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Google's Data-Storage Fuels Privacy Fears
taoman1 writes "Facing worries about its tracking Web surfers' every move, Google Inc. is now offering a feature to track Web surfers' every move.
Its free Web History service is strictly voluntary — Google users can sign up to have the Internet giant keep detailed records of every website they visit so they can easily find them again later.
Web History's quiet debut this week came as privacy advocates continued to raise alarms about the prospect of Google combining its collection of information on individuals with that of DoubleClick Inc. Google has agreed to acquire the New York-based company, which distributes Web ads and tracks where the majority of people go on the Internet, for $3.1 billion."
It's strictly voluntary. Privacy advocates should put their tin foil hat back on and switch off their computers.
Every sensible human being wants every chance to get context-free, "damning evidence" stored in perpetuity. How the hell can you even call this a "feature" for 99.99% of the people out there since it's more likely to result in them getting in trouble for something, than being able to say "oh, that's the search I made a year ago that was really good at getting what I wanted!"
Can we live without Google?
Google says you can opt in for this. They suggest other great ideas to opt in for:
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I've been suspicious of Google's "do no evil" motto from day one, but my suspicions were confirmed when it was announced that Google Mail would be storing your emails ad-infinitum even if you deleted them. It is quite clear and obvious (and it has been for a long time) that Google is in the datamining business, the targeted advertisement part of which is only the tip of the iceberg. Anybody who's surprised by this announcement has been living in a cave...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
There are far worse threats to privacy than Google. Watch out for continued government laws that require ISPs of all flavors to maintain data for long periods of time, and to turn it over to law enforcement for less and less stringent requirements. If you are worried about your privacy, don't sign up for the stupid service. Rotate your search engines. Use random Wi-Fi hotspots. If people want their privacy protected, they need to take responsibility for it. You reduce your privacy, and you get free services and make some services easier to use. Most people are ok with that. Whether its because they don't care about their privacy or they are stupid doesn't really matter. They made a choice, they don't need advocates fighting to put the cat back in the bag. They most certainly don't need corporations looking out for their privacy interests, unless its a selling point. Businesses provide services and make money. They don't take care of you. Take responsibility for yourself.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
It doesn't matter if one company or a couple of dozen has all sorts of personal and online information.
It's shared between them anyway and Uncle Sam buys it all regardless.
Resistance is futile. You want privacy, get off the grid completely.
You heathen you.
I might have to...
Clear My Cookies!!!!!!!!!
Y'know. You don't have to use Google and you don't have to retain all the cookies your machine is sent.
Deleted
Why can't I get the same storage service Alberto Gonzolez gets at the RNC?
Over 150 emails, going back over 2 years, disappeared from my inbox one night and they said there was nothing they could do to restore them....
Sorry folks, if Google pays 3.2 billion to obtain DoubleClick for any reason, that's just evil, because DoubleClick has ALWAYS been evil. So? By correlation, I guess that makes Google evil too, huh?
methinks so. I sure as Hell ain't trusting Google with my data so much as I can help it.
Like Capitalist... --in collusion w/ da Feds'-- Big Brother needs a name?
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vote with your default search engine of choice folks
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Depending on how you look at it, kinda useful, but nonetheless creepy.
Almost thirty years, back in the Apple ][ days, ago a friend of mine was playing a text adventure game (I forget which one). So, after he played the thing for a while, it asked him a question using his first name. He got all freaked out, "How did it know my name?!!"
I told him "Because when you started the game it asked you for it."
"Oh."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Ummm where does this come from? I cant seem to locate any statements to support this and the gmail TOS seem to indicate that the email is deleted permanently. So please backup your statements and don't spred rumors.
Visit http://www.crunzh.com/ for free software. Mac/Lin/Win
And you forget - that this feature us purely voluntary, and by default is set to off.
What a relief. The option to be voluntarily surveilled proves they weren't already doing it. Those silly tinfoils hats were bent all along.. Phew.. I knew it!
Google's had this feature for at least half a year, it just hasn't been linked to atop search result pages until now.
For the paranoids I'd recommend the CustomizeGoogle firefox extension - among other things (like removing those pesky ads) it can reduce the ability for Google to track what you are doing.
You can alway just type "ctrl+h" (ctrl+shift+h" for IE) (or click the button at top of your browser)and get your history of sites visited... Heck, Both IE's Firefox's are even searchable.
So the question is: How is Google planning to get away with selling this information to companies?
My Own Millions Blog
How is this different from the Search tool in Gnome called "Beagle". Sure I realize Beagle is stored locally on "your" hardware, but remember when you get in trouble there is no more "your". A raid at your residence, or a court order to google / your isp gets you in the same place at the end if you are indeed "evil". In the US the SS is always in power ladies and gents. If your some kind of hacker of some sort where you need to protect yourself and privacy because you are engaging in illegal activities on the net, you have got major problems to begin with. If your connected to some sort of maffia, you have got major problems to begin with as well.
