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Privacy Group Gives Google Lowest Possible Grade
The Washington Post is reporting on a finding by London-based group Privacy International. In a new report, they find that Google has some of the worst privacy-protection practices anywhere on the web, giving them the lowest possible grade. "While a number of other Internet companies have troubling policies, none comes as close to Google to 'achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy,' Privacy International said in an explanation of its findings. In a statement from one of its lawyers, Google said it aggressively protects its users' privacy and stands behind its track record. In its most conspicuous defense of user privacy, Google last year successfully fought a U.S. Justice Department subpoena demanding to review millions of search requests."
One solution to the privacy problem, in my oppinion, would be granting users, besides the ability of not surrendering more information than necessary for a given transaction, some effective way of deleting their personal data once done with Google, Yahoo, Amazon or whoever else.
^[:q!
Gives time for sensationalism without facts. After three months, they'll show their information and everybody will have forgotten about it, not caring enough to discover their faulty reasoning.
Why are these people attacking Google. Privacy and anonymity are rapidly eroding in the UK. Hello! You've got bigger privacy problems than Google if you're living there.
It's amusing how people root for the underdog but start to turn against it once it gets too big. I remember a time when M$ was viewed as a hero for scoring victories over the evil IBM monopoly.
I suppose the lesson is that companies are never your friends, just allies of convenience at best. Something to remember the next time some slashbot claims comapny X will save the day because they are a friend of open source.
Why mod this down? I rarely put on the tinfoil hat, but they can have an awful lot of data for people who choose to use many/all of their services. It is an aggregate of many people's lives. Not saying that they are doing it, but the guy deserves more than a -1 for his thoughts.
"As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
A bunch of soccer moms on another continent starting a consumer ban against a company supporting drug abuse?
While a number of other Internet companies have troubling policies, none comes as close to Google to 'achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy,'
They've obviously never heard of LexisNexis or Accurint. Unless they consider information on what web page you visited to be more infringing than, say, your full financial history, residence, court records, marriage licenses, property deeds, loans, phone numbers (including unlisted), etc., etc. Of course, that's all "public information."
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
> Google last year successfully fought a U.S. Justice Department subpoena demanding to review millions of search requests.
Yeaha. Google protects the data from the Justice Department.
But it DOESNT (and thats the point of the rating) protect the data from google itself. The google privacy idea is more or less "We are good. Thats why WE are allowed to do everything, and you WILL like it (trust us, we know you better than you do yourself)".
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Deleting accounts created on systems has always been a default consideration.
As proper deletion should have been
Not if the filesystem support and account management code had been properly written.
You obviously have no clue how a filesystem stack works. Data is rarely deleted per se on *any* filesystem, simply unlinked and possibly flagged for later overwriting. Why do you think projets like this exist?
Even if a file (if an email or google doc is even stored in what one would *call* a file) did get deleted, the indexing that is done would make at least pieces parts recoverable until their staleness is discovered, which could be a while.
Even then, a good forensic analyist could probably recover something that had been allegedly deleted.
Overwriting data to securely erase it is expensive on a desktop and approaching impossible on a busy server. This is why people who don't wear tinfoil hats will use Boot'n'Nuke or somesuch before selling a hard drive on eBay. You can't just delete something (even on your own computer, mind you) and expect it to be gone. That's not the way filesystems work.
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Check your facts at the door; be sure to pay a quarter!
That might be tough on you if people are threatening to kill you, but lets not pretend that the ONLY reason someone would want to be anonymous online is to threaten to kill people. What if I live in a country in which I do not trust my government or their agencies to protect me, indeed I suspect that my goals and theirs are diametrically opposed. Say I really like the idea of democracy but my state's dictator is rather set in his ways and would rather see anyone who advocates democracy swinging from the nearest lamp-post... Surely it would be good for me to have a way to protect myself in that situation?
Obviously this is the most extreme example (and fortunately I don't live in a country in which I fear my government), but it's a damn good reason.
