How Do I Keep My Privacy While Using Google?

hubert.lepicki writes "I use Google all the time. I keep two GMail tabs open when I'm online (one is private, another is a corporate account), I use Google search, and recently I switched to the Chromium browser. Google's services are fast, easy to use and usually reliable. At the same time, I know Google is tracking everything I do; I can see it in search results or their ads on web pages, which tend to match my interests. After the recent post by Mozilla's community director suggesting Bing has a better privacy policy (a response to questionable comments from Google CEO Eric Schmidt), I started to... 'google' ways of keeping my private data safe while browsing and using Google services. The results weren't very helpful, so I ask you, Slashdotters: how do I stay anonymous to Google while using their services?"

Comments

Re:You don't

[Scrameustache]

They arn't publishing your search history in the newspaper ..

They are keeping it, and sharing it with secretive agencies. You may think you have nothing to hide, but you don't know which way the political wind will blow in the future. Maybe you'll be a dissident to those agencies later on...

Re:You don't

[bonch]

Seriously.. despite all the controversy it has stirred up.. if you don't have anything to hide.. who cares

Welcome to the new Slashdot, where everything Google does is great, and only people with something to hide would care about privacy.

Re:What's the big deal?

[bonch]

As long as Google isn't selling my financial data to unscrupulous persons and having me get billed all kinds of money for things I don't want, or creating a dossier on all the weird shit I've searched for and forwarding it to my boss, what's the big deal?

My, my. Slashdot sure has changed.

If you let it slide that a company tracks everything you do, that then becomes the norm, and you no longer have any privacy anywhere. The opportunities for exploitation of this data are too numerous to list. You don't know whether or not Google is selling your data to unscrupulous persons, and with a CEO who says only wrongdoers have something to worry about when it comes to privacy, chances are that advertisers know all about you at this point.

What *does* freak me out is how my credit card company can ask me to confirm my height and weight when I talk to them on the phone, and when I ask them how the f**k they found out how much I weigh, they tell me that by law they're allowed to download all the information from the Department of Transit and so they know everything that's on my drivers license. THAT's the kind of stuff that I find extremely scary, and that's the kind of thing you can't do anything at all to prevent other than living in a shack in the mountains somewhere.

Let me get this straight. It's okay for a company to index all your information so that advertisers know everything you do, but it's "scary" when a credit card company does a good thing and uses info on your driver's license as a security confirmation over the phone? Are you for real?

Re:You don't

[selven]

only people with something to hide would care about privacy

An entirely correct position. The place where the argument breaks down is that there's nothing wrong with having something to hide. For example, I would very much prefer it if my Slashdot password remains a secret, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Re:You don't

[TubeSteak]

Welcome to the new Slashdot, where everything Google does is great, and only people with something to hide would care about privacy.

For people who don't 'get it', compare the situation to getting frisked by the police.
The principle is exactly the same, but the practical difference is that Google's invasion of privacy
causes you no inconvienence... which somehow makes it okay. Out of sight, out of mind.

Re:You don't

[causality]

They arn't publishing your search history in the newspaper ..

They are keeping it, and sharing it with secretive agencies. You may think you have nothing to hide, but you don't know which way the political wind will blow in the future. Maybe you'll be a dissident to those agencies later on...

Anyone who has studied history and actually learned from it would come to the same conclusion. I'm amazed that there is anything resembling controversy over this.

Re:Ideas

[ScrewMaster]

I don't know about you guys, but if they decided to shut down my account it would be pretty devastating - I backup a lot of information and important e-mails only on gmail.

Well, that's your problem right there. No online service should be treated as a backup system, nor should you allow yourself to become totally dependent upon it. Period. Store your stuff on your own equipment, and burn it to a disc now and then if it's that important. I don't trust Google or any other corporation that offers free services to be there tomorrow: remember, anything free is worth exactly what you paid for it. Take steps to preserve your data: that's your responsibility, not Google's.