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Mozilla Exec Urges Switch From Google To Bing
Andorin writes "Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's director of community development, has published a brief blog post in which he recommends that Firefox users move from using Google as their main search engine to Bing, citing privacy issues. Disregarding the existence of alternative search engines such as Ask and Yahoo, Dotzler asserts that Bing's privacy policy is better than Google's. Dotzler explains the recommendation with a quote from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google: 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time...' Ars Technica also covers the story."
The generation growing up today (the facebook generation) will have no concerns for privacy. They'll laugh at your paranoid concerns about privacy. It will be a better world where people are not scared of this new fangled idea of letting others access your information.
Choices, choices.... Do I hand over the care for my personal privacy to Beelzebub or Ba'al?
The Long Now Foundation
Thats the first to receive $1,000,000,-
OTOH, maybe AltaVista's results are still crap compared to Google.
Google search: [Bing]
Even with this, there's still too much of a stigma associated with Microsoft and Bing for many internet users to take them seriously. Leave Bing to the uncaring and the uninformed.
Do you have any idea how long it takes to dig graves for twenty-three oak trees?
A full comparison of alternate search engines instead of recommending just Bing would have been a better statement. He could have lined up Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, etc and compared privacy policies side by side for the people he's speaking too.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Idk, do you really expect any internet service to hold to their stated privacy policy? Yes, they may, or when the feds come a knockin', they might have not and the logs are chock full of stuff. Without a paying customer relationship, it's my understanding that it's pretty hard to have any enforceable reconcilation if they breach their word.
Considering that most browsers have a search bar, it would be nice if the browser could somehow implement anonymizing techniques independent of the specific search engine. Hell, charge money for it as a value-added service to route the search requests through their anonymizing server, which they promise not to log, for the paranoid user. I'd feel a lot better doing that than using some dubious Tor node.
Whoa, that page has some crazy background. Reminds me of something out of the 1990s.
Anyway, before all the conspiracy theorist posts pop up, this looks like it's just a post on his personal blog, which includes posts about his beard and other random things. Even if Mozilla was officially endorsing and getting paid for Bing searches, Google already has the same deal so there's no issue there.
Of course, this could just be a member of the Mozilla community jumping at the first chance to get back at Google for making Chrome... hmm...
I actually applaud Firefox for this change.
What change? They didn't change anything.
Marketing companies shouldn't just fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain.
You know Microsoft's privacy policy isn't all that better. They still associate your search with your name and ip address for 18 months after you searched. 'Fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain' is a bit of a hyperbole, wouldn't you say?
Switch from Google to MS, because of PRIVACY issues?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Anyone who thinks, for even a second, that Microsoft will respect your privacy _more_ than Google is a fool. I'm fine with anyone having an issue with Google's policy's regarding personal data but for anyone to think that Microsoft will be better is simply laughable.
If I had any real reason to switch from Google, it would be all the malware programs that seem to rank high in a great number of Google's search results.
~Mike (Titan_X)
I don't suppose the blog was accompanied by a short video of Asa Dotzler and Steve Balmer making Ducktales-like swan dives from a diving board into a swimming pool filled with cash?
Dear customers. We noticed that it's not healthy to eat heavy doses of arsenic. Please switch to hydrogen cyanide.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Google is taking steps to get more information as possible, and this is bad. But also use that data in a anonymous way, so don't really care that YOU like Pink Flamingos pages. Is probably collecting more information that the guys on Bing can even dream.
But the Bing guys work for Microsoft, Microsoft don't lack the stimulus to take that much information, lack the skill. And have proven that have not problem doing more than we like (and critice). Microsoft will probably share with others your information, and use it for nefarius things.
So, what you want? more information in good hands (Google), but litte information in the wrong hands (Microsoft).
I know what I want.
-Woof woof woof!
Clusty is by far the best search engine. I don't understand why more people are not using it.
Fixed.
Ice Cream has no bones.
A point the article makes is that Microsoft, as a corporation that has dealt heavily with many things outside of just search, is very much grounded in privacy concerns and legal matters related to it. They are likely to uphold their privacy policy very strictly on their internet services.
If there is a substantial difference between Microsoft and Google in the trustworthiness department, you are not going to figure that out by listening to statements from their executive officers.
It's like choosing a car based on the amount of mica they put in the paint.
Sounds like fear of Chrome
I seriously had to stop and read this twice. Apparently hell froze over.
Like Mozilla switching to Bing will ever end well. I can see Ballmer on the edge of the chair (he was about to throw), trying to keep a poker face and not burst out in evil laughter.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
Basically, everyone that downloads the extension would become part of a distributed network. This network would then handle Google queries semi-anonymously. Like Freenet, queries could be passed around within a few nodes, so you wouldn't know if the queries your copy of the plugin was working on were from the next node, or from a node several away. It'd slow things down a little bit, but since you're just passing around queries and results, and not the actual destination content, it wouldn't be too terrible.
I would trust Google more with an AUP that says "We will steal your children and sell them to the Martians" than I do Microsoft with any AUP, privacy policy, et cetera. Remember, Microsoft the company has been convicted of various crimes on repeated occasions. Many people say you can't treat a company as a single entity, but they demand that we do right up until the company is convicted of wrongdoing... I think it's only fair to apply the same standard at all times. It's long past time to invoke the corporate death penalty against Microsoft.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Given how absurdly permissive their stated privacy policies usually are, they had damn well better hold to it.
I mean, it's a company. If they want to claim that there's some sort of legally binding contract that shows up just because I viewed their website, at the bare minimum they ought to be fulfilling their obligations. Does that mean they will? In many cases no, but those sites are guilty of a breach of contract, by a contract they unilaterally imposed.
Hell, charge money for it as a value-added service to route the search requests through their anonymizing server, which they promise not to log, for the paranoid user. I'd feel a lot better doing that than using some dubious Tor node.
The problem with a pay-based anonymizing server is that they have to get money from you somehow. That alone leaves a bit-trail which can be traced by the government, and in many countries the governments are actually mandating that commercial service providers keep logs. So, for the truly paranoid, I don't see how a fee-based anonymizer is superior to Tor. With Tor, if you're willing to use multiple nodes (and accept the resulting huge performance hit) then it seems to me you get better security than using a single commercial anonymizer.
Hell, charge money for it as a value-added service to route the search requests through their anonymizing server, which they promise not to log, for the paranoid user. I'd feel a lot better doing that than using some dubious Tor node.
Great idea. Since I mostly use chrome, i'll go and ask google to run my requests throught an anonymizer before sending them to google.
I actually applaud Firefox for this change. Marketing companies shouldn't just fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain.
I guess for the general public this type of statement makes sense. Most people probably have no fucking clue what Google stores about you and what they plan to store (e.g. Chrome has your browser history travel with you as well as extensions which means they have all that data on you on their servers too). But for the rest of us who know that they are doing this and really don't give a shit but really enjoy the phenomenal search results returned (simply stated: Bing blows goats compared to Google), it's fine.
I thank Mozilla for trying to sway me one way or the other but honestly, I can make up my own mind TYVM--and I'm a privacy freak. Clear your cookies and don't login to get customized search results if you're really that concerned.
It surprises me that when there are discussions about search engine privacy, Cuil never seems to be mentioned. Or at least I do not see it.
On Cuil's privacy page it says:
"When you search with Cuil, we do not keep any personally identifiable information, period. Your search history is your business."
So is there some reason Cuil is not brought up more? Maybe there are resons not to use it that I do not know about. Or perhaps it is just not well known.
i'd be glad to make a switch, but there are some problems i have with bing:
Somehow looking at bing gives me the same feeling as looking at a typical domain-squatting site.
Why can't they just get it right?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
This coming in the same week as Google's Chrome launches extensions? No surprise. There's going to be an exodus of users from FF to Chrome I'm afraid.
