[KyadCK]

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=354eff4bae9100df&hl=en

Try this yet?

[S-99]

Have you experienced having Google show information that you just typed in the search engine in some random site, or as an ad, or whatever? How dangerous is this? Will Google literally actually SHOW your information to the WORLD, or at least to computers of your IP Address?

You probably knew this already, but well, not for me. I wasn't so aware of this 'till I discovered it.

We really shouldn't care that much at all. So you may be able to access the web from home, but this expectation of privacy going along with it is awkward. Google is a public service on a very public internet with very public data packets going every where. It's a lot like driving a car and walking around a mall (two things where you have no expectation of privacy). No one should care that you're search results for buffie the body came up in some ad.

All that says to me seeing your search data from across the net from an ad is that someone sure likes buffie. What's good to reference is the AOL search data leak. How that affected people and how people reacted, and what it did expose (for the people identified by their search data (it's 50/50 on me being able to call those people dumbasses who expose themselves by what they typed into a search engine). Luckily aol released the study of search results without the usernames before they made it publicly available. Linking search data with an identity is really the only thing that crosses the line for me (i mean by doing that deliberately and not by people exposing themselves by what they typed into a search engine to figure it out)). However, linking search data to ip address is less incriminating because it's not quite the same thing.

Ip address isn't going to tell you a whole lot, unless your law enforcement. I'll probably just say "Damn, this came up again, XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX really likes the buffie" (and that's even if i cared to research the ip address, but i'll agree that linking search data to an ip address is also not a good idea). In the end i say that figuring out an ip address is not the same as a full blown identity (ip addresses, you're depending on what the internet can tell you about them, while searching up usernames or full blown identities...oh man the internet can tell you more about that).

The internet may be anonymous, but it's also public (there was no encryption in mind for data going back and forth since the birth of the innertubes). You should be asking the question what if google, aol, etc will be posting your IM and email conversations (that would really cross the line even without being linked to usernames and emails), and should you not search for certain things? At the end of the day, it's google trying to improve they're search engine and ad's trying to get more data to mine to appeal to more users who see them and generate more ad revenue.

Hint, use google search without being logged into your google account.

EDIT: I don't think geolocation of ip addresses is worth mentioning for this topic. One geolocation of the ip address i'm at right now said fairbanks, another said anchorage, and i'm sort of not at one of those two locations at all (so i pull questionability of geolocation accuracy).

[Mars]

I'm not interesting enough to worry about "them" hunting me down.

So I don't worry, and use the internet freely.

[S-99]

Exactly, no ones going to care that marcov was for example google image searching buffie the body. We all aren't interesting enough compared to the likes of al quaida on the internet. The google and governments don't care that we may surf porn or are watching scientologist video's online 24/7.

I liken this to being illegally wire tapped by my country. A third party listening in on my calls or text messages are just going to find out how much i want to bone my gf, how much she wants to get boned, not to mention the special picture i sent to her i hope they enjoyed.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Saying it's okay to invade and destroy our privacy because we have nothing to hide is the wrong thing to do. Sorry, guys, I can't agree with you on this one. I'm about the least interesting person I can imagine (I spend my time on the internet watching lectures, for crying out loud - anyone who's monitoring me had better be able to sit through a differential equations course without nodding off), but that doesn't mean I'm okay with just about anyone being able to find out everything about me at the drop of a hat.

I don't think I have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding my non-encrypted web traffic, but I do have the expectation that my personal information remains personal. And I also don't agree with companies making money off of selling reports about where I go and what I look at. I never consented to that and I don't see a cut of that money. I also don't agree with the incredibly irritating and pervasive advertising that plasters itself everywhere. I pay for the internet, not to see ads. And if I had a bandwidth limit, I would be incredibly pissed at advertising using that bandwidth. This is the same kind of double-dipping that's ruined television. Originally, cable TV was something you paid for if you didn't want to watch commercials. People who got free TV didn't have to pay money, but they had to watch them - it should be a trade-off. But, the networks got greedy, they started wrecking cable TV with commercials, and we said nothing. Now we pay money to watch almost nothing but annoying garbage ads so that the networks and syndicates and advertisers can make record profits? No thanks. And back in the early days of the internet, we paid our ISPs and then were free to roam our BBs and play our MUDs without having Viagra ads flashing in our faces. But we sat back and let the content creators ram the ads down our throat so that they could make, you guessed it, record profits while we are still paying our ISPs...ISPs that refuse to update their infrastructure because, god forbid, it might dip into their revenue.

