Slashdot Mirror
Anti-Google Video Runs In Times Square
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Consumer Watchdog is running a 540-square-foot video billboard advertisement in Times Square, New York that shows Google CEO Eric Schmidt as an ingratiating ice cream truck driver who knows everything about everyone and happily offers free ice cream in exchange for full body scans. The group says its goal is to push Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to create a Do Not Track Me list, similar to the Do Not Call list developed to prevent telemarketers from aggressively calling consumers. 'Do you want Google or any other online company looking over your shoulder and tracking your every move online just so it can increase its profits?' writes the group's president, Jamie Curtis, at the group's web site. 'Consumers have a right to privacy. They should control how their information is gathered and what it is used for.' The FTC's consumer affairs group had no comment on whether the agency is considering creating a Do Not Track Me list."
I'd take free ice cream in exhange for a full body scan.
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
They'll have to be sure to remember who I am wherever I go, right? That way they can be sure they aren't, for example, mistaking me for J. Random Trackable guy?
while i've set up a Gmail account, i've never actually used it. partly because of all the other ways that Google has of data mining their users, the Gmail account would like icing on the cake to them. they'd have access to all of the people you associate with, on top of your interests and usual WWW practices. the latter is enough info already.
"To stop the terrorists."
I'm allergic to dairy, you insensitive clod!
just stop using the free services provided on the internet, and nobody will want your data anyways.
how is it news to people that somebody want's something in exchange for what they give away?
Coming up next, our most recent study showing that Linux is more expensive than Windows.
Nevermind Google. Howabout a "do not track me" list for local governments and law enforcement that want to place tracking devices on me and my car?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Why don't we have this option with credit companies? I don't care for them to make money off of my personal information either. I'm certainly not getting any dividend from it.
We should all be happy that we're being tracked and monitored and body scanned and probed and the government doesn't even need a warrant for anything anymore and my rights are on hold for the next 20 years and we attacked Iraq and murdered its leader and Afghanistan is the new war on terror, and my mother makes awesome apple pies and we all live in a great country you can tell (please don't burn the flags), and we all like the same things including guns and there's a revolution coming, and you need to be a maverick and unseat popular Alaskans and corporations can now donate to politicians yes of course that makes sense and for heaven's sake it's all in the name of Free Things so be proud!
American life so Unbelievably Spectacular Awesome. Those other countries have no idea what freedom is!
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
How is the federal government supposed to enforce this? It's a nightmare in the making. Once permission is given, and the feds get their talons into your servers, it's only a matter of time before they're monitoring that data 24/7.
If "consumers have a right to privacy", this same Do Not Track Me list would have to apply to credit card transactions and every retail website on the internet. They have been collecting and using similar information longer than Google. Right now, the only way to guarantee privacy is to always use cash and never give any identifying information on the internet. I'm all for privacy, but it is meaningless if the rules don't apply to everyone who currently collects individual consumer behavior data.
... after the horses have bolted.
The data's already out there; now, it's a matter of the controls on who can use it and how, and what controls can be put on access to said data.
Check your premises.
Does Google 'track you' any more than a telco does? My phone company has a list of every call I make, and where I made it from. This applies to landlines, mobile phones (though exact location is tricky), and VoIP. If I start using a different company, then I might be able to 'cover my tracks', as it were. But one could do the same thing by getting a new ISP and creating a different Google account.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Isn't keeping a list of who not to track a form of tracking?
I had a flame... but she had a fire.
It's like putting your email on a do not spam list and giving it to all the spammers.
Tracking activity must be prohibited unless a someone opts-in.
This "watch dog" group is disingenuous. Laws are already being violated.
This group wants to make this OK.
Seriously, everyone keeps shouting and yelling about all these "free" online services tracking their users but nobody ever mentions the ISP. Your ISP really does track your every move, they can see every site you visit, etc, etc... much worse that google, or anyone else. All that data is available for sale, they won't admit it if you ask them... because it is "collected anonymously" but really, it boggles my mind that they get a free pass in all of this mess.
