Too tempting to keep quiet. Some quotes have been cut for clarity's sake.
Disclaimer: I went onto the Internet for the first time in 1999, and was raised being told to trust no one, and especially not the ones you can't recognize or see their face or know their past. My simple mind at 14 being logical, I had no reason to entrust Hotmail, my first subscription ever, with my real name or my address. I got into the habit of using pseudonyms just about everywhere on the Internet since I couldn't see or get to know who was actually running the sites I wanted, or had to subscribe to. Even my first Mac was paid in cash and I refused to provide an email address, but finally had to tone down these principles a bit as I wanted to buy applications for my just-won iPod Touch. Daily, I try to use the credit card only as necessary, to keep a "healthy" credit rating, as I am telling my customers at the bank.
I am currently working at a major bank's call center. In other words, I am the random guy you may speak to if you want to activate a credit card, open an account, transfer funds, etc. In other words, I have access to tons of personal data, tens of different customers a day handing me their personal data, SIN, PIN code, checksum digits, complete address, phone numbers, account numbers. I also do sales pitches for a product I don't even trust myself. Staying in line with my beliefs, if the customer resents his data being potentially handled and stored (many customers actually understand "sold", for some reason, probably because the US has no effective law to curb private data trade and this country is also keen on aggressive telemarketing tactics) in the US, I never give him or her the scripted rebuttal, as I would have done the exact same thing as they are. If I can't remove the product, I go to great length to actually kill it, asking the customer's agreement for each step and making sure he or she's still happy with the way I dealt with their concern. I may lose a sale, but I will gain integrity points. Same goes when I suggested the penalty for an employee being caught copying data should be harsher. I was caught texting on my phone while on a call. Phone was confiscated, forensic-ed, and handed back to me by a smiling supervisors. Text messages, pictures, notes, nothing had even a remote link to customer's data.
Google is an advertiser ........ that info is profitable ......
Most break privacy down in all sorts ........ one person may say "I don't want Google to know where i go go online", while others just say "i don't give out CC details to Google."
How do you think Google makes money ? This is why all their stuff (web dev tracking etc.. is free)
As far as I am concerned, I chose to pay for my email service rather than rely on anything of Google side for searching the Internet and having a Youtube account with entirely fake details.
I would be curious to know how many of Google's criticizers do use GMail.
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There is nothing else that information has ANY use for. Google dont sell it - we know they dont. The same as Apple dont sell info collected on iAds, and Facebook dont sell info on your likes.
So you
know that, hm? And how can you be so sure? Are you working there, at any significant level?
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So. I'll ask the question again in a slightly different way just in case people still dont get it.
Google knows you like Tennis, and use it to show Tennis ads to you. Why is that a problem? At what point is that putting your life in danger, or causing distress to you? It's no different to sticking an advert for a taxi company at a bus stop.
The bus stop ad doesn't look above my shoulder to see what I am typing on my phone. It doesn't know I am feeling like an ass for failing an exam. It doesn't know I am going to play a tennis match because I was fired and just want to cool off not thinking about the rent to come, and that I normally don't play tennis. One doesn't have to be in imminent danger to feel threatened.
If you're really that paranoid about your personal info that you avoid the likes of Google, Facebook and Apple you really shouldn't be on the internet.
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What a silly claim. Back in 1999 we still had nice Internet access, we got the same ********s of spam
Sure, sure... and those mobsters are really just nice guys not doing anybody any harm. Since they let you 'wet your beak' and see some user metrics via their tool on your site, I question the objectivity of your post. You're happy getting a piece of the action, good for you, bad for all of us. Poodle is perpetually on the wrong side of internet ethics and have been caught time and time again doing shady garbage. Further, if your websites lack a disclaimer that you use Google Metrics to suck visitor data and don't give detailed specifics about which data is collected, then you too are on the wrong side of user privacy as well.
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That's pure crazy talk. Google uses private data to generate almost all it's revenue and profit. They're not trying to tweak any usage trends on the net, they're trying to tweak their data sucking efforts for maximum benefit at the expense of individual privacy. Any perceived benefit you or the public at large thinks they are getting, is an illusion and a PR effort to obfuscate what they are taking. The smartest thing they ever did was come up with a dumb little cutesy name to cover their not so cute sounding methods.
It's also no coincidence that Android versions continue the same pre-school, cutesy imagery.
Google: "Thats not bulls**t you're eating, see it's called Jelly Bean and Gingerbread! Yum yum, eat it up!"
Why the continued calculated effort to make their software seem to 'taste' so good? Are people really easily fooled by totally superficial childish imagery... well considering my general lack of faith in humanity... I'll recuse myself from answering my own question.
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Interesting analysis you make. And noticed how everything invariably has a candy-color to it, and bears a pastry or candy name?
Of Hunger and Happiness
Have you also noticed the kid's environment Google employees work in? Just to make them forget about the true nature of what's going on behind executive's closed doors.
Out of curiosity, what kind of information do you think Google has on you? Do they sell your home street address to security companies? Do they sell your name to clothing stores? Do they know what kind of car you drive? Do they know your favorite food?
Do you think there's a file somewhere in Google's databases with your real name, and all the information about you anyone would ever want to know down to your social security number, credit history? And they just...you know...sell it to advertisers?
Just have a look at the "free" services they provide to know what they may have on you. They may not sell my name to clothing stores, but sell my size so these stores know I'm a skinny dude with taste for clean-cut Spanish and Italian clothing.
As for your other questions, yes, and indeed, yes. Ever heard of medical records and financial data?
Can you point any single infraction for selling or giving away data?
