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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."

14 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. Nevermind Google. by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.
  2. Re:Free ice cream by silverglade00 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now we know what you two would do for a Klondike bar.

  3. Re:Free ice cream by camperslo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Perhaps the Grateful Dead saw this coming?

  4. Re:So in order to Not Track Me properly by GrumblyStuff · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, yes, I had it backwards. What's so hard about not misunderstanding what I didn't not say?

    Jumpin' Jesus Christ on a cross....

  5. Re:So in order to Not Track Me properly by Smauler · · Score: 4, Funny

    Opt-in :
    ( ) Click here to have your nuts bitten off

    Opt-out :
    ( ) Click here to not have your nuts bitten off

    Default Opt-in :
    (*) Click here to have your nuts bitten off
    ( ) Click here to not have your nuts bitten off

    Default Opt-out :
    ( ) Click here to have your nuts bitten off
    (*) Click here to not have your nuts bitten off

    Most websites go for the last choice though :
    (*) Click here to have your nuts bitten off
    (*) Click here to have your nuts bitten off
    (*) Click here to have your nuts bitten off
    (please select 3)

  6. Re:Free ice cream? by Scarletdown · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well then, I sure hope that Google uses vegan cookies...

    Yeah right. As if they would go to all the trouble.

    You know how prohibitively expensive it would be to import cookies (or anything else for that matter) all the way from Vega?

    Not a good ROI there I would say.

    --
    This space unintentionally left blank.
  7. Re:Gmail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because they're going to sell that data to the Illuminati, who will use it to compile lists of those who'll be detained by FEMA on the day when the one world government shall unveil itself. Duh.

  8. Re:People have all the privacy they want: by cj_nologic · · Score: 2, Funny

    Moron.

    Is that your real name? Your parents must have really hated you.

  9. Re:Free ice cream by blair1q · · Score: 2, Funny

    I for one welcome our frozen, chocolate-covered, delicously creamy overlords.

  10. Re:Free ice cream by vandit2k6 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why isn't this marked as 5 Funny :))

    --
    Its nice to be important but its more important to be nice
  11. Re:So in order to Not Track Me properly by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2, Funny

    I strongly doubt that advertisers would use zero-day exploits on your browser. Because after all, they want to stay in business.

    Oh, and there's a way to block most tracking with a single method: Disable third-party requests.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  12. finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    > 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.

  13. Re:I know I'm going to sound like a troll here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "Flamebait?" Seriously? Who's giving out mod points to the short bus kids these days? Posting around here is like trying to talk to a "Twilight" fan these days. Reality just has no bearing on their world view, and their immediate reaction to anything that upends what they wish were true is to bash their head into a wall and scream "NANANANANALALALALAICAN'THEARYOUUU!!"

    (see? *that* was flamebait, fuckhead. "Flamebait" != "opinions you don't agree with," you low-voltage dullard. ((again, an example of flamebait.))

  14. The Fifth Element was right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Are you human...?

    No, I am a meat Popsicle.