It IS 1984 in all respects of the book and film. You realize the net tracks everything and knows everything about everyone. Unless your living up in Montana, working at the local grocery store getting paid in cash off the books (no credit card, no phone, no electricity etc...) you have NO PRIVACY already.
Good luck on ranting about teh Google, they are simply making it easier for you to research your search history on the net.
"We see here that 10 years ago you searched and perhaps retrieved an article about xyz. Yes, do we realize it was legal information at that time, but it is not currently and you might have retained that knowledge. Please come with us."
"We see that 10 years ago you did a search on such and such item. Yes, we realize you may never intended to have acted on this information at the time, but the laws have chagned and we can now arrest you under the new 'homeland security intervention intent act'. Please come with us"
No thanks, i think ill pass.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Key DoubleClick assets from a recent post we did:
US Patent 7039599 - Automatic Placement of Advertising
Highlight: Claim 1. "A method for advertisement selection, comprising: (a) receiving from an advertiser Web site feedback representing user transactions at the advertiser Web site, the user transactions resulting from user response to at least one of a plurality of direct advertisements; (b) receiving a request to display a direct advertisement to a user; and (c) selecting, in response to the request, one of the plurality of direct advertisements for display based at least in part upon the advertiser feedback."
Analysis: This patent has a priority back to 1997 and allows for advertiser feedback from users on a website. Given Google's move into CPA, this patent would clearly provide added leverage to allow more data to flow between the advertiser and Google's system to optimize which ads should be displayed at a publisher.
US Patent 7085682 - Analyzing Website Activity
Highlight: A large number of independent claims covering the tracking and reporting of user activities to provide analysis of event level detail, which includes the addition of the retaining details of users' adding products to shopping carts, and repeat usage of a client site.
Analysis: In addition to the above, Google's analysis and reporting features for a tool like Analytics for a CPA advertiser become even more robust allowing for unique visitor tracking and loyalty. A robust addition to Google Analytics to be sure.
US Patent 5948061 - Delivering, Targeting and Measuring Online Ads
Highlight: What all consumer privacy folks have feared for the last 12 years. The tracking of user specific information and the performance and ongoing management of ad delivery based on user information.
Analysis: Whether we like it or not, Google retains a lot of information about our searches connected to our profiles. This technology does what the original vision of DoubleClick was built on: user-level targeted ads.
This announcement was easy to see coming.
What exactly are people searching for that they are afraid of having tracked? I use google all the time, the more it tracks my searches, the more it seems to know what I'm looking for. For instance, google suggest has gotten excellent at guessing what I want to search for.
I just don't understand the fear you people have of someone knowing what you searched for. And so what if they buy DoubleClick? I don't consider google ads to be intrusive in the least and with adblock I don't think I've seen a doubleclick ad in ages. Worst case scenario: if a doubleclick ad does gets through adblock it may just be relevant.
I signed up for it this week, to give it a trial run. Well, actually I've been using Google's Search History since its inception and I really like that. Being able to find things I searched for in the past makes my life a lot easier sometimes. I know it could potentially be a big privacy problem for me but it's something I choose to do and I know the risks. Anyways, Google Web Search, their new feature, requires the Google Web Toolbar, which I don't use on any of my computers, because I never really saw the point of it once I moved over to Firefox years ago and it had a built in search bar. I installed it at work and tried to make it as minimalistic as possible while still keeping its functionality, which I'm not sure how to exploit yet. I'll probably tinker with it this week at work and see if it's worth it for me to use. I'm guessing I will not keep it at the moment.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
When you're really worried about tracking from google, why not use scroogle scraper?: http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm Mark
...Before getting all pissed off about privacy violation? Google has always logged your web history, the only thing really new about this is the fact that you can view it all from one page and, more importantly, you can choose to delete your entire history and pause it indefinitely. Explain to me how adding this is a bad thing.
These companies only care about aggregate data, not your data. That use doesn't violate any individual's privacy. On the other hand, aggregate data is all about "violating" collective privacy, what people in general want, what will push their buttons to get them to buy/use something. Of course there are others who would be interested in data on individuals, but they probably have their own arrangements with ISPs already.
This can be done without centralization, with a firefox extension, maybe even something pcap/ethereal based which records even what torrents might have been downloaded, rss feeds that might have been read through an rss client, etc... This needs to be a feature of the OS or my browser or my rss client or my bittorrent client, not a way for Google to collect data. Clearly, desktop search hasn't gone far enough if there actually is a demand for this sort of a feature. If the privacy concerns get loud enough, OSX will probably be the first to have this sort of capability.