Sure I understand that you have a right to privacy, but if you aren't doing anything wrong, why do you care? I don't care that Google scans the content of my email to provide me with relevant ads. I never look at them or click on them. I'm not doing anything I shouldn't be doing online, so if Google knows that I go to a certain website (say, slashdot) more than others and makes it pop up when I type the letter "s" in the address bar, that's awesome for me. I seriously think people are blowing this out of proportion.
So for this list to work, you'd have to have a database of people on the list. That defeats the purpose right there. On top of that, you'd have to have some way to mark yourself as a person on that list, while you're browsing. That mark would then have to alert the web servers and whatnot, which would create log entries, which would have to include a unique identifier of that flag. Again, defeating the point. So by putting yourself on the list, you just let Google and everyone else track you better. How about you do what people already do: Incognito/Private Browsing, wipe cookies/cache, and wear tinfoil hats.
In public you have no expectation of privacy as far as the law is concerned,at least as far as I understand it.Although I am not a fan of invading anyones privacy without there permission.
Google is just one company offering service, there are other alternatives.
You have a choice and do not have to use Google if you do not wish to.
If somebody offered a new service that did not track you, how could you trust them or ensure this is that case?
Alternatively there are services such as Tor that help users limit their privacy exposure.
Great idea. As long as people realize that it will also serve as the "I no longer get services such as email, social networking, and search for free" list.
"free" in the "my credit card isn't charged monthly" sense, obviously. And yes, that's ignoring the technical nightmare of trying to do such a thing in the first place.
http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
Personally, I have the analytic hostnames pointing to 127.0.0.2 in my hostfile.
I bet putting up "a 540-square-foot video billboard advertisement in Times Square, New York" costs a small fortune. So, where did a consumer group get that kind of money?
No doubt, from a hostile company. But who? Microsoft? Apple? Viacom?
Google is far move invasive than Microsoft, which /. always puts the Gates Borg King visage on the articles for.
I think the image of Schmidt at the end of the video would be perfect.
If I get a cut.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
then these people have nothing to worry about privacy. The internet will be carved up into a unusable CompuServe like mess with nickel and dime plans similar to the crap cable tv bundle plans by the telecoms.
... or they got indirectly sponsored by Bing, Do Evil(TM), We are OK with China Laws (c)
What about the credit ratings agencies? Why do they have the right to record information about you without your consent? And to share this with random third parties who want to know something about you - again without your consent?
This would be illegal in most (if not all) other Western countries.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The idea of a do-not-track list is ok, but this retarded video is a f***ing joke. This is going to do nothing but convince people that the ones who made this are complete f***ing idiots.
Guess it's time to bring this post out, and update it:
Dear Consumer Watchdog
Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( X) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting invasions of privacy. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( X) Those invading privacy can easily use it to target people who want to hide their info
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
(X ) Google will not put up with it
(X ) The police will not put up with it
(X ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for data collection
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
(X ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(X ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, jerk! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
... tracking you too. And that with Google Analytics. What a bunch of hypocrits.
Consumer Watchdog = troll sponsored by Microsoft. More here: http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/
Did Microsoft Hire Consumer Watchdog to Attack Google?
That is a year old story. According to it, "consumer watchdog" is a hired gun.
On the internet run Tor with on a browser with ad block and no-script and turn off cookies. Don't use free products like Gmail. Modify this configuration for how much of a crippled internet you can stand.
Don't use a credit card. Credit card companies maintain profiles on your purchases.
Only user a prepaid phone that you paid for in cash. Phone companies know every person you've called and who's called you.
Stop using ATM's. They have cameras and your banking activity is logged.
Those Loyalty cards supermarkets and chain stored give you has the potential for abuse. Pay more for your food.
Local and Federal government agencies share personal information about you for administrative purposes. Perhaps you should consider which non compulsory entities (other than the IRS, etc) you interact with.
The company that ran this promotion (Consumer Watchdog) has been using Google Analytics. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/09/03/businessinsider-anti-google-privacy-group-consumer-watchdog-is-tracking-your-clicks-with-google-analytics-2010-9.DTL Hypocrite, much?
Even at her advanced age, Jamie Curtis is still a damned sight more attractive than Consumer Watchdog's president Jamie Court. How addled does a mind have to be to confuse the two?