Indeed - privacy is possible but not easy (for the average user at least) currently. Until it becomes easy, and obvious, most users will continue to find it all too bothersome to worry about. Now - it's easy to say "that's their lookout" but life gets a fair bit more private for everyone at the point where those who would be snooping on private communications if there is so much that they can't just cherry-pick the stuff that looks suspiciously protected.
-- Gaxx
Yes, I'm sure Google's traffic will nose dive immediately and they'll mend their ways once me(*) and thee switch to Bing.
* Disclaimer: me and thee excludes me.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You've prompted a switch, Mozilla.... /Closing out my tabs while chrome downloads in the background
Bitter Executive is bitter about Chrome.
C++ templates parsing
boost spirit employee example
C++ memberwise assignment
AHO Dragon book on Google Books
x86-64 assembly calling convention on Linux
x86-64 assembly calling convention on Windows 64 is a PITA
the feeding habits of the dinosaur that I saw on the Discovery channel
computer simulations of comet impacts
kinetic energy equations
how do photons work in heat propagation
multithreaded photon calculating heat transfer simulation
how radioactive dating works
how to solve exponential equations
how did they do this with a slide rule
a history of exponents who discovered e
the girl on sprout|the girl on xyz|whatever happened to the girl on northern exposure|
---censored---
This is my sig.
Not sure if it was worth including Yahoo as an alternate since they are going to be powered by Bing eventually. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8174763.stm
And here we see Google falling because they think they're "too big" and "dont-be-evil" to take their users privacy seriously...
I actually applaud Firefox for this change. Marketing companies shouldn't just fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain.
Google certainly doesn't have a great track record for privacy, but is MS any better?
I'm all for discussion and criticism of Schmidt's statement, but I'm not sure I want to punish a company because their CEO was actually honest about their beliefs.
I stole this Sig
..that this is Mozilla trying to diversify their support base? Now that Google have their own browser, maybe Mozilla doesn't like that most of their users use their product exclusively with Google? I think Mozilla is a bit unsure about the future support from Google now that Google have their own browser, and would like at least some of their users to use Bing, so they might get some money from Bing in the future.
Anyone who worries about privacy on the Internet shouldn't be on the Internet. I admire Schmidt for his honesty. I worry more about those who talk about keeping privacy while at the same time profit from it.
I switched to bing a while back. I'd say about 85% of the time, I can find what I'm looking for via bing...without all the viagra/porn/spam.
Every feature you hate somehow leaks your personal data to Google if you aren't careful. Interesting co-incidence eh?
Also does Adobe and Apple really need couple of cents from Google? Adobe Flash which has way bigger market share than Google comes with toolbar option selected by DEFAULT. You know the deal with impossible to change Google search on Safari/OS X.
Marketing companies shouldn't just fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain.
Isn't that their job?
Free Martian Whores!
http://www.ixquick.com/
Self-billed as "the world's most private search engine"...
Eric Schmidt was honest about what their search engine does with privacy data. MS/Ballmer won't say.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I know like my own name, that M$ contacted this guy, and told him a cheque would be sent to an unmarked cayman islands account in his name, when he would write a review stating choose bing not google. I have to say, I am not surprised if this was the case, M$ have been found guilty of such practice in the past, paying for write ups by vip types in the field.
I know google finds what I need, what else could bing offer me...other then more secret downloaded windows validator, then all of a sudden, I can't use my pc anymore, it's prated...remember windows live...???
Stop "thinking" with company images. Look to what they actually do. Please stop this "they aren't evil" BS. Enough really... We got a information monopoly in hand who tries to get every bit of your personal information if you aren't careful.
As they say around these parts, 6 of one, and a half-dozen of the other.
Reply to That ||
If someone like Asa suggests using a Microsoft technology because your company currently looks more evil than "satan himself" (remember?), you should look to mirror and ask what is wrong.
Two items. One, Schmidt's quote was taken out of context. He was referring to "do"-ing a search something you'd rather not be known, because ALL the search engines keep records and ALL of them are subject to subpoena.
Two, "Firefox" isn't making a change - this is one person expressing an opinion. If the organization was that concerned, they'd drop Google as the default browser.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I don't understand why more people are not using it.
I, for one, haven't heard of it 'till you mentioned it.
Reply to That ||
Or you can use CUIL (http://www.cuil.com). It's a great search engine
As they say: Cuil analyzes the Web, not its users
Lousy reference, there. The IRS takes privacy more seriously than just about anybody.
After Richard Nixon misused the agency, Congress slapped the IRS with certain restrictions. To de-politicize the agency, the executive structure was purged of political appointees. All other agencies have a myriad (literally dozens, even at small agencies) of political appointees floating around whose jobs they got because they kissed some politicians ass. The IRS has only two.
There is a "Taxpayer Advocate" office that watches over the agency and is quite effective in getting the word out to Congress and the public when the agency starts being in the least bit abusive. There's a Privacy Office. There's extensive yearly training in on privacy matters. Beyond that, a privacy breach at the IRS gets you hauled away in handcuffs by officers of the Treasury Inspector Generals Office. The union for IRS workers, in fact, complains loud and long that employees are too closely monitored, sometimes being investigated, for example, for unauthorized disclosure of information just because the customer they helped happened to live near them.
If the guy got a bribe, he can report it to the IRS without the slightest worry.
ONE person on the Firefox team made a blog entry. Hardly a major policy statement from Mozilla.
On the issue of google tracking. If you're not logged in, they track you via a cookie. I set Firefox not to keep cookies from google. End of story. Privacy issues averted. I'll continue using google as a search engine, because Bing just really doesn't do as wholistic or as good a job. Full stop.
sudo mount --milk --sugar
I think there's a step involved between "doing something" and "everybody finding it on google", namely "making it available on the Internet".
If there's something you wouldn't like everybody to know, don't brag about it on Facebook, and you should be fine.
Also, it should be clear that Google, by its very nature & size, isn't to trust with any private information.
Why do I want the sidewiki thing, or whatever it's called?
Options >> Tools >> uncheck Sidewiki box
done.
Reply to That ||
If MS could get rid of old fashion thinking, they would be pushing Bing to Mozilla and even Apple (Safari) right now. Of course, you would get a chair to your head if you could dare to propose it to Balmer before getting fired.
Allthough there is a change (it doesn't suggest IE), MS still can't think like a company who ships a search engine. If I were them, I would ship "bing search" to devices down to J2ME dumb ones, detect browser and suggest "click here to use Bing as search engine in Firefox", use the technologies present in the competing browsers...
Anyway, they are MS, they won't do it and Google can keep leeching personal information from people.
Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's director of community development, has published a brief blog post in which he recommends that Firefox users move from using Google as their main search engine to Bing, citing privacy issues.
So instead of punching myself in the teabag, I should stick needles in my eyes? I guess I can see how that is an improvement.
What are the other alternatives? I have a long history of loving Google, but frankly I see where this guy is coming from. But is it really the best answer to switch to Bing? At this point picking between Microsoft and Google is starting to feel like choosing between a republican and a democrat.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Google's has everyone's searches and is taking over DNS now. Microsoft has likely inserted backdoors for the NSA. Undoubtedly open-source developers are recruited by the NSA (and other governments) to implement backdoors in Linux. In the USA the combination of sure money and government strong-arming is just too convincing. How could you say no?
Can we say it is time for a new company to emerge that takes the End User seriously and doesn't stick it to them whenever they can? I am sick and tired of worrying about Google stealing my ideas. From disappearing docs on Google Docs, to strange ads showing up on Google Ads while viewing Gmail (my companies top competitors), to Google Chrome's Browser recording my every move, to my YouTube videos featuring advertisements from my company's competitors, to Google Search recording my every search. Where the hell is it going to end with this company? You do not have my permission to take all of my personal info and stuff it into a database somewhere and then threaten to send it to the American Government if asked for! I don't live in your country and you Google are not abiding my countries laws and not respecting your users globally. I have no guarantees that my information is protected in shape or form and this isn't hearsay, we have a Google Exec telling us they provide a cloud for everyone so if you use the cloud your info is not safe with us. For the average Joes to chatter about Tiger Woods and Paris Hilton all day this isn't a big a deal for them. The odd picture emailed of their kids 3rd b-day party is not really worth worrying about because when hes four he will be posting them on Facebook himself but for everyone else that is involved in things deeper than that they should GET OFF GOOGLE NOW! International Google Boycott for professionals that want to keep their data private, anyone?