Either I pay for access that involves me not being harassed, or the access is free with the expectation that I'm gonna have to take a few seconds to watch advertising so the content creators get paid. But they shouldn't get it both ways. And I bring this up because it ties in very closely with tracking browsing habits. If there wasn't profit in doing so, hardly anyone would do it. Google gives you free crap because they load their software up with spyware, only it's still shady because you never expressly consent to being tracked. Sure, whatever, it's in the EULA in tiny print, but EULAs haven't held up in court very well. As the ads get more invasive, they also open up all kinds of vectors for security breaches, and it's absolutely unacceptable.

[Unknown Target]

I guess it comes down to our society reflecting our values; we value personal privacy; does our society, including Google and it's place within it, value that?

We also value not lying...if everyone told the truth then there really would be no issue, other than a lingering disconcert with the knowledge that things you'd like to keep to yourself cannot be kept to yourself.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

I guess it comes down to our society reflecting our values; we value personal privacy; does our society, including Google and it's place within it, value that?

We also value not lying...if everyone told the truth then there really would be no issue, other than a lingering disconcert with the knowledge that things you'd like to keep to yourself cannot be kept to yourself.

We definitely live in a new era in which it's almost impossible to keep the skeletons in your closet from walking out - the natural state of information is to gravitate towards freedom. As slippery a slope as it is, I agree with the data being kept to some degree, available to search warrants and subpoenas to aid in criminal investigations. If some idiot wants to post on Facebook that they hired a hitman to kill their spouse, they deserve what they get. My main complaint is that for the average computer user (we here at HLP probably don't count as "average" users), it's almost impossible to understand how best to protect your privacy. I, personally, have AdBlock+, NotScripts, Chromeblock, Ghostery, on a Chromium browser that isn't Google Chrome, and several other extensions that make it more difficult (not impossible, just more difficult) to exploit me. I'm well-aware that complete safety is impossible to attain, but people like me would cut into the profits of the people that are monitoring the information by having to take extraordinary measures, and it's not worth it to them. Sorta like adding an alarm system to your house. Sure, you're not going to deter someone who's really determined to make your life difficult, but you will scare off the people who are just out looking for easy targets.

[S-99]

Saying it's okay to invade and destroy our privacy because we have nothing to hide is the wrong thing to do. Sorry, guys, I can't agree with you on this one.

Can't agree with us on what? No one in here as far as i know said it was ok to invade and destroy our privacy until you mentioned it. It was more about the technical aspects of user search result handling, google, ip addresses, identities, etc.

People (most just happening to have nothing to hide and not be up to anything bad) are put into this situation of wasted governmental and corporation resources. What was said about that by a few and myself was that we don't do anything of the likes to warrant "them" (as simply put by mars...lol) hunting us down and nothing else. That and these wasted resources by "them" is quite funny to me.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Saying it's okay to invade and destroy our privacy because we have nothing to hide is the wrong thing to do. Sorry, guys, I can't agree with you on this one.

Can't agree with us on what? No one in here as far as i know said it was ok to invade and destroy our privacy until you mentioned it. It was more about the technical aspects of user search result handling, google, ip addresses, identities, etc.

People (most just happening to have nothing to hide and not be up to anything bad) are put into this situation of wasted governmental and corporation resources. What was said about that by a few and myself was that we don't do anything of the likes to warrant "them" (as simply put by mars...lol) hunting us down and nothing else. That and these wasted resources by "them" is quite funny to me.

Sitting around and letting it happen is the same as agreeing with it from a practical standpoint. This isn't just me putting on a tinfoil hat and ranting about the government, either. It's mostly corporations that are doing the snooping and spying, and they do it so they can target you with ads or they can sell the information to someone who wants to target you with ads. If it wasn't profitable, they wouldn't do it, so they're hardly wasting resources on it. The problem is that their methods can also be piggybacked by more malicious entities and they create security vulnerabilities. Basically, like anything else, we, the end users, are getting screwed while the companies make profit off of us without our consent.

It's up to us to make it so difficult to collect information that it's no longer profitable to do so, and if it's not profitable, corporations won't do it. Yes, there will still be records kept, probably by ISPs (and I don't really have a problem with that as long as they keep the information private and only available to search warrants and subpoenas), but the internet would be a safer place.