...that a group based IN THE UK is giving anybody a grade on privacy, considering how much respect the government down there has for it.
Bear in mind that if they offsite any tape backups, for them legally to have deleted your profile they'll have had to track down every single tape with your data on it and erase your data from that tape without disturbing the other contents of the tape. Similar story for any other sort of redundancy/replication/backup. If they don't do this, they still have your data. It's not as simple as an 'rm' command at a shell.
Any large company that runs a datacentre has a really fecking expensive time actually removing a specific piece of data from it's premises. And because no company is 100% efficient with it's documentation, it can never be 100% sure that it's actually gone when it thinks it is.
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
Look at the entire scope of what Google does and you see that they want to know everything about you, and not some anonymous information. EMail is something you alomost always log in to. Many people set the login to remember them. Makes it easier to check you email, but once you are logged in your search queries are not anonymous. That is the reason Google has so many other things to try tog et you logged in and to stay logged in. For example, the have IM so that you've leave it running and yourself logged in.
However, most commercial activity and interesting behaviors, the ones worth money to advertisers and others, don't happen at the search screen. This is why Google has toolbar and desktop. They want to watch all of the sites you visit and what you do on the sites. Using this data they build a detailed behavioral profile of you. But they also have way more information then your commercial behaviors. They know about a wide variety of sites and can determine if you look at sites about health issues, or other sensitive and personal behaviors.
Google is a HUGE threat to your privacy. One could reasonably say that if you use many Google services and tools you have already given them such a detailed picture about you your privacy is essentially gone. And remember, they keep a 2 year rolling picture of the details about you. But they can also keep the "important" items they discover and toss the detail.
And, to those who say "Remember that Google went to Court to prevent the Government from getting records", remember what Google said. They said they were doing this NOT to protect your privacy, but to protect their trade secrets. That means so that no one can found out the real details about what they track and know about you.
Don't believe the "Do NO Evil" stuff. It is just clever marketing. They are a big company, just like all the rest and in many ways worse. Remember that they say that they want to index all of the World's information. That includes the very intimate and personal details about you!
Many viewed Google as the anti-Microsoft. Microsoft just dominated a market. Is is really debatable whether Microsoft's dominance actually cost consumers financially, but if they did, it was just money. There is no question that Google threatens at least our privac and that is just the first of our basic rights that their behavior and business interests threaten to erode.
You know, you could have avoided a lot of trouble if you had published your Russian businessman criticizing webpage anonymously...
Finkployd
The subject line says it all. Advertising needs to know who the viewers are when targetting an advertisment. And the more accurate a description, the more "effective" an advertisment may likely be. So if they can collect a bunch of info on a user and set up a profile then advertising can be better targetted, be more effective and the advertising space provider can charge highter rates.
Why don't they do this? Because no one who uses their services really cares.
Well duhhhhhhhhh.
Google have been honest and upfront with all this information that they store. Thats why people know about it. If you don't like that, then don't use their services. You don't like the fact that they store your searches, then use another search engine. Don't like that they index your email? Use something else.
I have no sympathy for the people who jump up and down about this stuff. You choose to have these details stored by using Googles services. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's not that hard.
Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
Hey, the guy was surprised.
You can't blame him for that. Let's face it, none of his other plans have been successful.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Wake up. GMail is the worst of all services they offer. Google has admitted already (you should read their privacy policy) that Google scans and stores all your (g)email. They don't need an ip-address because you log on, which is more accurate then your ip. Google is able to connect the (eternal)-cookie to your ip to your Google account to your bank/paypal account. From the moment you create a Google account the certainty of previous identity guesses, such as ip cookie and user-agent increases tremendously, and they will be able to reprocess previously collected information. Not showing your ip in the mail-header should not provide you with any level of comfort.
Anything that can be seen in a public place is not private. Period. Anyone can go out into the street, take whatever photos they want, and publish them however they please. When in a public place, one should have no expectation of privacy.
copyright © 2005 Flamsmsmark the ravings of a melancholly i