Schmidt was warning users about the risks inherit in using ANY search engine "including Google" and that governments can access data kept by search engines in the future. Dotzler's reaction is truly cringe worthy.
He then goes on to say "There is no ambiguity, no "out of context" here." right after COMPLETELY taking the quote out of context. This is ugly.
It's been already said in a somewhat different form here. I made the stupid mistake of trusting MS two times and both times I got screwed badly.
Third time? Don't think so. When push comes to shove I'll switch to some other provider. Bing is something like a women that, should she be the last remaining on the planet, would make me turn gay. (Or man that would turn gays into hetero. Or two other combinations. What ever your preference in wording is.)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Google is at least open minded towards OS.
I will switch to chrome if that happens.
Most of the Mozilla Corporation's profit comes from Google. In 2006 they made 66.8 million dollars, 85% of which was from Google.[Citation given]
And now they're telling people to abandon Google and go with Bing -- which is owned by a competing that would gladly kill Firefox if given the chance.
I really think Dotzler is a bit off the mark here.
Since Mozilla removed the session cookie option, I'm notsure I trust Mozilla.
Mods, how is this flame bait?
I'm all for discussion and criticism of Schmidt's statement, but I'm not sure I want to punish a company because their CEO was actually honest about their beliefs.
What more do you want? Confirmation from Netcraft? These sort of PR slips aren't allowed very often, and for good reason.
If you don't agree with the CEO's attitude, why shouldn't you stop using their services?
I'd rather go by the actions of the company.
In Google's case their actions show they don't respect your privacy, but they're pretty open about their lack of respect.
For MS I honestly don't know a lot about their actions on privacy, but I doubt they'd be any better than Google and I don't want to reward them for hiding their intentions.
I stole this Sig
This post puts words in Mozilla's mouth. While this was a high-profile Mozilla figure (Asa Dotzler), it is his personal blog, so keep in mind it's just what he thinks, not any recommendation on behalf of Mozilla.
In any case, his exact words were, "And here's how you can easily switch Firefox's search from Google to Bing. (Yes, Bing does have a better privacy policy than Google.)" That's not exactly a whole-hearted recommendation; it's saying, "Here's something bad, but this is how you can switch it to something better." And again, of course, it's just his opinion based on the respective privacy policies--but, if someone appeals to the PATRIOT Act like Google was talking about, I'm not convinced it matters either way. (Just because it's not tied to your account doesn't mean they can't figure it out.)
R.Mo
They'll get it right eventually. You just have to give their marketing department time to convince everybody in the new target market that their version of wrong is the new right. They'll get by with a little help from their new friend ;-)
Don't forget to consider this before marking me as a troll and taking the hit at Metamod time: Weblog of Asa Dotzler, community coordinator for Firefox marketing projects.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Unless Microsoft is going to pay Mozilla millions to be the default search engine in Firefox like Google does, he is just pissing in the wind. What exactly are the Mozilla Foundation's sources of funding other than Google?
That's funny, because I'm in the process of switching from Firefox to Chrome. I've used Firefox almost exclusively on Linux, OSX, and Windows for a few years now. But for many months it has gotten more and more sluggish on every machine, routinely locking up for seconds at a time doing who know's what. I'm sick of it. I miss the extensions on Chrome but I do not miss the stutter-step browsing.
Evil is the money of root.
+ google search
+ ssl available
+ no cookies
- no personalization
http://www.scroogle.org/
No, Google does and always has taken user privacy seriously. But the fact is, and Schmidt is being quite frank, here, they don't have the right to deny requests from law enforcement agencies, and as long as that's true, no company will fail to communicate everything you've ever done to the feds whenever they want to know about it.
Look at it this way: would you expect Balmer to point out that giving Microsoft any information about you would ultimately lead to it being in the hands of the Federal government? No, of course not. Microsoft will quite happily hide that fact from you and make you feel more secure. Google will warn you about it up-front, but they ALREADY LOST THAT CASE IN COURT (yep, Google tried to refuse to hand over search histories).
So, you get to ask yourself: who do you want to do business with: the company that warns you about risks to your privacy so that you can moderate your behavior accordingly or the company that tells you that everything is just fine. Schmidt made me uncomfortable, and that's a good thing.
As a Microsoft shill I have a new found respect the maturity shown by the Mozilla foundation and in particular Mr Dotzler.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
So, I've got my search history turned off and deleted in Google (Settings, Dashboard). Is this not the same thing? My *assumption* was that since I did that, no tracking would be involved. Or is it b/c you have to do that and it's not the default setting?
If you run NoScript and AdBlock in Firefox, check it out when you visit MozillaZine.
NoScript: Blocked scripts from: google-analytics.com, statcounter.com.
AdBlock: Blockable items list included a one-pixel image from c.statcounter
A "privacy sky is falling" article published on a web site that uses a far more insidious tracking service from the SAME COMPANY THEY ARE CRITICIZING.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
"You can delete information from Web History using the remove feature, and it will be removed from the service. However, as is common practice in the industry, and as outlined in the Google Privacy Policy, Google maintains a separate logs system for auditing purposes and to help us improve the quality of our services for users. "
Remember the days when Microsoft was "evil" and Google everyone's darling?
;-)
Then Bill Gates contributed $40bn to the world in history's single biggest act of charity, Microsoft's domination looked for a while like it really was slipping, and Google simply became too big.
Google has simply become everybody's competitor.
Example: the Chrome browser competes directly with Mozilla's Firefox. Not that this was the reason for that blog post, of course
Another example: Google is so big that its people don't talk to each other, to the extent that they are building two incompatible operating systems (Android and Chrome OS).
Another example: the publishing industry has set its sights on Google, for the crime of taking away too much of their Ad revenue. They are contemplating de-indexing Google.
So Microsoft, once the "evil empire", is now champion of Liberty. Well, that is good; because they never were that evil, so some redress is in order.
And Bill Gates did contribute $40bn to the world. When Sergei Brin, Larry page and Eric Schmidt do the same with their personal fortunes, we can all go back to normal.
Bottom line: businesses are for-profit affairs. The best restraint on them is competition. We the people should keep Microsoft and Google both on their toes, for our own best interest.
And we should remember that people like Gates, Brin, Schmidt & Page are good good people at heart. They are creative. They contribute. Just like everyone, we need to set them straight from time to time.
I, for one, pay for high-quality Tor exit nodes. :-)
You mean when Microsoft rolled over and handed out private information when the Feds came knocking....
Google's CEO was point out that simple fact that when the government wants information, NO ONE is going to deny them. So your best course of action is not to engage in activities that can get you into trouble because businesses are not going to protect you.
twit!
Some days/weeks ago they implemented a totally white background that fades-in when you move the mouse ... I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone really comment on that yet.
What freaks me out about this is that I no longer see if I'm "signed-in" on Google or not (because I use gmail). I really, really don't like having my searches directly associated with my gmail account (having a signed-in account for searches bound to your mail account is the most evil/brilliant idea in decades! I don't understand how people can side with Google on this one!)
Even if I don't check "stay signed-in" when using Gmail I'm still signed-in in Google when I open it with a different browser in Firefox. I guess if I close all my browsers and then go back it will work (cannot test because I'm currently writing this). Is there a setting to stop this madness? I never verify that I have no gmail account opened somewhere in the background ...