[Scourge of Ages]

I'll admit, it's a little creepy to search for something in one tab, buy it, ctrl+tab back to HLP and see those same things in a banner. Other than that, I don't have a real problem with Google keeping tabs on me.

Sure there's the vague threat that marginally legal searches may or may not be passed on to the FBI or whatever, but I don't really do any of that anyway.
Sure they use their records to target ads at you, but as long as they don't actually spam me with mail or e-mail, I don't much have a problem with that either.
I realize that Google needs money, and as long as they continue to not "be evil", and keep their ads minimal, I can accept it.

If you don't like it, you're free to not use any of their free services.

[KyadCK]

Ya pretty much. You can protest and resist as much as you want, but the fact you still use their service despite your claims of danger kind of negate your argument. On the other hand, if you didn't use google, you would probably end up using Bing or Yahoo. Because we all know they don't use your information, right? I haven't seen a drop of spam from Google. My gmail is decidedly spam-free. As a matter of fact, I rarely get an email I wasn't expecting or from people I don't know, and even then its from some subscription I forgot about. Their targeted ads are sometimes even usefull when I'm looking to buy something. (i.e. I'm looking for a vid card and google gives me a link to a newegg page of that card... as an ad. Free money for them since I clicked on it, its what I was doing the search for anyway.)

In the end, everyone collects your data:
Does The store really need your address so you can have a membership card to save money?
Does an online subscription to a news paper really need your phone number?
Does making an Yahoo account really need your gender?

At least Google does something useful with the data instead of selling it and getting me swamped in spam. Like make HLP the first link when I type "hardlight" instead of a wiki page on lighting types.

[Jeff Vader]

[Marcov]

Yeah, except that those you posted (at least on Google) are nearly identical to mine.

Peculiarly, however, my first results show more accurate ones:



But then, aren't these showing up in yours as well?:





Finally, take note, I'm no programming nerd or source coder, so I don't think I search "Source Code" on even a weekly basis.

EDIT: OH WAIT, so you got it from this site...Huh? I'm confused...

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Ya pretty much. You can protest and resist as much as you want, but the fact you still use their service despite your claims of danger kind of negate your argument. On the other hand, if you didn't use google, you would probably end up using Bing or Yahoo. Because we all know they don't use your information, right? I haven't seen a drop of spam from Google. My gmail is decidedly spam-free. As a matter of fact, I rarely get an email I wasn't expecting or from people I don't know, and even then its from some subscription I forgot about. Their targeted ads are sometimes even usefull when I'm looking to buy something. (i.e. I'm looking for a vid card and google gives me a link to a newegg page of that card... as an ad. Free money for them since I clicked on it, its what I was doing the search for anyway.)

In the end, everyone collects your data:
Does The store really need your address so you can have a membership card to save money?
Does an online subscription to a news paper really need your phone number?
Does making an Yahoo account really need your gender?

At least Google does something useful with the data instead of selling it and getting me swamped in spam. Like make HLP the first link when I type "hardlight" instead of a wiki page on lighting types.

Yes, and in all those examples, you can usually opt to answer, "@#$% you" instead of giving out your information. There are also numerous ways to stop the ridiculous tracking. All I want is for people to explore their options and quit thinking that just because they can't be 100% invulnerable that taking any measures to protect themselves is a waste of time. You can never be totally safe, but putting yourself even a few inches under the radar means you're no longer an easy target, and the only profitable targets are easy targets. It's like locking one's car when going to to store. We don't do it because it makes our car invulnerable, we do it so that it makes anyone trying to break in automatically stand out as suspicious.

[Unknown Target]

If the general sentiment is "if you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't be worried", then does that mean we have a society wherein people are guilty by accusation?

[KyadCK]

I notice you magically ignore both the top and bottom parts of my statement.

and...

You can never be totally safe, but putting yourself even a few inches under the radar means you're no longer an easy target

Please, enlighten me, how do you plan to stop the search request that goes to the google servers (their main way of giving you targeted ads btw) from reaching google and still use their service? The only way to NOT give them information easily is to not use their products.

I fail to see a reason to hide such petty information from them. My reasons for trusting Google are in the previous post.