I found this (http://diagonalslash.blogspot.com/2010/08/google-must-respond-and-plug-this-leak.html) of privacy on part of Google quite astonishing. For some reason very few people seem to care about Google's continued "unusual and unexpected" usage of data provided by its users. The trade-offs you are making as you share each bit of information with Google are not at all obvious and easy to understand.
The issue I have raised continues to exist (though it was much worse earlier) in Gmail.
"but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."
Which is basically the most direct way of saying "the NSA has a gun to my head" that that is available to him. Honestly, I'm not all that worried about Google in and of itself. They seem to be fairly transparent about what they do and why they collect that information in the first place, and they are staffed by a lot people with similar views to the prevailing opinion on Slashdot (though these views are necessarily going to be much more moderate than a lot of the views expressed here, or they wouldn't be working for Google in the first place).
No, the fact that Google is a treasure trove of personal information for the United States' various three-letter agencies is far more worrying to me than any ill will on the part of Google, particularly given the US' eagerness to conduct national and corporate espionage to secure themselves any economic advantage for the United States. Or to scour the world for all the entities that they might consider to be a threat, real or imagined. Naturally I'm just another unimportant geek and not a visionary engineer or a trade negotiator, so I shouldn't have anything to fear personally from this system (yet, anyway), but nonetheless I still find this unbridled use of dirty tactics to be morally repugnant. /That/ is the real message we should be hearing about Google, but I doubt that it lines up with the interests of whoever is controlling this particular drawerful of sock puppets.
"Consumers have a right to privacy."
No they don't. Citizens have a right to privacy. Consumers willingly give their money and information to ethically and morally questionable Corporations. This lady seems to think consumer protection needs mandating. Ever heard of "buyer beware"? I figured a while back, that the Internet would really air out the dirty laundry on Corporations and consumer products. Apparently I missed the boat on that one...
The social masses have spoken loud and clear, however. Social media relations, and content absorbtion are more important than lead filled toys, and the oncoming future of consumer databased location profile marketing.
Remember friends. Don't forget to update your Twitter account, and location based services. See how easy it is to hand it over to the monopolies? And 'the machine'?
It's absurd this notion that tracking a user only benefits business doing the tracking. I don't mind getting junk mail if it germaine to my interests. Similarly, I don't mind being tracked if it means that the ads in my browser/internet broadcast/streamed media are more relevent to my proximity. I'm getting something that may be useful to me, and they're not wasting their advertising money trying to sell me something I don't want in a place that I'll never go. Google has been particularly useful in this manner because searches for businesses take in to account location making them even more accurate than previously. For instance, I searched for a restaurant called "Friar Tucks", and the first one on the list was the restaurant in my town, despite there being a restaurant called "Friar Tucks" in just about every major metropolitan area in the US. Potential for abuse != abuse.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Much of the online-privacy debate is about online advertisement. I agree there's many reasons for concern regarding privacy issues, but targeted advertisement?
If anything, I consider targeted advertisement the only acceptable form of advertisement, as opposed to regular "blanket" advertising where you bomb anyone and everyone with your message hoping to get .01% hit-rate. I strongly dislike websites spamming the me blindly with messages I really don't care about, but I have nothing against the sometimes helpful contextual "links" that GMail "offers". Especially, they're not designed to steal attention, as opposed to many "message bombing" forms of advertisement.
I guess the two extremes on the scale would be spam "do you want a guaranteed 35% penis enlargment?" vs. targeted job offerings "did you know at is available, and you qualify for the position?".
On the one hand you pound your brain to exhaustion with messages you hate and do not care about, and on the other hand you have a site with ONLY information that interests you (even if it DOES have as a goal to sell you something).
While Consumer Watchdog hyperventilates about The Great Satan Google, they conveniently neglect to mention that their website tracks user behavior with...Google Analytics.
so much as I value convenience. The things I *do* want to hide, from certain people, well, Chrome has that covered.
What pisses me off is getting spam sent to my front door. If they're going to make another thou-shalt-not list it should be junk mail, not leveraging personal info to provide better user experiences.
I know gmail uses my mail to target my ads. I prefer my ads targeted. In fact I block them if they're not.