Even though they can probably make all the associations with my real identity and my searches without displaying explicitly that I'm logged-in... it's kindof scary. Like when the ATM machines greet you by name once you enter your card ...
Actually, the feds are the least of my worries. If they want to come over and see what I've been looking at, they're more than welcome to come type stuff in my Mozilla's "awesome bar". Let's just say that if you start with "ana", you'll get "anandtech"... in about the 100'th position in the list, but hey ;)
I'm more concerned with Google basically having a huge mass of Curly, Larry and Moes who seem to have full access to the production data, if they think looking through it will help squeeze 1ms off the search or push a better targetted ad. I remember reading about how someone tracked a user's session through the search, including exactly what they searched for, and the pages on the topic they read on Google Books. That to me opens a far greater possibility of abuse than the feds coming and demanding your data.
The feds need a warrant, for a start, meaning that they had to convince a judge that there is a good reason. Johnny Nerdrage trying to find some dirt on his ex-girlfriend's (*) new boyfriend, or Jack Mole just tying to help his best buddy pick a good employee, don't have any such safeguards.
The feds have rules for what they can use that data for, and what data they can use. If they find out you have some chronic medical condition, they're not exactly going to call your employer and go "guess which of your employees is gonna have a lot of sick days soon!" Some John Doe just looking for some dirt, might not follow anything even remotely similar.
So, yes, I don't care if the feds get my search data or my emaisl with a warrant. But 10,000 nerds browsing and mining it as they see fit, now that gets me a lot more uncomfortable.
(*) ... actually she's just a girl who lived next door and never pulled the blinds before undressing ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Losing mind share with alpha geeks if you are a technology company is always a bad thing. You might not think much of this, but ask yourself who uses Firefox to begin with. And who made Firefox popular by recommending it to their friends and family. Once "computer people" start recommending to their clueless family and friends to stay away from Google, eventually damage will be done. Image and perception matters a lot to an online company.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
One of the stupidest arguments that is made all the time.
"Hey if you got nuthin' to hide you won't mind if we violate your rights!"
I would love to see a privacy war, competition at its finest...
Bing might just get a new user today.
No, marketing's job is to make you want it.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
What search terms are you using that give markedly different results in Bing than Google?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
To mention Bing as a better alternative to Google in this case might not be an improvement at all - sure Bing might currently have a better privacy policy than Google, but certainly must follow the same governmental regulations as long as they are based in USA. What might be much smarter is to start looking for a search engine that is outside of reach for the Patriot Act, meaning looking for a search engine outside of US boarder.
I live in Canada where the Patriot Act does not exist, however, Google and Bing and the other big ones most likely still will hide themselves behind the Patriot Act for information gathering purposes. I would love to know good search engine alternatives existing in Canada or Europe that also got good privacy policies. Or maybe there are ok search engine(s) in Freenet???
Stupid or malicious?
Yes, the privacy policy may be better. But - especially with Microsoft - what is actually happening is a whole lot more important, wouldn't you think?
Now, if history is worth anything, we know how MS plays in markets where it doesn't dominate: Nice on the outside, underhanded on the inside, and ready for the bait-and-switch as soon as they've risen to dominance.
Don't you remember the comments on this very site when the browser of the day was still Netscape and MS was struggling? How many good features and standards compatability they had over Netscape? Look where all that went once they had crushed Netscape. Look how they're slowly turning around to that approach again now that their dominance is threatened.
Make no mistake. MS only ever competes on features, quality or privacy as long as it helps them grow. There's no reason to trust them any further than you can throw the Eifeltower.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Your statement is true. however you miss the point entirely. Yes google would turn over the data and yes microsoft would turn over the data. The fact is that google is the one storing all of this data and microsoft is not. If google was not storing all of this data the government in this example could not force google to turn it over. Not because of "want" but because of "ability". If the government requested it google would simply not have it... and that would be the end of it(more or less)... But since google dose have it they will turn it over.....
> they don't have the right to deny requests from law enforcement agencies
This is true, if the government comes to them while they still have the information or before they gather it. The difference is, Google will keep your information around a lot longer than Microsoft will, and they put it to all kinds of marketing purposes that may be pushing the "don't-be-evil" envelope.
See http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2282232,00.asp
My guitar chord generator.
Every packet your send out goes through multiple intermediate servers. They may or may not log it. You can't control if they do or do not log it. The real server logs on websites are totally separate from the online history view you might see.
There are even laws that say that *have* to log activity for certain periods of time.
sopssa, with his fairly recent UID, is quickly parroting as a Microsoft/anti-open/anti-Google poster child... he was the first to post recently in an anti-Linux fashion and his obvious angst against open source principles in general... a quick look at history is revealing.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1473112&cid=30382128
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1474872&cid=30399306
Two things to consider:
1 - When Bush stated publicly that the federal government should have all search data tied to IP addresses, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft handed it over without any official government mandate or court order. They just volunteered your private information. Google refused.
2 - At the same time several of these issues were coming to a head at once (Bush's statement, Yahoo turning in a Chinese blogger, Google being forced by Brazil to give out details on a child pornography ring on Orkut) Google announced they were changing their policies and anonymizing logs sooner to protect people's privacy. They said their new anonymization policy was better than anyone else out there. I haven't read them all, so I can't say for certain.
So one company has shown they will fight to protect your privacy until they are absolutely forced (Google didn't even hand information over to Brazil when a judge ordered them to do so initially), and they anonymize their logs sooner.
So why in the world is Bing better for privacy?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
funny thing is, I don't have an option to select bing as my default search provider the firefox search bar. So this recommendation isn't very strongly backed by action.
For MS I honestly don't know a lot about their actions on privacy, but I doubt they'd be any better than Google and I don't want to reward them for hiding their intentions.
You don't know about Microsoft's actions on privacy and you have no idea what they say about it. Did you know that both Bing and Google have their (very extensive) privacy policies linked on the bottom of their search pages?
Microsoft have got quite good at listing privacy policies and asking for permission before having their Windows software call back to home base. Generally speaking you can opt out of sending info back to their servers with the obvious exceptions like Genuine Windows Advantage and the annoying exception of Microsoft Security Essentials - where you have to choose either basic or advanced membership of Microsoft SpyNet (which collects info about discovered malware). I'm sure that previously you could opt out of that system.
There are only two problems there.
1. Exactly who is "your generation"? You make it sound like it's some uniform Borg collective, where everyone does the same things and realizes the same things. In reality, for every suburban white kid who grew with Facebook and with doing this or that thing, there'll be at least two who grew with fundamentally different experiences. The guy judging you may not be the guy who grew up with porn, college toga parties, and SW like you did, but some guy who grew up sleeping with his arms crossed out of fear that otherwise he might touch himself accidentally at night and JESUS SEES HIM. And who thinks that SW is the work of the devil because it teaches people a different religion. (As opposed to, of course, those of us who think only the prequels and the wookies are the work of the devil because they ruin the whole setup and moral underpinnings of the original trilogy;)
2. Don't underestimate hypocrisy and group-think. People who grew up doing X, and even people who do X every night, might want to see you hanged, drawn and quartered for doing X too.
Preachers who watch gay porn at night (or in a few cases even got caught actually having gay sex), didn't go, "meh, I did it too, and it doesn't affect my work." They then went to the pullpit and preached that gays are an abomination, and the Lord sent us aids as punishment.
Communities who buy far kinkier porn, asked that some porn producer or sex shop owner be jailed for it. They didn't go, "meh, I watch worse stuff at home and it hasn't affected my work or relationships yet", they went more like, "OMG, lock him up for spreading that sin and corruption."
People who did pot in college, and sometimes a long time after it too, push to have others drug tested and fired if they as much as ever were within a mile of someone smoking pot. Or push for tougher drug laws if they're politicians.