@Marcov

Source Code is the name of the movie, Jeff Vader was simply saying he uses google because it took an obscure discription and gave him very accurate results (top 5 being dead on). Far better then Bing or Yahoo did with the same search.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

I notice you magically ignore both the top and bottom parts of my statement.

and...

You can never be totally safe, but putting yourself even a few inches under the radar means you're no longer an easy target

Please, enlighten me, how do you plan to stop the search request that goes to the google servers (their main way of giving you targeted ads btw) from reaching google and still use their service? The only way to NOT give them information easily is to not use their products.

I fail to see a reason to hide such petty information from them. My reasons for trusting Google are in the previous post.


@Marcov

Source Code is the name of the movie, Jeff Vader was simply saying he uses google because it took an obscure discription and gave him very accurate results (top 5 being dead on). Far better then Bing or Yahoo did with the same search.

I don't understand why people get combative with me when I'm trying to help.

I don't think that merely using a search engine is dangerous. I don't consider any of the information that I put in the search box to be personal, in the same way that my name, address, SS#, etc., are personal. Choosing a search engine is essentially choosing the lesser evil, and my Yahoo! and Gmail accounts are under an alias. I like the Chromium browser engine, but I use a flavor of it that isn't full of Google's spyware.

What I've mostly been railing about in this thread is tracking cookies and pervasive advertising networks, which are easy enough to block - something that I think everyone should do. If we take the profit out of tracking, privately-owned companies stop doing it.

[KyadCK]

It probably has to do with the slight feeling of paranoia (in this case). Most people wouldn't take the time to do any of those thing and probably wouldn't notice a result if they did. In my case, I already get junk mail. Places like Jewel-Osco already have (and probably sold) my info and any big advertiser who wants it could probably buy it off them.

However, I am defending Google a little more then the average person would, kinda like the opposite of yourself. I understand that they have information such as my address. I would expect them to based on the fact I use Google maps, and even Google maps on my phone as free GPS (in comparison to AT&T's offer thats $5/mo AND uses my data plan). I find the alternative, considering how many other companies have the information anyway, to not be worth it.

As I said before, my gmail is rather spam free. What ever information a company has, their annoying advertising email isn't making it to me. The information is useless. And so I see no point in blocking basic information that is known elsewhere, that at the same time makes life a little bit easier, such as location based searches for laser tag.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

It probably has to do with the slight feeling of paranoia (in this case). Most people wouldn't take the time to do any of those thing and probably wouldn't notice a result if they did. In my case, I already get junk mail. Places like Jewel-Osco already have (and probably sold) my info and any big advertiser who wants it could probably buy it off them.

However, I am defending Google a little more then the average person would, kinda like the opposite of yourself. I understand that they have information such as my address. I would expect them to based on the fact I use Google maps, and even Google maps on my phone as free GPS (in comparison to AT&T's offer thats $5/mo AND uses my data plan). I find the alternative, considering how many other companies have the information anyway, to not be worth it.

As I said before, my gmail is rather spam free. What ever information a company has, their annoying advertising email isn't making it to me. The information is useless. And so I see no point in blocking basic information that is known elsewhere, that at the same time makes life a little bit easier, such as location based searches for laser tag.

Honestly, it's not Google that I'm worried about. I admit that they're been (fairly) responsible with the absolutely massive amount of information that they have. But if you were to install Ghostery, you'd suddenly see that Google isn't the only one. Who the heck is Quantcast? Federated Media? Comscore? What will THOSE companies do with the browsing information they collect? I'm trying not to sound too reactionary or paranoid. I, personally, just don't like the idea of so many companies having free reign to gather whatever information they feel like. I'm content with just taking myself off of the grid, as it were, but I do sometimes feel that other people are doing themselves a disservice by having their information easily accessible to anyone. Run a Google search on your name and see what comes up. When I tell people to do this, the reaction to the results is usually something like this:   

[KyadCK]

A weekly wipe with ccleaner would keep most of this away since you have to re-visit a site that gives the cookie to get it back, and I'm in the habbit of using ccleaner every few days to keep the comp clean anyway. If you go installing extensions or add-ons without reading what they want first (which I belive at least extensions have a pop-up saying what they are going to use) then you're asking for it.

Did a search for myself. Interestingly, despite all the information I hand out, Google doesn't seem to have a damn clue who I am. It didn't even bring up my Google+ account in the top 20. I'm slightly disappointed.