Ice cream? Really? That's more than TSA gives me for a body scan.
Reply to That ||
You think if they could afford a 540-square-foot video billboard advertisement in Times Square they could afford a CG animation that's above a high school level.
Move along.
Seriously, Google provides "free" services at the expense of providing them with information about where you go, what you're interested in, etc, so that they can turn a profit and keep their services "free." You don't like it? Don't have a Google account. Don't want site-to-site tracking? Use NoScript et al, a proxy, Tor, whatever you want to keep yourself anonymous.
I completely agree that privacy is an issue that most people could use more education on, but this isn't an area for the gov't to step in to - it's an area for consumers to better educate themselves about how their online actions correlate to a company's using of that information and how to mitigate that data consumption. If I didn't want Google in my e-mail, I wouldn't have it with GMail - simple as that. If I didn't want them knowing that I enjoy Chinese food, I'd use the yellow pages. If I don't want Google knowing what I'm searching for, I'll use Bing! (/sarcasm, I'd never ever ever use Bing).
The choice is yours, the choice should always be yours, and the government should not be involved.
And it waddles like a microsoft tool.
"Consumer Watchdog" appears to be an astroturfing organization, financed by Microsoft.
http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/
I talked to them, and their arguments don't make much sense; they can't come up with a coherent argument why they are focusing on Google so much.
Indeed, they already do have that right, by not using Google's free services they ensure Google can't use any personal information.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
...but the internet ceased a looooong time ago to be the wild and secretive jungle that we all remember and loved, and it's now a commercial enterprise. Period. I don't understand how people can get so outraged over Google's data-mining without starting long before that. Google, as evil as people think they might be, track *who you say you are*. Of a handful of Gmail accounts that I have, exactly one of them has any information at all that could be traced directly to me. The rest are throwaway accounts, as are my six or seven yahoo accounts, and I don't think I have a single other account anywhere in my own name other than Facebook. When my identity got stolen, computers had nothing to do with it. They either stole my mail or my trash, not my Gmail password. Why do people freak out so much about Google using keyword-targeted advertising that's completely run by a machine that cares not a whit who you are and spends its day searching for "hdtv" or "tentacle porn", but these same people have no problem whatsoever giving their name, address, phone number, credit card number, bank routing information, and direct access to every single byte that comes out of their computer to the phone companies that have proved over and over and *%&$ing over again that they simply DO NOT CARE about their customers and look at them as nothing more than money troughs? (Seriously? $.30 for a text message, but a 650K jpg is free? *^&$ you.) Where's the similar outrage at the telcos, who are less progressive than the MPAA and will roll over for a warrantless wiretap like a wiener dog with an itchy belly? Seriously. Did I miss something?
yeah, and unlike Linux, Windows is actually supported. let the hobbyist geeks have their linux. as a professional who needs to actually do real work every day, give me Microsoft.
> The group says its goal is to push Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to create a Do Not Track Me list
Good, now we can finally keep track of the people who don't want to be kept track of.
I'm pretty anti-government but I'd sure support a "Do Not Track Me" law. I've had more than enough of google and their "Don't Be Evil" hypocrisy. A central question the Founders never could have contemplated is how technology could completely destroy privacy. Do I own my own privacy, or is it google's to take without permission and pimp out for money? I'd say that, ultimately, if you don't own your privacy than you own nothing -- not even your own life. I'm sure Schmidt would counter that "If I have something to hide, perhaps I shouldn't be doing it" but obviously if we could track Schmidt, Page, and Brin well enough we'd catch them all lying, cheating, stealing, screwing, and defecating. I bet we could sell that footage for good money, too. Google makes the Microsoft of old look saintly.
Google's Evil? I'll believe that when I see a "We detected a cookie from MSN and/or Bing! Your browser may be infected by MSN specific viruses and trojans! Please download and run this Google Chrome + security scan now!" on random webpages with Google AdSense, a-la the Dr. DOS screwjob.
There are evil tech companies out there. Google's not even in the top 10.
*looks in pocket for mod points*
:(
*empty hand*
Sorry.
Reply to That ||
"Don't track me, Bro."