Usually one is innocent unless proven otherwise. However, suspicions against Google are too big to ignore.
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I defend corporations as they have the right to make money at all costs and i trust them to do that and only that. That's why they exist. Unless the government forces a company to keep information private, I believe any corporation will sell information for money.
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They have the right to make money, sure, but also surely not "at all costs". In the wild, nature shows us that parasites who kill their host have to diversify them and reproduce quickly and in very large numbers to stay afloat. On the other hand, symbiosis allows one to piggy-back upon the other without causing any significant concern.
The US government has no interest in forcing companies to keep info private. It is secretly happy that eager companies are keeping citizens used to be raped, making the job simpler for it afterwards as it passed freedom-killing laws such as the Patriot act, and recently this ultra-secure datacenter in Nevada's desert designed to intercept, store and crack open every single piece of communication being sent across the country and even coming from outside.
No. But from iOS - they have.
No. It was a made-up pseudo-scandal from Apple users who may already happily keep on using GMail and other G's services on the side.
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So privacy violations are harmless if the data stolen is insignificant? IS that the same as it's ok to kill people under a certain height? OK to steal under a certain value? They will learn their lesson? Do you believe the punishment offset the value of information they broke the law to acquire? I think that's a pretty big leap of both reason and faith.
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What law are you actually referring to? The US has NO privacy laws. US government has nixed what remained of them about 11 years ago.
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Maybe you are innocently ignorant of Google's history.
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I'd take an update on Google's history, please, beyond what we already know.
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Fact: Apple and Microsoft haven't broken into any third party software that I own to gleam my data. Fact: Google has.
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They haven't been caught yet, but any company asking real details is suspect to my eyes. They just don't need it. Google was caught just because it was so big and blatant. And because reaping personal details is their main business.
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I'm glad you brought this up, I almost put it into my last post. However this doesn't help your point. Apple had one privacy slip-up, and the full details of which tend to support their side and story.
People should be cautious of their data with Apple because of this, but because of Google's continued behavior people shouldn't trust them at all. The details of their crime, do not help their side of the story.
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Apple can be done without for consumers. But Google, hardly so. For the average, uninformed person, there are simply no other single provider able to provide access to so many services under one metaphoric roof. They would have to get many providers, and most aren't willing to put the extra effort in it. This IMHO would explain why so many people brainlessly install Chrome in lieu of Firefox, even if FF started much earlier and is available for more systems and in more languages than Chrome.
I did it, but it came to a cost. Email and hosting are in Switzerland, VPN is Swedish, contacts and agenda are American, browsing is Dutch, Danish or American, news is Spanish...
If Google's income relies on selling 'ads'. Why all the demographic collection? It's totally unnecessary to putting ninja store ads on the page when I search for my ninja supplies.
When you start a large 'ad' campaign with Google, they throw in periodic demographic reports for the length of the 'ad' buy. Your idea that selling this data once would put them out of business is totally silly. Google gives more complete data to bigger customers, the more you pay the more comprehensive and specific the info. Demographics is also a separate industry to advertising (I'm guessing this is news to you), though this is Google's primary cover for saying they don't sell your data, they only sell 'ads' (that just happen to come the personal data
wink, wink).
Couldn't have said it more clearly.
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It's not like Google is an 'ad' power house because of their incredible advertising abilities and effectiveness. Most online ads are totally ignored and ineffective, this is well known and a well studied phenonminon. Network TV is still more valuable and effective. What Google offers above TV networks is more extensive private demographic data, that these companies can also use for their TV ads. This is not hidden knowledge at all.
Indeed, and I do rely on triple ad-filtering: one at the router's level, one at the system level, one at the browser level, each with different lists. My browsing is mostly free of any ads, not because I don't want to support the website's owner, but because I just don't trust these ads agencies. The only one left are porn-related, and I don't care much about them since I know Google is not behind them. And more pragmatically, because it frees up valuable screen estate on a 13".
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So they tipped off their partners about a FBI raid, but gave up all the info anyway?
Where's the character upside in that.
The FBI was looking into privacy violations and Google made it harder to investigate somehow?
They just wanted to appear as if they were on the consumer's side, as others said, just a PR exercise. I strongly suspect they just don't give a ****.
Enlighten us, what Google tracks and what info they sell?
Just have a look at their products: GMail reads your emails, Google Desktop knows your private file's contents, Chrome drives you around the web, including on non-Adsense sites, then if they can lay up a fiber network not only they'll drive you, but will know everything that's flowing in their pipe (and the bigger the pipe, the larger the amount of data you'll put in, including from non-Google software), Google Images knows what you want to see, so is YouTube, Picasa knows what you snap, G. News knows what news interest you, G. Books knows what you like to read, G. Documents knows what you're working on, G. Agenda knows how your day is organized, G. Translate knows what you're reading and what culture you're interested in, G. Scholar knows what you're studying, G. Wallet knows your financial data.
There are simply too many here for any person in his right mind to trust Google is only serving ads. As
supercoolmanchu put it, "
We do know that Google goes to extraordinary lengths to acquire personal data over both Microsoft and Apple.".
Millions and millions trust the BBC.
This is a state-run broadcaster that has no intent to make profit, so doesn't qualify as a company. Oh wait. This state is one of the most citizen-spying state. Oh well.
In the end, this whole debate may prove futile.
The US already has the capability to spy on each and every US-dweller as well as foreigners when the communication enters US soil or just cross is, just as it does invading traveller's privacy just flying over the territory on a path they have no choice but to follow. Google, Apple, Microsoft or any other private company are small players compared to the US government. In all, we're pretty much screwed.