Unless they're willing to provide a VPN tunnel for all of my websurfing needs, and promise to delete the all of the data when I ask, thanks but no thanks. Let me know when you start personalizing news and web search using the newly collected data.
I am starting to feat that the real issue with google is not that they want to spy every move we make but that they actually tell us about the way they handle our information.
What if the other web services do things that endanger our privacy in similar or worse ways without telling us? Reminds me of the AOL data leak...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Its all the 13 year olds searching for porn that don't want their parents to find out.
Look, any deleted e-mails can be found if you searched hard enough. I talked with a recruiter for an e-mail security firm, and he confirmed this statement. Maybe Google is eliminating some of the detective work involved in this issue, but otherwise they're not offering anything a good Computer Forensics or Information Networks course can't teach you.
And also, most of the money Google earns is through advertising. The better and more accurate it can advertise a product to you, the better job it's doing, and the more money it makes. It isn't as though the company became rich simply by programming a search engine (a damn good one, at that), so you can expect Google will want to keep track of its users' behaviors in order to maintain its profit margin.
There are probably half a dozen institutions collecting this kind of data about you: your ISP, a couple of federal and state agencies, several advertising networks, etc. At least Google is open about it and you can have a look at the data.
Another reason to get the TrackMeNot Firefox extension, which performs random Google queries constantly in the background. It frustrates attempts at identifying a user through search term frequency analysis.
If you are worried about your privacy, don't sign up for the stupid service.
Take responsibility for yourself.
What if your school or workplace has chosen to get into bed with Google? What does everyone affiliated with the with that group do? Walk out of your school or employer?
Case in point - Arizona State University, the second largest public university in the nation. The IT department leadership there is doing away with all of its POP/IMAP email services in lieu of Gmail (with a custom ASU interface). They've run into a couple of glitches and have had to repeatedly push back the final shutdown of their old IMAP workhorses, but it's coming. (If the leadership gets fed up with Microsoft's licenses and the other expenses associated with Exchange, that service would probably follow suit and all employees would go to Gmail as well, as long as a Google calendaring solution was viable.)
There is also serious talk of trying to do away with Microsoft Office and using Google's online offerings (Google Docs and Spreadsheets). They are huge on Google Docs...
So essentially, there may come a day if you're affiliated with ASU as a student or employee, and you want to use email, word processing, spreadsheets, or any other software client for which Google has created an online clone, be prepared for an all-Google future - regardless of any privacy issues.
As time goes on, there will be fewer people with options where privacy is even an option...
Do you suffer from a memory-damaging illness or injury? If not, then how could you not already know what it is you are generally interested in?
If you are worried about the IP logging, try riding your griffon over the the mist shrouded lands of Silmarion. On the crystal mountains there is a glass cave hidden behind a huge waterfall. When you go inside and say "Chire, Senbonzakura kageyoshi" you will get an old parchment containing a list of proxies, with a link to Tor in bold. FUCKING USE IT.
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
I'll be dramatic: Google is a huge threat to human freedoms.
And now defend it:
Google is effectively an information black hole - collecting information and letting it back out for more money. They are now sitting on $12B in cash to buy other information collection systems (companies). Most founders and owners can be bought for much less. The one with the most information almost always can win any game/competition.
Unfortunately, the problems that google will be able to cause people/companies are enormous, therefore, the money they will be able to get to "avoid" those problems is similarly enormous. Frankly, unless they change their one-way information collection toon quickly, there will be a loud and growing cry to ban/avoid Google rising in the next few years.
While services from the "big" Internet companies offer are often great and useful, the real tradeoff people are making is a one-way street: making these giant companies so powerful. They are not necessarily working in the best interests of ordinary people, rather in the interest of making even more money.
Eventually, there needs to be some capitation on capitalism for the world to be truly global and to balance local interests with common global ones.
The voluntary part is only about whether you want to see your web history or not. Search history is already stored, whether you wanted it or not.
On first login you'll see all the past search queries you made starting from some 2-3 years back.
However, after signing up, you can clear your entire search history or selectively delete certain queries.
And with Google toolbar installed, you can have it track not only search queries but also all the web pages you'll ever visit.
Google and AOL we salute YOU! http://www.blackboxsearch.com/
heres an easy to use one.
http://www.mysecureisp.com/
...the government is actively maintaining and expanding the "enemies of the state" lists, and you can get on it for some pretty tame stuff. The outward manifestation that has made the news is the "no fly" list, or "fly, but you'll get scrutinized heavy for hours and maybe miss flights and they'll toss your luggage or just steal it for analysis".