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
The subject line says it all. While I appreciate the slashdot filter telling me "Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment." the subject line of this post is a complete and concise expression of my thoughts about Google and the need for a cynical national attitude toward them.
Wow. That ad is really the opposite of charisma. And I don't mean their version of Eric Schmidt, I mean the ad itself. That thing is so creepy it makes me want to stay away from Consumer Watchdog.
Also, is it me or is there a bad jump cut when the one girl throws away her ice cream? One ball falls off and then the other suddenly disappears. You even see how she moved a bit between the frames. Are they trying to be endearing by looking like a bady-made live action ad?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
The fact that a call was placed, it's time, duration, and connected parties are all part of the _content_ of your communication. As such, drawing attention to this "difference" is erroneous. Google uses MORE content, but the telco uses content as well.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
similar to the Do Not Call list developed to prevent telemarketers from aggressively calling consumers.
I almost never used to get soliciting calls on my cell. Then I foolishly put my number on this "do not call" list that the article compares this to. Lo and behold, I got a call a few times a week telling me my car warranty is about to expire. Good list analogy guys - if I don't want to be tracked then I'm expected to submit some information (name, ip address, whatever) to some site that the government / public has access to? I'll get right on it!
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
A parallel issue is GPS tracking. The overarching question is inalienable rights to privacy. My understanding is that privacy, strictly speaking, is not part of our constitution.
We need to insure our privacy by expanding our constitution to privacy for everyone. Especially where the Internet is involved.
"Do not call" lists and "Do not track" lists are like International Law: They only work when everyone willingly agrees to play by the same rules. "Do not call" lists, for telemarketers who don't care about the rules, are just a nice, free, verified list of numbers that they know will answer when they call to peddle their junk. A "Do not track" list is just going to end up being a "Persons of interest" list to any government agency (or any other entity) looking for people with something to hide.
Keep you lists, I'll keep on protecting my own anonymity like I've been doing for decades now, thank you very much.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Indeed - the whole video stank, it wasn't pro-consumer, just blatantly anti-Google to the point of absurdity, so I assumed something was up. It took me about 3 minutes to find precisely the same research. Why this article wasn't titled "Microsoft begins a fourth front against Google using yet another proxy" is beyond me. Google angered Ballmer, and now they must reap the chairstorm. The mind boggles as to just how above the legal system Microsoft is.
Was how unprofessional the animation was and how I'd like to get some ice cream.
Hope the grocery store has Irish Mudslide.
Just for kicks I went to consumerwatchdog.org and used their search engine to search on microsoft . Top 20 header results :
1. There's no privacy in third world America - (anti-google article, no mention of bing)
2. Top trustbuster says DOJ watching search industry
3. Advocacy Groups Ask Facebook for More Privacy Changes
4. Critics Call on Feds to Squelch a Google Monopoly
5. Data Show Google Abuses Search Role, Group Contends
6. Watchdog Backs Google Antitrust Complaint with (More) Data
7. Google's Wi-Fi Data Harvest Facing More Probes, Lawsuits
8. Google Using Search Engine To Muscle Into Internet Businesses, Study Finds
9. Google Worth $1 Billion to Pa. Commerce
10. Google Raises Its Game In Washington
11. Google shows the way on search engine encryption; others must follow
12. FTC Clears Google Purchase of Mobile Ad Service
13. White House Reprimands Ex-Googler After Consumer Watchdog FOIA Request
14. Few Hardballs from Shareholders at Google's Annual Meeting
15. Google's Growth Markets Include Lobbying
16. Consumer Watchdog Targets Google
17. Privacy Groups, Business Firms Firing Warning Shots on New Online Ad Privacy Bill
18. Boucher's Privacy Bill Scolded by Consumer Groups
19. Google Spent $1.3 Million on Lobbying, What Are They Buying?
20. Consumer Group to Call for Google Break up
Damn, that's a lot of google mention for a search on microsoft. Hell, even on a search on facebookhas "google" in 6 of the top 10 results returned! Facebook doesn't appear until the 11th result, and is in 5 of the headers. What a joke, this site makes fox news looks fair and balanced.
