Slashdot Mirror
Dashboard Reveals What Google Knows About You
CWmike writes "Ever wonder exactly what Google knows about you? Google took a step today to answer that question with the unveiling of Google Dashboard, which is designed to let users see and control the copious amounts of data that Google has stored in its servers about them. 'Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data,' Google said in a blog post today. 'In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard.' Dashboard is set up so that users can control the personal settings in each Google product that they use. Google said the tool supports more than 20 products, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts and Google Latitude. Consumer Watchdog said in a statement today that it applauds Google for giving users a single place to go to manage their data. But at the same tine, the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data."
Their dashboard simply reveals what they want you to know you keep.
Love or hate Google it would be naive to think otherwise.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data.
1. I'm going to patent 'not using a company's products and services' in order to prevent them from collecting data.
2. License my fantastic invention
3. Profit!!
Take off every 'sig' for great justice.
I would say only about 5% of my Google searches are something that pertain to me. The rest are queries to answer questions others have asked, or nonsense searches triggered by external events - random words heard on the radio, items from junk mail my uncle sends, stuff from the newspaper.
I clear my cache often, and often search for the equal and opposite of what I want to know about. Search for elder care, followed by kindergartens, then diabetes tests and discount candy bars.
Headline reads:
Starbucks wifi user identity stolen when rogue AP steals dashboard info.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Slashdot: New for nerds, stuff that matters
Google Dashboard: All your data are belong to us
Because it wasn't in the summary, https://www.google.com/dashboard/ is Google Dashboard.
What about Google ads(or any other tracking mechanism), or when Google buys a company that you used to use instead of Google?
It's not as simple as not using their products, unfortunately.
I think you forgot something...like maybe a link to Google Dashboard?
https://www.google.com/dashboard/
Now there's an easy tool provided by Google to identify what employees are doing with Google-related products while on the job. You didn't think anything you did on your work computer was your private information, did you?
Not to look down on the efforts made by Google to prevent attacks, but doesn't this pose a huge security risk? The payload from being able to hack into a users profile from this service would be huge...
It's asking me to login. I don't have a login to Google "services". How do I see the info that Google has on my browsing history without logging in?
I would have expected Slashdot to note the fact, that Google does not mention anywhere wether the presented data is even nearly complete. Without that it is just a sham, giving you the feeling of control, but possibly only touching the tip of the iceberg.
...needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data.
Um.. It's a free service, and collecting user data (most of which is anonymized) is a core feature of their ad services. Why exactly does Google need to hobble its business model again?
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
No one has to use google and when you chose to then you should be aware your data is going to be on their servers. Personally I do not enter personal information.
Either don't visit sites that use Google's ads, or block them. It's not rocket science.
Interesting idea of "control". There is no way to determine this is more than just pushing buttons in a UI.
There is neither transparency and an element of verification that the functions were indeed performed, nor is there an element of validation to demonstrate the effective execution of the user selected functions.
But at the same tine, the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data.
Don't login. Disable cookies. Any questions?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
If things ever go wrong, well, then I'll suffer the consequences. But people demanding Google stop collecting this information is just crazy talk. Yes, Google is fast becoming a necessity because of its sheer usefulness, but it's by no means crossed the line and doesn't look like it will. If you're really that worried - just don't use Gmail, Gcalendar or any of those other things. Your Google searches will still be reasonably anonymous!
Honestly, it's rubbish like this that gives privacy advocates a bad name. Fight a battle worth fighting, for cryin' out loud.
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
Oh my gosh! Google has ALL my chats and email and calendar info that I uh posted there...right
Is it just me, or is it ironic that they make you create an account just to view what they claim they know about you?
I block cookies and js from google, and I could swear it still manages to personalize search results. (by ip?)
I learned that a youtube account was registered using my email address, and that I could access the account with my gmail account. So dashboard forced me to change my email address and try to navigate youtube's awful (non-existent) reporting pages. I finally got the right page by sending an email to the wrong people. Otherwise, dashboard showed the existence of things that clicking didn't show up, and the whole thing comes across as a gimmick to get people to sign up for the google services they're not already signed up for.
open source modern art: laser taggi
Their dashboard simply reveals what they want you to know you keep.
Love or hate Google it would be naive to think otherwise.
Hmm.... reminds me a David Cross quote.
"How can I be paranoid if the paranoid motherfuckers who are makin' me paranoid are really out there."
I'm sure if you cooked up some algorithms you would have no trouble finding out so pretty darned interesting things about yourself, google doesnt give you those, it just gives you the raw data, which is pretty much useless by itself.