Basically the way people react to X has _very_ little to do with "I did X too and didn't affect me", and a lot more with "do I want to be seen as supporting X, or as the guy who's tough on X?" The same guy who might actually chug more beer in a week than you do in a month, may well fire you for appearing on Facebook or youtube drunk in a pool of your vomit once, because that's the company image he wants, and/or that's the kind of guy he wants to be seen as.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake,
Google knows when you've been bad or good,
So "don't be evil."
Merry Christmas everyone.
--
Toro
Where would Mozilla be without Google today? Answer: right where it's heading at full speed right now.
Last time it was Microsoft's fault that they went down. Now Google is about to take the blame. And it's always Netscape... I mean, Mozilla, that are wronged by some big entity that wants their untimely doom. Poor folks.
The bias and fanboi fanatacism is oozing from these posts like sweat from a pig. Seriously people if your worried about your privacy online then DONT USE ONLINE SERVICES!!!! It couldnt possible be more obvious. An online mail service must retain your mail, for the service to work. A search provider must log searches to provide accurate searches in the first place. So what if they log your IP? Every time you connect to your ISP your IP gets logged, hell it probably gets logged in about 100 different locations before you even get to the website you want. Thats just the nature of the internet. The way I see it is, you cant rely on any company to maintain your privacy. If it really matters that much to you, set up your own email/dns/whatever and run everything yourself, leech of of somebody elses free wifi or something, and basically live off the grid. You can have absolutely no reasonable expectation of total privacy when you are using somebody elses services for free.
You all can mod me down all you want, but somebody has to state the obvious.
...and who listens to some exec when he says, "Use another company because I say so!" and doesn't think for themselves.
There are privacy concerns with Google. Understandable.
There are also privacy concerns with Bing.
Eric Schmidt's quote not only said, "perhaps you shouldn't be doing [bad things]" but also "privacy with search engines in general [is a farce]." This is nothing new! People just want to warhgrhable over it so they have something to talk about during the day. There really is nothing all that new here. Do you think you're not already tracked around the internet in the first place? Thinking anything different would only be fooling yourself.
For MS I honestly don't know a lot about their actions on privacy, but I doubt they'd be any better than Google and I don't want to reward them for hiding their intentions.
You don't know about Microsoft's actions on privacy and you have no idea what they say about it. Did you know that both Bing and Google have their (very extensive) privacy policies linked on the bottom of their search pages?
Microsoft have got quite good at listing privacy policies and asking for permission before having their Windows software call back to home base. Generally speaking you can opt out of sending info back to their servers with the obvious exceptions like Genuine Windows Advantage and the annoying exception of Microsoft Security Essentials - where you have to choose either basic or advanced membership of Microsoft SpyNet (which collects info about discovered malware). I'm sure that previously you could opt out of that system.
I've read some of Google's privacy policies, as for MS I haven't read their policies and don't use any of their products.
Using Windows as the basis for comparison isn't the best thing since it's a different business model. Google's ad based model relies on a certain lack of privacy, and unless MS plans to lose money on Bing they'll have to look at the same trade-offs.
I stole this Sig
If they have concerns about privacy, why not switch to ixquick or scroogle?
https://www.us.ixquick.com/eng
https://ssl.scroogle.org/
Marketing companies shouldn't just fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain.
If they didn't try to, they wouldn't be marketing companies. The smart man covers his ass.
Why do you trust it?
Dilbert RSS feed
I use scroogle.org .. it's a proxy between me and google.. and they claim to erase all logs within 48 hours. (I understand it's just a claim.. still it's another entity sitting between me and google). I've always hated the way when search results in google make you think they go straight to link (the hover URL is the site abc.com), but when you click on the item, some javascript converts it to google.com?redirectsomething=abc.com. That is just plain devious in my eyes.
You can also find the search addon at http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html?name=scroogle which adds scroogle as default to the firefox search bar.
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Or not use their service. I resent having to "make sure" I'm not doing anything illegal. Small comfort the guy I read about just yesterday who copied some pr0n (and like it or not, pornography is legal, at least here) from some site and mixed in with the media was some kiddie pr0n. Through the machinations of how he got fingered and all I won't get into, but of course his life was ruined. In *THIS* country, I guess innocent until proven guilty is just some kind of worthless slogan. I'm sorry but I have a problem with the guilty until you prove yourself innocent philosophy. Or put it another way, I like my privacy, I shouldn't need to bother with the vagaries of legality or illegality unless I'm doing something I know to be illegal (not wrong, just illegal, there is a distinction, and not its not always clear which is which, wnd the problem with your philosophy.) Either we live in a free society or we don't, which is it?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Ixquick is a search engine whose MAIN purpose is to protect your privacy. http://ixquick.com/
Schmidt is right. Anonymity is not an unmitigated good. It can be used to protect legitimate expression from oppressive authority, true. It can also be used to cover things like character assassination and rumor mongering.
The problem is such statements can be self-serving. It's easy to choose between "Good" and "Evil". The hard situations are choosing between greater and lesser goods, or greater and lesser evils.
It's all to easy to cherry pick examples of how anonymity is good, or evil if that suits what you'd like to do. Morality is considering the full range of consequences of one's actions, both the intended and unintended consequences. Where you *want* to do something, that is the time to be most skeptical of the ethical arguments in its favor.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I find that Bing falls for marketing scams and SEO much worse than Firefox. Random download sites and outright scams show up in Bing first with lots of searches, while Google is much more successful at ignoring marketingese and just giving you the site you want.
For example, searching for Wii homebrew gives:
Google:
Bing:
So basically, people looking for Wii homebrew and using Bing are at a much higher chance of getting scammed. Seriously, Wiibrew isn't even in the first page of results.
Going the other way, searching for the name of the scam (homebreware) yields (antiscam = site that explains that homebreware is a scam): ...
Google: antiscam, antiscam, antiscam, scam, scam, antiscam, scam,
Bing: scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam...
Someone using Bing and doublechecking on what they're about to buy isn't going to remotely realize they're being scammed.
"...They are likely..."? I believe that a closer reading of TFA would show that m$'s privacy was considered, not yours. I believe that U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson could debate this with you on point. m$ has gone to extreme lengths to disenfranchise itself with its roots; Windows 3.1 vs. OS/2 was a long time ago.
After the passing of the Patriot Act, I heavily invested in companies that made soft comfortable office chairs that sold to Law Enforcement; it was an excellent decision.
And by Firefox I meant Google of course. That'll teach me to actually read my preview text, not just look for formatting screwups.
Anyone who worries about privacy on the Internet shouldn't be on the Internet. I admire Schmidt for his honesty. I worry more about those who talk about keeping privacy while at the same time profit from it.
Schmidt blacklisted CNET for publishing information about him found through Google searches. He wants to keep his own privacy while profiting from diminishing yours.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why recommend people go into the jaws of likely an even more untrustable giant corporation? Why not use a search engine actually dedicated to privacy, like ixquick? See: http://www.ixquick.com/eng/protect-privacy.html
And yes, I am outraged.
Get a life. Everything that's going on in the world, and THIS outrages you? Either you need to get some perspective, or you spend most of your time outraged (and doing nothing about it).
Why don't we just use an add-on to the browser that keeps making random requests to these search engines? this should work so that our manual searches display the stuff we want, while the rest of the traffic is meant to make all searches look random
Stop giving facts, no one cares about them.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Companies like Google may be legally required to retain logging data. It may not be by their own choice alone that they do it.
But I'm also sure the company will also try to squeeze any advantage they can get out of the data for themselves. In this regard, I find Schmidt's apparent lack of respect for users' privacy rather concerning. It may be that everyone knows governments will have access to the data, and that in that sense you perhaps shouldn't do (without some kind of external anonymization) what you don't want them to know, but Schmidt's statement also suggests that Google itself will be willing to do just about anything they can with your data (within the boundaries of law), and particularly that he thinks it's normal and acceptable for everybody else as well to gather all the data about you that they want and retain it for any purposes they see fit.