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
You must be new to Web 2.0? Slashdot has been using Google Analytics for years... I started using it myself after coming to this realisation. My ISP-business has a now a dedicated Beowulf Cluster of virtual servers running optimized Google Analytics Javascripts monitoring the living shit out of all our clients. We will shortly expand our services with installation of the NoScript-plugin to Firefox...
Are you human...?
No, I am a meat Popsicle.
You always could have opted out via disabling cookies, but now they even have a plugin if cookie management isn't your thing.
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/05/greater-choice-and-transparency-for.html
Some of the comments on that blog post that think privacy is a horrible thing are kind of scary.
http://notanumber.net/
But how about then Facebook what knows exactly who are your friends, with who you chat and meet. Where you go, what music you listen, what movies you like, your ex's situations, your holidays places, your addresses, your workplace, even many gives their social security numbers and so on.
When it comes to Google, they can see everything what you ISP (= Government and the ISP as a company) can see, as well what you are doing in facebook.
But when it comes to real privacy, Facebook is bigger threat than Google. As Google does not know for who are your friends unless you use Google email services and you use them to contact your friends.
With all the social semantiks what facebook has, you can build so awesome anti-terrorists filtering and security system as you can just find everything from every facebook person.
this is akin to someone being accused of rape, but because someone else is a rapist, then its ok for the accued to rape
here's a lightning bolt for you numbskulls: how about privacy invasion is wrong if done by google, EVEN IF microsoft does it also and is a hypocrite in their attacks?
how does that concept strike you?
guess what: no matter how strong, numerous, or correct your exposes on the sleaziness of microsoft are, if google is doing something wrong, its still doing something wrong
chastise microsoft AND google. picking between them and attacking one or the other for the same crime is, using my most diplomatic terminology: fucking stupid of you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1) Google has trucks where they give out free ice cream in your favorite flavors.
2) Eric Schmidt is either a Terminator or Robocop.
3) Apparently someone was bored one day and did a 3D rendering of the suburb in Paperboy.
went to consumerwatchdog.org and used their search engine
We know consumerwatchdog is astroturfing for Microsoft, but where's the harm in that (as long as we know whose paying for it)? Considering Google subcontracts to at least as many astroturfing PR firms, many of whom are less transparent than consumerwatchdog, there's nothing to stop them from making the same criticisms of Bing, Hotmail, Windows...
In both of these cases the criticisms are valid and pro-consumer. Isn't that what competition is about? I mean come on, we're not talking rhetoric here.
http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/
Seriously, no - I didn't know that Google was offing my gmail account. Damn, I need to download and archive my mailboxes ASAP!
Google is handing out ice cream and requesting full body scans in return? What Google provides isn't akin to fucking buying ice cream, those stupid S.O.B.s seem to feel like just because they can make an analogy it's correct.
Warning: logic up ahead!
Ice cream cannot be compared to the search capabilities and other apps Google provides. Unless you are in the business of dealing with ice cream (whether selling, re-selling, or providing them to a game show so they can dump it on a contestant's head) ice cream will never be a vital component. What Google provides are search, analytic, and collaboration tools (among others) that are the lifeblood for some companies (who provide support) and the backbone of others (even the U.S. government).
By comparing that to ice cream they make themselves look like silly little shits. I apologize for my rudeness but this pisses me off.
I completely understand and agree that tracking is invasive by nature. I want you to understand that I'm not simply backing Google because I'm in love with them or getting paid off; IANAL, but the manner in which this advert portrays Google is unfair and will not hold up should it be presented to a court.
I personally don't think that a "Don't Track Me" list will work. How many people have heard, been witness to, or a victim of unsolicited phone calls after putting themselves on a "Do Not Call" list? I'm not going to argue much about that, though. My real beef is with the advert.
Life. Is. Good.
Having the retailers tracking us, tailoring their products to our interests, it is part of our dream. We want robots to fetch us beer from the fridge and chairs that adjust to our bodies. How is retailers only showing stuff we're interested in any different? The chances of me clicking on an ad for tampons is vanishingly low, so why waste my time and their money to show me a tampon ad? Heck, I'd love for bricks-and-mortar stores to work like this. It seems like every time I go to buy new clothes, I have to walk through a mile of women's clothes. Do they really buy that much more clothing?
