uncle is very concious about some algorithms (that select the ad for you) knowing what they searched for. I mean even if I search for something inappropriate and then google ads algorithm knows what I searched for, big deal yaar whats the harm? I presume referrer headers existed even before google and this privacy outrage. The thing I do no…

This isn't just a matter of advertising. Your search history is an incredibly personal and detailed profile of who you are, and governments have a history of trying to use that sort of information for $badThings. See: US DOJ request for search engine histories in 2005. There's a reason why librarians fought so hard to keep your book checkouts private when the Patriot Act passed. Search histories have a potential for…

Then don't select such a government. Last time I checked USA was a democracy.

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

#152

Post by olalonde » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 5:24 AM UTC

In case you're wondering how uniquely identifiable your browser is: https://panopticlick.eff.org/. "Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 1,328,173 tested so far."

Of course, this is regardless of Google.

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

#153

Post by fluidcruft » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 5:30 AM UTC

tiles wrote: post #148

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?

And yet Stallman's endless ranting was instrumental in getting the Open Source movement started, and developing the GNU tools which brought us Linux, which is used widely in embedded systems and on servers, as well as by small businesses to cheaply bring users applications that solve problems for them. Sometimes solving problems for developers does trickle down.

I don't think Stallman would be particularly keen on your mistaken impression that he has anything at all to do with advocating Open Source.

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

#154

Post by Indyan » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 6:55 AM UTC

I love DDG, and am a DDG user. Nevertheless there are two things in this guide that bothered me: i) No Referrers: I consider this to be essential information for the webmaster. It allows him to know what is working, and what isn't. If DDG becomes popular, it will kill the search analytics market. It's a niche product right now, and that's why it can afford to do this and Google can't (SSL isn't the default option).

ii) Adblock et all: By advising users to use Adblock, once again you are encouraging users to do something that can cripple the web as we know it.

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

#155

Post by lisperforlife » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 6:56 AM UTC

http://www.google.com/search?q=rails vs https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rails

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=python vs http://www.google.com/search?q=rails

I rest my case. Don't get me wrong. I like DDG but this campaign seems like spreading FUD. BTW, I use https by default.

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

#156

Post by yycom » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 7:23 AM UTC

Indyan wrote: post #154

I love DDG, and am a DDG user. Nevertheless there are two things in this guide that bothered me: i) No Referrers: I consider this to be essential information for the webmaster. It allows him to know what is working, and what isn't. If DDG becomes popular, it will kill the search analytics market. It's a niche product right now, and that's why it can afford to do this and Google can't (SSL isn't the default option). i…

Adblock et all: By advising users to use Adblock, once again you are encouraging users to do something that can cripple the web as we know it.

That's the point.

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

#157

Post by gregable » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 7:56 AM UTC

As a practical matter, surfing from an https:// URL doesn't strictly strip referrers (in Google, DDG, or otherwise). SSL is intended to hide your data from the network, not the destination, so every browser I've tested will send referrers from https://SiteA.com/ to https://SiteB.com/ as long as both the referring and destination URLs are both https://

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

#158

Post by snarkyturtle » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 7:59 AM UTC

BrandonM wrote: post #96

zackola wrote: post #25

I've been using Duck Duck Go as my primary search for the last month - it's pretty great! And if you need to fallback to google because you want a map or something else there are a bunch of ! shortcuts to go right there. (!map is most frequently used by me)

I'm forever confused by technical users who laud DDG's ! support. I love DDG and use it as my primary search engine, but Firefox has featured keyword searches for years now. Any search box anywhere can be turned into a URL keyword search. I use "m" for searching Google Maps, "im" for Google Images, "w" for Wikipedia, "dict" and "thes" for dictionary.com, "bt" for searching torrents, and the list goes on. Just yesterd…

I've been using keyword searches for longer than I've been using DDG but the thing is that instead of looking for a site to search on, you can just search for it on DDG and if there's a ! search for it you don't need to do the extra effort. It's essentially a precompiled search library with keywords that correspond to what you want to search for.

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

#159

Post by loup-vaillant » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 9:31 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #76

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that statement renders the poll invalid. That is to say, I think 90% of people in general would say they pay little or no attention to online ads. But more generally, I don't know if there is any poll that would satisfy you. I've been watching you make these comments for years :).

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…

Your comment looks like you assume that the majority of internet users have an informed opinion about privacy on the internet. I deny that assumption.

My observation is that more than 90% computer users don't have a clue. They don't know how computers work, what they store, and what they send. I've even seen computer engineering students that don't know that Gmail does semantic analysis on their e-mail, despite the presence of targeted ads and a very good spam filter.

Now, of the 10% who do have a clue, most don't know the exact nature of each threat to their privacy. They just know they are being watched by Big Profitable Companies that sell each other their data. They don't always know that they can protect themselves from some of those threats, let alone how. Even when they do, it requires some effort up-front, and the benefits tend to be long-term and invisible.

Therefore, the extremely low percentage of people who use adblock, noscript, Tor or whatever isn't the result of most people doing a rational cost-benefit evaluation based on informed opinions about privacy on the internet. Indeed, I suspect that among those who do an informed opinion, very few have deliberately chosen not to use privacy helpers like adblock, noscript, or Tor.

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

#160

Post by dtby » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 10:36 AM UTC

rick_2047 wrote: post #151

huertanix wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't just a matter of advertising. Your search history is an incredibly personal and detailed profile of who you are, and governments have a history of trying to use that sort of information for $badThings. See: US DOJ request for search engine histories in 2005. There's a reason why librarians fought so hard to keep your book checkouts private when the Patriot Act passed. Search histories have a potential for…

Then don't select such a government. Last time I checked USA was a democracy.

Last time I checked USA was a democracy.

These kind of glib assertions play much better when they are factually correct.