And yes, it really IS an "enemies of the state" list. And it's political, just going to an anti war demo or publishing anti administration or anti war stuff has gotten people stuck on it. In fact, seems there was an article here just recently about some professor that that happened to, who's only apparent crime was giving an anti war lecture, now he's on the list. And there's no accountability, once on you won't ever get off, no redress, no asking anyoje who will answer you about it, no nuthin...just the secret enemeies list, with the oh so helpful government drones maintinaing it and following orders and cashing their little checks. they don't care enough to "just say no to bogus orders".
If you can't understand the trends, with all the stuff in the news the past several years, here's the deal: Once ANY regime starts with the enemies of the state lists, it always goes eventually into pure dictatorship with all the bells and whistles, along with camps, the "disappeareds", and etc. Yes, all the bad stuff. Make take just a little time, but it all eventually happens once on that slide to hell. There hasn't been an exception in history yet, not a single one, so there's absolutely no rational or logical reason to think the US is in any way "special" in that regard now, it's the same brand of power mad humans "in charge and deciding about things", giving orders to grunting and willing order followers, the same as any other "bad" place..
And that is why you should be concerned. Ostrich head in the sand won't make it go away, and even if you *think* you aren't doing anything that might raise their ire, you have to remember-you are dealing with *quite insane* megalomaniacs-they don't NEED any reason to put you on a list other than their looney tune fantasies.
Actually, I've found that Yahoo lately has done a much better job of crawling my website, all 1700+ pages of it. Google has gone to Hell in this regard. When the world finally figures this out, Google is dead. I don't care how many free services they offer. They are a search company, and they are beginning to fail miserably at it.
No, I don't think Google's data mine fuels fear so much as it fuels envy. Just think of the corporations and government agencies and ... well, just about everyone who would like a fat pipe right into the GFS root. Yeah. I know I would.
... if nothing else, to the status quo. Now, having said that, there is Bill Gates, who has accumulated a lot of money, and is doing his level best to maintain the status quo. But he's still dangerous, and Google in it's own way is no less dangerous, just for having collected all that stuff. Google may never again do anything evil ... but that accumulated data is still there. It would be hard to get rid of it even if we wanted to, seeing as how it's distributed all around the planet. Worse from a privacy perspective, it looks like it's about to be combined with DoubleClick's database. That's really a terrifying amount of information to be in anyone's hands, however honorable they may be.
... a post-apocalyptic setting where the survivors are literally mining ancient datacenters for knowledge that would help them rebuild. Oh, I've read some novels with a plotline similar to that, but it would be fun to have the protagonists digging up an old Google facility, maybe firing it up by reactivating a nearby hydroelectric power plant.
I've always maintained that when you start concentrating something, anything, at a certain point it becomes dangerous
For now we're probably safe enough, but Page and Brin won't be around forever, and those who eventually end up in charge of their brainchild may not have the same scruples.
On another note, that might make an interesting story
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
with your SSN!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Wow... I've been using web search history for quite a while and have found it very useful on multiple occasions. I thought it was a little privacy infringing but still useful when you forgot to bookmark something useful.
However, I think tracking EVERY website I visit is overkill. Talk about NO privacy and what happens when the RIAA or MPAA subpoenas my or another users data?!?! Talk about a freaking nightmare. I suggest we all boycott. Its a terrible idea that infringes upon all Internet users privacy. It opens the door for massive litigation and will cause most everyone to hate the big G...
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I don't aim to be politically correct... so smack me...
I signed up for this today and not surprising it shows history from march itself. I guess that's when Google launched it. I fail to understand why google asks people to sign up for it and says that its voluntary when they have already collected my data for more than a month now. I feel they should have better covered this up. I guess some developed at Google got too enthusiastic to show off his capabilities when you sign in the first time itself. They are sure to get a few law suits for this.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I would actually RATHER have Google use their gathered info, inhouse, with a purchase of DoubleClick. That would be far, far preferable to having them sell it to anyone willing to pay them for the data.
Also... it would be good to know Google is not keeping search data forever, especially since nobody else does. Using that info, they can tie back to who you are, what you looked at, where you live, where you work, and if you use GMail... they know who you know, etc. They can even tie that back into mobile devices, like phones and Blackberries.
You know all those club cards people sign up for? Not to mention the records of your credit card purchases and god knows what else? All that data is munged together by companies like Axiom and Experian, who use that data to create extremely details profiles about individuals, and then sell that data to marketing firms. And this has been going on for decades.
Seriously, anyone afraid of Google, today, simply hasn't been paying attention.
This is gust another way to track everything you do, like others said about the bank details ecte ct. But I really cant see that being a problem. What it is they have had to start doing it as Alexa left them, so now they dont have that resource they have to make there own.
Webmaster SEO Forum
"What are we going to do today, Brin?"
... try and take over the world."
"Same thing we always do, Sergei
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.