I admit, the tracking sometimes can be a disadvantage. I looked at some socks online, about a week ago, and that is all my ads are since. All showing different types of socks.
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
Well, there is one more piece of evidence: Consumer Watchdog's arguments make no sense; they have a single-minded focus on Google and are largely ignoring the privacy violations from lots of other companies.
Answer me these questions: (1) What technical qualifications do the people at "Consumer Watchdog" have with regard to computer privacy? (2) Where does their funding come from? Who has donated to them? (3) Where is their technical analysis of Google privacy practices and in what specific way are they worse than those of other companies?
My reading is that the "Consumer Watchdog" folks are just looking for another hot-button topic to drum up funding and support, and big-scary-Google seems like a good choice. And Microsoft-friendly folks are all too happy to support this. But "Consumer Watchdog" doesn't make any real contribution to improving privacy or policy; that would require an understanding of the issues and technology, which they seem to lack.
I think it's interesting that they use Piwik, an open source alternative to Analytics, on the their site. Seems they're not that afraid of collecting user data themselves...
That's a bunch of tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory bullshit. Attaching GUIDs to "every document you send out" and "every online transaction" is demonstrably false - examine your traffic with Wireshark (or a similar app) and your outgoing documents with a hex editor. Search for your GUID, see that it isn't there. Compare results with the same operations done on a Linux PC as a control, see that there's no difference (except maybe in your newline characters in the case of the text file).
IE5's content cache wasn't a conspiracy, it was incompetence. Your history was cleared, the cache remained, but MS thought that was good enough at the time. You couldn't see the history from your browser right? Mission accomplished!
The Windows "super hidden" capability is real, although I don't think the OS actually uses it at all. I've seen a few viruses that exploit this design flaw (I actually ran across that BS while researching it).
Microsoft is abusive in many other ways - their pricing, DRM/copy protection, the way they generally treat customers and PC vendors (like shit), vendor exclusivity agreements, later versions of DirectX artificially made to run only on their latest OSes, etc...but that article is a steaming pile of bullshit.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
With that chime from the Google ice-cream truck I will want to get loads of different flavors. Stop making it appealing plz....
Nah, too hard to figure out. Let's litigate and get an unenforceable law made instead!
The title includes "Take 2" because it seems that my words offended someone and were forcibly removed from the conversation. Hopefully that was only because of my foul language and not due to foul play by somebody else. I really wanted to see replies to my comment but that can't happen when it outright gets deleted without so much of a notice, can it? I made my post last night, and basically archived it on my blog at the same time last night so thankfully I can repost it (with the expletives edited out).
Consumer Watchdog really dropped the ball on this one. The analogy in their (potentially creepy) advertisement fails on a level that hurts their cause. Supposedly, Google is handing out ice cream and requesting full body scans in return? What Google provides isn’t akin to [expletive] buying ice cream, those [expletive] [expletive] seem to feel like just because they can make an analogy it’s correct.
Warning: logic up ahead!
Ice cream cannot be compared to the search capabilities and other apps Google provides. Unless you are in the business of dealing with ice cream (whether selling, re-selling, or providing them to a game show so they can dump it on a contestant’s head) ice cream will never be a vital component. What Google provides are search, analytic, and collaboration tools (among others) that are the lifeblood for some companies (who provide support) and the backbone of others (even the U.S. government).
By comparing that to ice cream they make themselves look like silly little [expletive]. I apologize for my rudeness but this pisses me off.
I completely understand and agree that tracking is invasive by nature. I want you to understand that I’m not simply backing Google because I’m in love with them or getting paid off; IANAL, but the manner in which this advert portrays Google is unfair and will not hold up should it be presented to a court.
I personally don’t think that a “Don’t Track Me” list will work. How many people have heard, been witness to, or a victim of unsolicited phone calls after putting themselves on a “Do Not Call” list? I’m not going to argue much about that, though. My real beef is with the advert.
Life. Is. Good.
FYI, in the article, and on Consumer Watchdog's website, the president's name is Jamie Court, not Jamie Curtis. Thanks.