3 links, not a single one to the actual dashboard.
http://www.google.com/dashboard
What about the google analytics script put in the bottom on all the webpages combined with my ip? I forgot an url i visited yesterday, though google could tell me :-(
I just logged in and looked at it. It seems like a very nice feature. I found it amusing that you can "remove" information.
Since none of my recent web searches are listed, the Dashboard appears to only keep track of your activity while you are logged in. Obvious, but still interesting.
I imagine most searches can be identified by an IP address. Google must keep track of that too. Linking it together seem trivial.
So the question remains: Is it real control or just the illusion of control? I guess only time will answer that question.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
"But at the same tine, the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data."
How about you don't use their services if you have a problem with their policy? Or don't give out (valid) personal details. How hard was that? One thing i do have to agree with is the automatic adding of contacts to my address book in GMail.
I've used TrackmeNot for a long time, and today I can see why that's been a great idea!
between googlemail, google calendar, google voice, igoogle, google lattitude, google talk and who knows what else, there is no getting around it. They know everything about me.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
If you haven't noticed, Google is building a social network strategy across its properties. Chat, Reader, Followers, Friends, Voice, Public Profiles, Blogger etc etc. All of these are just starting to link into one another. As opposed to to the download and spam your email address book model a la facebook, it has been a very quiet and light touch adoption path. This is just another step towards gaining user's trust and therefore adoption.
I'll see your hokum and raise you a boondoggle.
Visit http://www.google.com/ncr (no country redirect) and google will no longer use your geolocation to determine what pages you want to see.
Cookies required
'In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard.'
So I get to control other users' data? Yay. Does that make me part of Google? :P
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Properly done, it's clear, that this should be opt-in at the creation of the account. And not only the option of making it public. But also the option of storing it on a computer you don't own in the first place.
Everything else should be illegal and get you into PMITA prison.
That model is already law for "please give my data to third parties" and "please send me spam" options in account creation forms in Germany. It should be law for all other data storage as well.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
In my humble opinion they're far worse than regular cookies! ( in that they are more pervasive / sneaky / hidden )
Firefox Plugin to delete the Flash cookies:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623
Wikipedia page on Flash cookies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Shared_Object
There really wasn't much information in my search history that can't be found in other ways:
I've only looked through a few months of my search history and it was pretty interesting to see what i searched for back then
Most cows are kept in a field, milked then slaughtered, and they don't seem to mind. They make little effort to escape their field, look happy while chewing the cud as they are milked, and only in the last few minutes of their lives do they show signs of concern. By then of course, it is too late.
What most people think doesn't matter when one person can see what is happening and appreciates the consequences. It is their view I am interested in.
To you Mad Merlin, I say moo. Keep chewing the cud.
The very essence of Google is to be a service that uses information it gathers about you to connect you to the people that you want. If you don't want that service, then don't use Google. How's that? The reason I say that is, many of us don't really care about the collection of personal data, and making Google jump through hoops to do what you want undermines the services that we want.
This is my sig.
Google is a service which most people who use the internet use. If a service is sufficiently successful it increasingly becomes an obligatory part of life. The pressure builds up to use the service. For example, in London in order to travel on the underground or the buses without the system logging your travel details you have to pay twice as much for day tickets. That cash incentive is there to put pressure on you to give in.
Google provides a whole range of services too. Many of them are only available if you log in. The more and better those services are, the more people will succumb.
It is very hard indeed to not register somewhere on the internet if you are to take advantage of the services available.
No, it is not bleedingly obvious.
http://noscript.net/
Dilbert RSS feed
> What about Google ads(or any other tracking mechanism)...
I block all ads, all Google cookies, and most other cookies. I rarely permit Javascript or Flash to run.
> ...or when Google buys a company that you used to use instead of Google?
What company would that be?
> It's not as simple as not using their products, unfortunately.
It's as simple as understanding that nothing you put on a server run by someone with whom you do not have an NDA is secret.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
They would borrow from Google (as opposed to out and out stealing from small companies). In particular, MS grips all the time about Windows being stolen. Simply put a dashboard on it and tell the user what they know of the user (which MS has even MORE knowledge of the user). The reason is that a number of the users simply do not know that they are using a stolen version. I suspect that most users who 'borrow' a copy of MS do not think about it, but would rethink it through if they were labeled theves by MS and SAW IT. Heck, it might have been enough money to avoid those massive layoffs (nah; that is really about shifting jobs to India and China; like Verizon, Qwest, IBM, GE, etc).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You have the freedom to share your data with Google.
But i dont have the freedom to choose not to. That's
the principle. I want you to have the freedom of chioce.