Google of course uses the data also to its users' benefit to some extent (improving search results), but certainly not all companies in all fields do. Think about insurance companies, for instance, where the benefit of the company and the customer are much more clearly at odds with each other (the optimal point where the customer pays the most and receives the least is pretty much just probability and statistics, and the companies use all available information to determine that optimal setting). Will Google eventually come to cooperate with them? "Oh, but you searched for this and that... it puts you in a risk group for foobar, so we can't give you anything."
Yes, I know that kind of thing is probably illegal. However, laws do change and when the data is out there and there's clearly the willingness to use it for anything (and the companies don't seem to need to worry that customers will leave them because of it), it almost becomes a matter of lobbying. And that's just an example -- the dynamics with that kind of a mineable mass of data are something that we can't even predict in the long run. We don't know who's going to want to use it and for what.
That makers the lack of respect for privacy more disturbing than stating the fact that the government is likely to get their hands on data if they want to.
You're the first person to ever take me up on trying to prove a difference in search result quality rather than just saying how rubbish Bing is. So kudos for that.
However, there's something very wrong here. Your Bing results don't match up with what I get at all. Here . As you can see, the first couple of links in Bing are offers to buy a Wii on Amazon, but that's just the different location of ads in Bing v. Goodle and easily distinguishable. In the links proper, I see the wiibrew.org Main page that you said was the best result, immediately followed by the Wikipedia page which you said was the second result. I see no sign of the Spanish and German "scam" sites.
So we have a few possibilities. One is that you are getting different search results, perhaps due to personal settings or being located in a different country. Another is that you are making things up and relying on Slashdot's tendency to believe anything it reads. For politeness sake, and because you sound rational, I'd prefer not to suggest this possibility. Thirdly, MS Bing admins are watching the story on Slashdot and updating things super fast.
I suppose the last is possible, do you want to try refreshing? Failing that, what country are you in and do you have any particular preferences set for Bing? There has to be a reason why we get different search results.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
ASA is doing this because he is worried about Chrome. Sadly, he is not thinking. MS has a long history similar to a neo-con; says one thing, but does the opposite. I have little doubt that MS's written policy has nothing to do with their active policy.
If the organization was that concerned, they'd drop Google as the default browser.
Unless they've signed a contract.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
So use Google and you know that your search information would be given to the government if they have a legitimate request
Or use Bing where Microsoft probably would, going from their past record where they have, but state they wouldn't ?
At least with Google you know where you stand ....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Your statement is true. however you miss the point entirely. Yes google would turn over the data and yes microsoft would turn over the data. The fact is that google is the one storing all of this data and microsoft is not.
If you believe that, then I welcome you to get in bed with Microsoft. I look at their track record and that of Yahoo! (the Chinese dissident's worst nightmare) and decide that I'm not interested in trusting either organization. Google's crime thus far has been in retaining data. Microsoft's has been in abusing every business and end-user relationship they've ever entered into.
To make it painfully clear...
Marketing's job is to make you want to be fucked in the ass. It's not their job to actually fuck you in the ass, but you should want to be fucked in the ass by the time their done with you.
So do you want your ass Googled or Binged?
I want this account deleted.
When you look at it, this is a PERFECT way to mine data...give people a way to store and move data FOR FREE, and they will. You tell them that you will mine and retain that data, but most (99.9999999999%) never read the EULA or TOS docs and don't care. But what the NSA, er Google is doing is slowly building up Big Brother. With automatic facial recognition now working with Picasa and Google where (take a cellphone picture of a thing, like a bridge, and submit it to a Google search and it will identify the site and return info on it, while tracking that you were there!), soon your every move and relationship will be known by BB.
When you look at it, there is NO WAY that Google could be generating the revenue they claim just from 50-cent click ads. I so rarely select one so there must either be some people out there who are madly clicking on all these ads in life, or it is a scam to cover the billions of dollars poured in to this company by the NSA as a way to know all, see all and be everywhere. Don't do it too fast, or you'll raise suspicions, but keep on marching forward. The NSA has always worked its best black ops when run under the cover of legitimate business.
you miss the point entirely. Yes google would turn over the data and yes microsoft would turn over the data. The fact is that google is the one storing all of this data and microsoft is not.
.... second take on a reply. I, like you and many other readers didn't actually RTFA, nor did we read the terms that it linked to. The FA is simply wrong.
Here's what Microsoft says:
When you conduct a search, Microsoft will collect the search terms you provide, along with your IP address, the unique identifiers contained in the cookies, the time and date of your search, and your browser configuration. You can use your browser settings to remove or block cookies on your computer. ...
Finally, as described in the Display of Advertising section of the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement, we may use search query data for the purpose of personalizing the ads we display to you as you use our services. The search terms you enter in Search are categorized and certain user segments are inferred based on those terms. For example, if you search on terms associated with sports, we may associate a “sports segment” with the unique identifier contained in your cookie, and you will then be more likely to see ads related to sports.
We store our Search service search terms (and the cookie IDs associated with search terms) separately from any account information that directly identifies the user, such as name, e-mail address, or phone numbers. Further, we have built-in technological and procedural safeguards designed to prevent the unauthorized correlation of this data. We take additional steps to protect the privacy of stored search information by removing the entirety of the IP address, cookies and other cross session identifiers, after 18 months. ...
Using the search terms you enter and the results you click on, Search History provides an easy way to revisit the sites and searches you've used before. You may remove your search history from appearing on the site by following the steps provided here Removing your history removes it from the Search History service and prevents that history from being displayed on the site, but does not delete information from our standard search logs, which are retained and anonymized as described above.
So, please note that Microsoft will store your data. They'll store it in pretty much the same way Google stores it, allow you to "opt out" just about as much as Google will, and in the end, when the Feds come knocking, all of it will be traced back to you by IP address (note they never suggest that they throw that away, just your account name) just like Google.
Where exactly is this difference we're supposed to be spotting?
Once again, as Google rightly pointed out: if you want to keep something secret, don't tell the Internet about it.
You want search privacy? Try using Ixquick.com - great results that rival Google and ultimate privacy as it is located in a country that actually respects privacy and has no Patriot Act.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
... after you searched. 'Fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain' ...
Wow, the period in that sentence is really important.
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
wow that's scary - pretty much what i suspected google's postition on privacy was, but to hear it out loud is amazing nonetheless. i've a feeling he's gonna regret that comment but its good to know where we stand.
for the last few years i've been using http://www.scroogle.org/scraper.html and would recommend it to anyone.
i've been accused of tilting at windmills in the past, but i guess i can live with that, especially now that he's made his position quite clear.
This is where is nice to have companies like rsync.net who have a nice philosphy. Be sure to check out their warrant canary.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
it would be nice if the browser could somehow implement anonymizing techniques independent of the specific search engine
Like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2275 ?
It's not the perfect solution because of the speed, but...
"Stop giving facts without citations, no one cares about them."
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
"When Bush stated publicly that the federal government should have all search data tied to IP addresses, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft handed it over without any official government mandate or court order"
Source?
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
i'll just stand here, and that envelope full of money can just "fall" into my pocket, thank you very much...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Someone needs to check this guy's bank statement - because they ONLY way I would recommend -switching- to a Microsoft product, is if I were getting paid for it....
And you make the naive assumption that this information is not now, nor ever will be kept by Bing. Based on how I know how marketing, production and sales talk to one another, I guarantee it's being kept, or rather "Not purged as per policy."
So do you want your ass Googled or Binged?
That's disturbing. It brings me the mental image of seeing all Goatse images in my Google and Bing search results.
Opps, shouldn't have said it...
Wow - so you think privacy only applies to people you like? Or people not being accused of crimes you detest?
I agree that child pornographers are scum. I certainly approve of legal action against such despicable low-lifes. But privacy applies to everyone under the law otherwise child pornography becomes a convenient weapon to level against your enemy without any care for justice.
