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Google Tracking Frequent Users
BrianGa writes "According to this article, Google has started placing
a counter on its home page for a small number of its most frequent users.
Most Google users do not have it, but a select few now have a counter that notes
the actual number of searches made. For the curious, an explanatory page
linked to the counter reveals that this is a test, or limited-sample experiment
of a new search counting feature."
Try getting the page up by IP instead of the name.
Here is a link for you.
So if you delete your cookies, or use a browser such as Opera which automatically gets rid of them after each session it can't really keep track of you.
Unless they actually *do* log you IP every time you search...
The counter is placed on computer hard drives by a cookie, a software file that a Web site places without the recipient's permission or notification and that transmits information back to the site. "If the number contains more than three digits,'' the counter notes, "you truly are a Google frequent searcher.''
Maybe the article author should Google for browser security/privacy settings to find out how cookies are handled.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Google is not dead.
It's a result of a malicious program "Trojan.Qhosts", which exploits a bug in internet explorer to get access to your pc. Then it alters your hosts file to stop your pc from accessing google.com.
Search google for that "Trojan.Qhosts". Ow, you can't. Okay, then try this link
.sig: No such file or directory
I'm hearing this 'virus' placed entries in the windows hosts file so that Google points to something else.
For XP the host file can be found here:
\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts
for 2000 and NT:
\Winnt\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts
and for the other Windows systems:
\Windows\hosts
Check out the entries in the hosts file and make sure there's nothing strange in it
-- Sib
How would it be either a privacy issue or a security one. At least moreso than it is at the moment.
If your proxy admin wants to track every Google query and match it to IP address he would just do it. All queries are in plaintext, so there is no privacy or security to begin with.
As for the actual tracking. It would be done by cookies, so the individual PC gets the counter, not the IP address of the proxy.
So no, there is no issue.
I've been told, though I haven't encountered it myself, that they've been counting searches made by individuals for a long time, and that they've even banned some people/IP addresses from doing more than X searches per day.
This happened before the web services API when people would write robots to do specific searches. Obviously, if the robot starts making a search every 5 seconds, that'd be a problem...
Maan
ya both my roommates got this, but QHosts wrote a hosts file in c:\windows\help (not in it's usual location at drivers\etc) which threw me for a loop cuz i wasn't aware that windows would look there for a hosts file (or even that you could have 2 in the first place)
QHosts also adds stuff to your registry, check here for info on what it does and how to undo the changes in your registry.
then reboot (or maybe just re-login might work?), and you should be fine, and google won't be dead anymore (along with altavista, yahoo, msn, ask.com, lycos, hotbot...).
It says that if you are running Windows then you should probabably check your hosts file for an entry that redirects Google to another IP. If said file does contain such an entry then it *also* says you need to patch your system because you've been trojaned.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
It should be noted that Google allows users to disable URL tracking; it's only there so the toolbar can display the current site's PageRank (which, of course, would require sending the URL to Google). As they explain in the installation, if you disable the PageRank feature through the options menu, the Google toolbar no longer makes contact with the mothership.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
From Google Watch Watch:
Google Watch exists because of someone who wants PageRank to value his opinion more than the majority. Go figure.Clever signature text goes here.
It doesn't beg the question "how is this news except..."
What you mean to say is, "The real question is how is this news except..."
It begs the question: Is everyone afraid that google will know too much about you by what you search?
The article doesn't presuppose anything, but to someone who is slightly paranoid, they might have been suddenly reminded that google tracks them once that counter appeared, hence the explanatory piece.
Of course, google always tracks everything. That information is used to improve the relevancy metadata they use for providing "similar results", ad-word placement, etc.
The trick is to leverage it in a way to improve the value of google. Maybe a subscription service would expose more of the trends they pick up on as a value added service. I would surely pay for something cool like that.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Google toolbar actually prevents spyware from being installed by blocking pop-ups (which from my experience are the main source or spyware)
So go google toolbar! And its so handy to search!
If you dont like google/google toolbar, use a different search engine. We are using its free service, and then complain about them tracking us for reports.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
If you install the Google toolbar, you get a history of your searches.. The box that you enter the search terms is a dropdown that you can also use to pick the previous searches.
I actually like the Google toolbar a lot. You can quickly get to the various Google pages (web/image/groups/news), see pagerank for the page you are currently viewing, get backlinks and other info, and do translation. Yet another example of something done right by the Google engineers.
If however, you are like most people, and you do draw a line between public and private information about yourself, then Google's innovative strategies combined with its overwhelming market share make it a privacy time bomb just waiting to explode. If Microsoft were behind Google, much of the world would be up in arms (Remember NT's supposed NSA Backdoor?) No so with Google. Strangely, perhaps because Google actually works pretty well and isn't laced with bugs that allow viruses to damage your home computer, no one makes a fuss.
In the recent years the public has sometimes been shocked to learn about some of the side effects that our technological progress has brought. Organizations combining data from multiple databases (for 'marketing' purposes) and technologies such as license plate recognition make possible a 'technical utopia' that Big Brother could only have dreamed about.
This combined with the hightened fear of terrorism and the corresponding (over-)reaction by governments has led to a information gathering infrastructure that is unique in world history. In the post 9/11 world there has been increasing pressure from the American government on organizations and companies (from your local library to European airlines) to forward all types to information to 'the authorities'. Google is most likely just one more intelligence source, though in all probablilty a highly valuable one, in the war against terrorism.
Suspicions that Google has 'ties' with the NSA was published in Slashdot (Should You Fear Google?) last Febuary. After reading some of the comments associated with that article, one begins to wonder if Goggle is just the Internet arm of the Echelon project.
While each tenticle pulling at our privacy is relatively harmless by itself, the combined affect of the multiple attacks on our personal privacy is large and disturbing. Worse still, is that we have only ourselves blame. Our very own democratic governments encourage and protect the individuals and organizations that are attempting to implement these policies. And largely because of own our ignorance and apathy, we don't raise our voices against it.
It's like comparing the public's reaction to a government proposal to mandate the installation of ID chips in its citizens, which causes a massive outcry, vs. parents desire to install the same chips in their children, because of their fear of abductions. The end result may be the same, but in the second case we did it to ourselves.
I guess the moral is that we should just be a bit more aware of what we're doing, and a bit more willing to say 'no'. While the current western decomcratic governments probably do 'have our best interests at heart', what happens when some unsavory character sells or gives this information to our enemies, or worse our government is no longer domocratic and becomes our enemy?
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
There are a number of websites out there that use the method described above without the API, and Google hasn't done anything about it. My site lists a number of these sites on the links page. Perhaps these sites just don't generate enough traffic to alarm Google, but then again Google has always been very friendly towards its users. I bet they are more concerned about bots used for malicious purposes.
It was 'Franchise' by Isaac Asimov.
;) was able to track so many variables it could almost predict the outcome of an election - there were just a few variables it needed a human brain for, and it selected a 'typical' person to answer some fairly trite questions ('what do you think of the price of eggs?') to check the calibration and make the final decision.
:)
Basically MultiVac (the huge computer at the centre of the world
Not really the same as this - MultiVac was trying to determine the outcome of an election, or the average of a number of votes, not the 'average voter'. Bear in mind the average voter doesn't vote
Mark
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