But i also want that freedom for me too.
At this point Google isnt a BadGuy. But Google cant guarantee
us that it will behave like this next year or even next week.
That's the second principle.
CONCLUSION
Google = Spyware
I'm doing everything i can think of to protect my freedom of
choice over who and what have my data.
Opera default settings: NoCookies NoFlash NoReferer
Then edit 'Site Preferences' for sites that really need it.
(More work is in progress...)
I also block Flash-Cookies. /s /q "%AppData%\Adobe" /s /q "%AppData%\Macromedia" /y NUL "%AppData%\Adobe\Flash Player" /y NUL "%AppData%\Macromedia\Flash Player" /y NUL "%UserProfile%\..\Default User\Application Data\Adobe\Flash Player" /y NUL "%UserProfile%\..\Default User\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player"
rd
rd
md "%AppData%\Adobe"
md "%AppData%\Macromedia"
copy
copy
md "%UserProfile%\..\Default User\Application Data\Adobe"
md "%UserProfile%\..\Default User\Application Data\Macromedia"
copy
copy
Btw, i would never PAY to be anonymous. I see it as a Human Right, and we should
never have to pay for that.
Can you think of Internet without using Google's Services?
I didn't realise my Youtube account was sharing my name (username), age and gender publicly.
I discovered I am a female on my youtube acct. No wonder I get so many personal messages from guys.
Reply to That ||
Mostly because while they had no personal info leaks in past
Well, none that we know about.
Reply to That ||
Because of that, most cows can be pretty happy (if they aren't treated badly) for 99% of their life. Not worrying about the future, just enjoying the time they have in the ways they can.
What gives the one dissonant voice the right to say how all the others should live their lives as his view would be the only right one.
Anyone who ever calls other people sheep in a negative way because they have different priorities in life is likely to be a very close minded person. It is unlikely that their opinions are worth the time it takes to listen to them but you kinda have to because those "PEOPLE ARE SHEEP!" guys tend to be very vocal about themselves.
HasSomethingToHideFlag = True;
I've got some news: The government not only knows every place you've been on the internet, they also know the content of all your email and chats. And don't think that SSL will fool them. Your only hope of obfuscating what you're doing on the internet is STRONG encryption.
You should really take a course about computer science some time. You know, a beginner course or two to understand some of the basic concepts that you talk about. Just to make yourself not sound like an idiot. Occasionally visiting some informative websites might also be worth considering.
Actually working in IT (whether it is for the government or for the private sector) would also help a good deal but those would require some knowledge about the subjects... But hey, it's the recession. Now is a pretty good time to go back to school. :)
Just to spare you the trouble of studying things yourself, I can tell you: No, government doesn't have time to break all the "weak" cryptographic connections. Not even relatively close. Nor do they have the interest to do so. And companies sure as hell don't like giving all their data over to the government for no reason. Especially as most of the "all the places in the internet" are outside US borders.
"Can you think of Internet without using Google's Services?"
You are aware that the Internet existed prior to Google's "services"? Really, it wasn't that long ago that Google was just search.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
But at the same tine, the ...
I guess we'll see a fork coming soon.
---
GP was being sardonic. You can't possibly "'not using a company's products and services' in order to prevent them from collecting data." unless you want to become a hermit.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Disclaimer: I used to work for a company specializing in SEO, conversion analysis, etc... I used to block many analytics, ads, etc. before I worked in the field for about a year. After seeing how those statistics are used, I don't do that anymore. (I still block the most annoying, flashing banners, popups, etc... But that's it.)
Why would I do that?
Seriously, people. That data is used to something useful.
You go to a site with too much ads and leave? Analytics data tells the website owner "There is high bounce rate on this page, maybe I should change something?". That combined to low click through rate with ads is a clear sign that those should be removed or changed.
Click through rates on ads also - by themselves - tell either the website owner or the ad provider that you aren't interested in that kind of ads and should be offered something else. And if the rates are poor for everyone, the rates tell "Nobody cares about these ads. Offer something else."
So that data helps make websites better for you and everyone else. Well, you might say "I'll just block the ads, why should I care?". And there are two answers.
If everyone did what you did, a lot of websites you find useful couldn't continue being online. Isn't it better if there are useful, non-annoying ads? Ads actually can be interesting. I've often seen ads for products I might be interested in, about open jobs, etc... I guarantee that somewhere in the universe there is an ad that you could find interesting.
The other answer is that this applies to more than just ads. You visit some site, think that "This is neat" and try to register or perhaps buy something from the store but then encounter something annoying: It asks for information you don't want to provide, for example. Then you leave. Now, if a lot of people do the same and webmasters have access to analytics, they can find that problem and eliminate it. Same applies for UI changes to a website, etc...