After being in this industry since the 80's I don't believe in "Internet Privacy". I also have serious doubts in PC privacy if you are even hooked up to a network or the internet. It may go against the grain here, but I believe if you are on the web, you better be ready for all the data on your pc to be fully visible to someone somewhere. Imho, the only secure data is the data sitting on the pc in the corner not connected to the network.
We don't.
I need a license to get married and a license to open a business. I need a license to drive on the roads I pay for and a license for my dog to keep his nuts in my county. I need a license for my gun and a license for my trailer. The list goes on. Free society? Where?
And anyone who really believes they live in a free society, please let me know so I can either remind you that you're a naive asshat or start working on expatriating if it turns out you do, indeed, know your ass from a hole in the ground.
Fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain' is a bit of a hyperbole, wouldn't you say?
Agreed, other people's asses don't enter into the equation until someone points out that their rump is exposed.
Does this sig remind you of Agatha Christie?
The thing is, when you get older you will realize that there is only so much opportunity in the world and only so much of your time left to take advantage of it. When people start to compete over those opportunities, "irrelevant" details come into play.
ABLE TO GET THE JOB DONE is not enough. We have 10% unemployment! There is a surplus of people who able to get the vast majority of jobs done.
You act like your generation is going to abolish prudishness and hypocrisy. Good luck with that.
informationweek.com...
searchenginewatch.com
Yeah... it happened.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Because they're now in direct competition, MS should never be an alternative when they already hold a virtual monopoly in Desktop OS software and also have significant marketshare in pretty much everything else.
Handing MS a monopoly in search is asking for trouble.
This is a problem with "Privacy Policies" in the US.
They are weak, and kept that way by lobbyists lobbying congress.
Witness that you get by US mail a multiple page fine print privacy policy from each of your banks, credit card companies, etc. with the requirement that if you don't want them to essentially use your information as they like you have to take steps to opt-out, usually by mailing a letter or calling on the phone.
How can anyone be expected to take affirmative steps to opt out of 15 or 20 privacy policies?
Whereas the way it should be is you should have privacy unless you opt out of that.
I think it's essentially like that in the EU with the EU privacy practices. Anyone who can elaborate and compare the US with the EU in this area please jump in.
If the US were to establish laws requiring privacy rather that requiring essentially none, things would be better for us all.
.
Eh? I have nothing against open source. In fact I maintain linux servers on my daily job every day and think they're a lot better suited for the job than MS servers. But I do see and acknowledge both Windows and Linux problems and comment upon those - after all, that's what is going to fix the issues, not ignoring them and stamping "anti-open" on everyone that points out flaws in Linux.
Everything that aside, what does this has to do with Google? While Google does provide software open sourced for people while it's within their business goal, they're far from true open source culture. Just try to get any of their web services backends and you see why.
Or use scroogle.org which proxies your google searches so they have no idea whom you are.
Or startpage.com / ixquick.com which meta searches multiple search facilities and keeps no private information.
http://startpage.com/eng/protect-privacy.html
Startpage is powered by Ixquick. The only search engine that does not record your IP address. Your privacy is under attack ! Every time you use a regular search engine, your search data are recorded. Your search terms, the time of your visit, the links you choose, your IP address and your User ID cookies all get stored in a database. The identity profiles that can be constructed from this cloud of information represent modern day gold for marketers. But government officials, hackers and even criminals also have an interest in getting their hands on your personal search data. And sooner or later they will...
.
Possible fraud? Be VERY careful about such statements from anyone connected with the Mozilla Foundation. The foundation has been getting more than $68,000,000 each year to make Google the default search engine in Firefox. See this article, for example: Google Deal Produces 91% of Mozilla's Revenue.
Google has said it will stop paying that money, eventually. Or maybe Microsoft has offered more. Any statements from anyone at Mozilla about search engines must be considered to be possibly about money.
Eric Schmidt's choice of words showed an amazing lack of social awareness. However, remember that he also has a point. The U.S. government has decided it can force executives to give information, and can also force them to keep silent about giving that information. The U.S. government calling the law the "Patriot Act" was an attempt to intimidate by implying that someone who is against the complete loss of privacy in the U.S. is not a patriot. That's not correct, of course.
Maybe the underlying point of Mr. Schmidt's statement was that the U.S. government has been forcing Google to help conduct surveillance, and he feels uncomfortable about that. However, it was a foolish choice of words.
Umm you're saying Google Chrome keeps a record of all the sites you visit? Do you have anything to back that up? It's really scary if it's true.
---linuxrocks123
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Mods, how is this flame bait?
duh anything positive to m$ is flamebait
What is also right as to remind everybody with whom we are dealing here.
M$' "embrace and extend" (and extinguish) strategy is probably worst kept secret ever. If they would start taking competition with Google more seriously, I think user's privacy would end up in even greater jeopardy.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Guess what. I think I left Firefox back in the dust when I jumped onto the Google Chrome bandwagon.
Responding to a Subpoena is not "volunteering".
There is not a doubt in my mind that Asa Dotzler just had his entire holiday season paid for by Microsoft. In regards to privacy - Google is going to continue doing a great job of aggregating all of our information and there's nothing that's going to stop them... Oh and Microsoft - going to run into a cash flow problem in about another ~10 years - the Gates/XP era bank account won't continue to support this blitzkrieg of commercial endorsements for technology that is under performing and can be replaced by something that's free...
Either we live in a free society or we don't, which is it?
No, no, don't be silly. Freedom isn't binary, it's a sliding scale. Societies can be more or less free. There is no such thing as perfect freedom or perfect slavery.
I sense a disturbance in the force.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
The only joke that could be considered any worse is "Homeland Security". You have to be quite the fool to fall for any of it.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Want getting fucked in the ass? Isn't that like voting for Sarah Palin?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I checked out the link you sent. The bing results are almost identical to google, except for having some video results first. Not like that is a bad thing. I didn't see any of the scam links you mentioned at a quick glance.
No doubt the privacy concerns are real, although I honestly don't know how bad MS will get with data mining. I suspect this statement from Mozilla was motivated by Google becoming a viable competitor in the browser market. Making this statement certainly attempts to sow the seeds of doubt about Google invading your privacy.
Responding to a Subpoena is not "volunteering".
Quite right, but while that fact makes Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft look less bad in that situation, it makes Google look better. From one of the cited articles:
"Google is not a party to this lawsuit and their demand for information overreaches," Nicole Wong, Google associate general counsel, said in a statement. "We had lengthy discussions with them to try to resolve this, but were not able to and we intend to resist their motion vigorously."
I'd say fighting a government subpoena issued on dubious grounds is a lot more respectable than simply not volunteering information.
Or use scroogle.org which proxies your google searches
You might at least warn people this site is NSFW. It's an adult movies serach engine
It's probably regional targeting. I suspect Bing is a lot better in America. I'm in Spain, which explains the Spanish result and to some extent explains the German results (though they're terribly useless: even though English literacy levels are pretty mediocre around here, German is definitely worse off).
Here's a screenshot for the paranoid.
However, I did miss something: my Google settings were configured to an English UI, which I've noticed changes the targeting of the results (said targeting exists even if you're not using any of the "show me results in such and such language" options). The updated Google results for the default (Spanish) targeting are:
"Wii homebrew":
Clearly more emphasis on Spanish results, but the good English results are still there and there are no random results in other languages that happen to be spoken in other parts of the continent. No scams either.
"Homebreware" results: two "did you mean 'homebrew'" results, followed by antiscam, spanish-antiscam, antiscam, video:[antiscam, scam, scam, scam (scammers love videos)], antiscam, unrelated, scam, ...
Still primarily antiscam results (lots of scam videos because not many make videos about how these products are a scam).
I believe that at least for Google you can replicate these results by simply changing your UI language to Spanish (or adding hl=es to the URL), and maybe try using google.es. I don't know whether there's an equivalent for Bing.
That's just the fucking point... there is no such service that won't be "evil" should the feds come a knocking. You might as well just use the one that works.
This.
why in the world is Bing better for privacy?
My guess is that Mozilla is looking for new sources of funding now that Google has released Chrome.
From Bing's privacy policy:
We take additional steps to protect the privacy of stored search information by
__removing the entirety of the IP address__,
__cookies__ and
__other cross session identifiers__ , after 18 months.
I like that a LOT more than randomizing the C class and keeping everything else forever, even if it's 18 months in the future.
I can't even find the word "anonymize" in Google's new privacy policy.
If you can't mod them join them.
Would Microsoft fund Mozilla? Initially I want to say no, but I think Ballmer would do anything to spite Google.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Notice how there were no problems with google until they came out with chrome?
Google refused.
Translation: Google put on a believable show. They're in no position to fight anybody. Only to pay them off.
So one company has shown they will fight to protect your privacy until they are absolutely forced (Google didn't even hand information over to Brazil when a judge ordered them to do so initially), and they anonymize their logs sooner.
Yeah, and my unicorn shits gold ingots.
It is impossible to verify what they keep on some servers down in the basement. A "privacy policy" is completely religious in nature. It works on pure faith on our part.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The way to do anonymous browsing online is simple. Just do automated queries for random lists of keywords all the time. That way, even if they do have your data it won't be useful.
or else!
Except when the records are seized by the govenrment, used in court, and then become public record. Then it is suddenly quite transparent what their policies are.
And amazingly enough, the Orkut case showed their log anonymization policy was exactly what they claimed to be.
You're insisting that Google is lying. You seem so certain. Surely you have some proof. Show me that Google has lied on a major policy even once.
Google's entire business model is based on giving away services to end users for free, establishing trust, and mining data so they can target ads. If Google violated their policies and lost people's trust, their entire business model would be ruined.
Please show me evidence that a company with the track record and history of Google would go against their company creedo of "Don't Be Evil" to senselessly be both evil, and stupid, risking their fortune and business model.
Why in the world would do they do such a thing?
Your assertations are asinine at best.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Right now I'll settle for some freedom. I don't feel like I have that now when I have to pay extra to keep the big three credit reporting agencies on top of keeping my information private.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
And how do you know that Google will keep your information a lot longer than Microsoft will? I've heard nothing to the contrary yet, and I'd assume that anything held in either engine can theoretically be held "forever".
Not http://scroogle.org/
That is an anonymous proxy for google.
You must be thinking of something else.
http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm
no cookies | no search-term records | access log deleted within 48 hours
.
Call me old fashioned but after figuring Apple's stance against input managers (most of them) and knowing how they really don't care about things plugging into their apps (they never test), I gave up trying to "hack" Safari by any reason. There is one, single input manager in my OS and it is 1 Password. I keep it since it is professionally managed, updated, tested etc. I am not saying "input managers" are evil like some trolls do. I think it is a great technology which is becoming victim of abusers and the wrong way it was implemented.
Another option is hacking the "resource" of Safari so it will point to different URL while searching. I guess JWZ did it once. Sadly, Leopard/Post Leopard Safari is very strictly signed (including resources/icons) and Apple's firewall is a kind of black box which hates a signed application becoming unsigned.
I hate the idea of paying to OS X, Apple devices coming with it and not having any other option than Google on default browser of OS X which I also finance by using Apple OS/Products. Windows/iPhone Safari coming with Yahoo option adds more to the issue. Why does Windows users have choice and we don't? Why does Apple try to make money with that engine while MS at least provides some sort of "wizard" to make your own choices, even a http mail service?
I personally use Opera which is a tiny company compared to anything and they happily provide the option to change search engine while their only income is from Google/Yahoo. In fact, browser could be free thanks to those deals. They provide the option, Apple, a multi billion gigantic company doesn't. That is the issue.
ps: If you like Webkit engine, Omniweb is also free and lots of ideas on Safari 4 comes from it in fact.
I'm not sure he would, but it's not hard for me to imagine Mozilla courting Microsoft.
No one mentioned http://ixquick.com/ as an alternative from there page : Ixquick Protects Your Privacy ! The only search engine that does not record your IP address. http://ixquick.com/eng/protect-privacy.html running mozilla recommends bing as a search brings up http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/12/11/mozilla-and-firefox-veteran-citing-ceo-eric-schmidts-latest-ou/ as the first hit and this Slashdot story a the fourth hit .
Google have also been getting very aggressive lately about algorithmically delisting sites that fail some minor "spam" metric or other, which, according to many of the "SEO" types discussing the subject*, may include splogged copies of your content hosted in obscure countries and *incoming* links from suspect sites. I found just how rampant this is becoming only when the algorithm decided I was a spammer too. From what I can now tell it was a simple misclassification, and at the time of this writing, the site appears to be indexed again (with throwing a couple 'NOINDEX's around on the pages that confused them), but it did give me a firsthand taste of how easily they are now throwing babies out with the bathwater, and how many other legitimate sites I may be missing out on by using Google. I've since changed away from Google for most of my search needs.
More details, for anyone who finds themselves in the same situation:
First off, the preferred method of getting a classification issue looked into by a live human seems to be knowing someone who is Facebook friends with Matt Cutts. Otherwise, try for a media frenzy (if you're suitably popular or controversial), or don't waste your time.
From what I can now tell (or rather guess), it tripped on a detailed dossier we published of a back-in-the-day malware, which included a full list of URLS and keywords that it triggered on. This being the usual popup-spawning unkillable background process, you can probably guess the kinds of sites and keywords it triggered on (or just read the 'Sections' page). Some while after the site was delisted, an automated "we're removing your site" message showed up in the Google Webmaster Tools listing a sampling of the keywords on that page and suggesting it was placed there by an exploit.
A reasonably popular site (it's been slashdotted a few times), together with one of the oldest continuously-running malware help forums in existence, silently delisted from Google for ONE FILE. Legitimate, at that.
* "SEO" = likely banned for more legitimate reasons, although OTOH, determining how Google's ranking algorithms work is their fulltime job.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Whups. Looks like I typed scroogle.com which is an adult search engine. My mistake.
I really remember IE always had that "Wizard", way before Opera ASA heroically (no sarcasm) sued them. It must be a pro-active move but regardless, it exists.
The subpoena was illegal. Their lawyers undoubtedly knew that it was so. The companies decided that complying with an illegal act by the US government was preferable to standing up for their customers. Volunteering might be too strong a word, brown-nosing isn't. It's up to their customers to show that this choice was wrong, business-wise, by condemning their actions whenever it comes up. Microsoft and Yahoo have never cared about the privacy of their customers as their actions show. Google has.
Yes, you're right it's all about trust. And you shouldn't trust them any more than anybody else.. because of the public record you just mentioned. And you still don't know what else they haven't revealed. And unless they tell you, you never will, no matter what press release you see from them. As for their business model, it is an advertising platform, nothing else. All the other crap is a means to that end. They don't need our trust. They need the advertisers. So keep the faith. I'll be blocking their analytics and other data mining operations the best I can. I feel no obligation to prove anything. They have to prove their innocence, just like any other authority.
As for your assertions, they're naive at best.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Good point
Yea, I know about the fundamental flaws of what I call "old-style" PR. Do you like "interviews" that just broadcast a message?
Google is just being open about what they collect. Do you really think MS would admit that? Given the choice of trust between MS and Google, I'll take Google any day.
I think your comments back up what I'm saying, not show its silly.
Iran and healthcare are huge issues which impact the daily lives of a lot of people in a significant way. Blizzard and what someone at Mozilla said... not so much.
At any rate everyone I'm sure has limited time and energy to expend on being outraged. Given that, I think the OP should be applying some perspective, as should you.