Pretty much everything you can do to make a website better for your users is dependant on your access to statistics about their behaviour. That is what they are used for and that is what you are preventing when you block analytics. Trust me, nobody cares to follow your individual statistics among the millions. People only care about bounce rates on specific pages, etc...
Your cell phone provider knows where you are, who you call, what you text, the people you call, where you are travelling, the sites you are surfing, etc. Forget google and start worrying about the real issues.
If you want to do a bit of anonymizing on your google searches you can use http://www.scroogle.org/ or https://ssl.scroogle.org/ . These can be added to your browser search bar (e.g. so Ctrl-K sends off a search).
Note: NOT scroogle.com: that is a NSFW site :-/
To use Dashboard, you cannot remain anonymous.
Occurs to me that you could also use it to learn what the system knows about *other* people...
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
1. Avoid directly using a company's services to protest "the capitalism ahoy" way!
2. Take no steps towards consumer protection regulation
3. Watch as the company utterly ignores the tens of slashdot geeks avoiding their service.
4. Company profits!!!
um, dude, how are you going to monitor the licensees?
I dont not really exist, save as an extension of the GooglePlex.
And I will never die, living forever in the GooglePlex.
You could use No-Script and not whitelist google-analytics.com. Also, while you're at it, get cookie monster and once again, don't enable google.
So in an attempt to have Google know less about me I need to use a utility that will LINK my different accounts into one Dashboard?
I can't even remember the details of the different account I continuously create to use, post,review, etc. Why would I want to link them TOGETHER for Google to know MORE about me!
Google really started to act like Microsoft, they are annoying their own customers and almost proud of it. Privacy organizations should sue them for this joke claiming to show what they know about you. It is just a freaking account control panel trick, nothing else. If it is _really_ what Google knows about a web surfer, their share price is not right and that should be investigated.
Note to Google (same thing I said to MS, Apple etc.): We aren't stupid.
Nobody mentioned Scroogle. Think Scroogle should be mentioned. You can start Scroogling by going to the Scroogle homepage: https://ssl.scroogle.org/ . Note the https: something Google doesn't provide.
Web history appears to be turned off by default. You must have enabled it, or used one of their applications that for some reason enabled it. Mine was empty.
Most cows are kept in a field, milked then slaughtered, and they don't seem to mind. They make little effort to escape their field, look happy while chewing the cud as they are milked, and only in the last few minutes of their lives do they show signs of concern. By then of course, it is too late.
What most people think doesn't matter when one person can see what is happening and appreciates the consequences. It is their view I am interested in.
To you Mad Merlin, I say moo. Keep chewing the cud.
Dude, do you know how long a cow would last in the Serengeti ? Or even in the woods in upstate NY ?
As soon as the lions and tigers and bears caught a sniff of that cow, said cow would be chased down until it either fell from exhaustion or was tackled by fangs and claws in it's neck. Then it would be mercilessly ripped apart while alive, to feed the animals above it in natures food chain.
Said cow might last 2 days in the wild. 2 days of nervous 'freedom' while it looked for food whilst trying to not become food.
So, you're right. A cow in a field full of food and virtually no predators would stay put, happily.
Hell, we humans pretty much do the same.
Even though this cow still ends up being food someday, it has a better life. ( I'm talkin' field raised cattle here, obviously. The pen operations suck. )
With humans, I would venture to say that the cow's death is less dramatic, and probably less painful.
Getting back on the subject,
The point is,
If you aren't living in the wild yourself, then somebody, somewhere, has your history. Your credit history, your employment history, you health history, your shopping history, your web page history, and on and on...
If you use a shopping card, Like Krogers, Marsh, IGA, etc, then you probably get coupons in the mail for just the exact foods that you like to eat and that you normally buy. Your coupon is a thank you for having allowed your grocer to sell your purchasing and eating habits to other firms. Your bank regularly sells your information to brokers, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and anyone else with some cash to pony up for the information. In fact, almost ALL of the companies you've Ever done business with, sells your information in some form or another. This gives them even more income to further enhance their bottom line.
So why are you so paranoid about this company verses all the others ?
btw, this is all Just in case you were unaware of, but might become interested in, this view.
If it has tires or tits, it will give you problems.
I read on one reputable computer magazinesite, and they confirmed to another that I use, that attorneys for MS, Google, etc., argue, surprisingly, that your medical data stored with them is NOT protected by the federal HIPAA or state medical privacy laws. Why not? More verifiable iinfo please.