Slashdot Mirror
Online Privacy Worth Less Than Marshmallow Fluff Six Pack
nonprofiteer writes "With a program called Screenwise, Google is offering a total of $25 in Amazon gift cards to anyone willing to install a Chrome browser extension that will let the search giant track every website the user visits and what they do there over a year-long period. Google says it will study this in order to improve its products and services. Forbes points out that $25 in Amazon credits isn't quite enough to buy a six pack of Marshmallow Fluff ($26.75)." The money isn't much as a pure trade for privacy, but I suspect that many people would like to have their preferences be among those that shape how Google — and other companies, too — actually organize their interfaces. (Note that the tracking can be selectively turned off by the user.)
...More power to them. Hope you guys like watching a lot of midgets shitting on grannies. And I mean a *LOT* of midgets shitting on grannies.
Oh, excuse me, I mean little people.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is one of those statements we need to hear from time to time to shock is into realizing that the vast majority of people out there do not value online privacy to the degree that the Slashdot crowd generally does.
The vast majority of people out there probably rank "letting a company mine my browsing history" somewhere around "filling out a survey".
The vast majority of people don't know or care about the technologies they use in their daily lives.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Since they got it so very wrong, wrong, wrong on the first go round.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
If Google tracked me via Chrome, they would see 100% of all websites visited are *.netflix.com/*
Yeah, thats all I use Chrome for.
"His name was James Damore."
Oh, but I only use chrome maybe once a blue moon. But hey, that's still data! Pay up!
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
You could buy 24 bottles of beer!
Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
What's to stop me from loading this up on a spare machine I never use (and has no personal data) and letting it 'run' for a year?
If any google employee can stomach what I surf
Big words for a kook Haole come to the North Shore try to surf Pipe with the local boys.
Would I still get the $25 if I installed it and then did the majority of my surfing with IE/FF and occasionally surfed with Chrome, as there's probably some Terms of Service that requires a minimal amount of usage.
I wonder how much money I could make if I created hundreds of VMs and installed the plugin in those...
They also pay you $100 up front and $20 dollars a month for up to a year. For a low income family that could nearly cover the cost of their broadband internet.
Why do I suspect that that historical event came up during the Google marketing meeting (probably near the end)?
You're looking at this wrong; it's not that privacy is valued too cheaply- it's that Marshmallow fluff 6-packs are valued too highly.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"Online Privacy Worth More Than Marshmallow Fluff Five Pack"
See? It's a glass half full/half-empty kinda thing.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'm installing it on the wife's computer.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
With this data, they could make a major run at comScore, Nielsen, and other companies that provide demographic data for a fee. I wonder if there privacy policy addresses that. If they choose to compete, they could wipe out competitors on pure numbers alone, I imagine.
Is this any different than offering undergrads $20 to participate in a psychology experiment? What's the story here?
this is just their "beach head", wave one. this will allow time for all the virus/malware programs to add support to not flag this program. the second wave will be when this is built into their chrome browser. the third wave is when you need to download this to get to your google account content.
"The money isn't much as a pure trade for privacy, but I suspect that many people would like to have their preferences be among those that shape how Google — and other companies, too — actually organize their interfaces."
Here's my proposed experiment. Make 2 offers:
(A) We track what you watch for a year, we will NOT use it to shape any interfaces, you get $25.
(B) We track what you watch for a year, we WILL use it to shape any interfaces, you get $0.
My bet would be that the ratio of acceptances would be at least 10:1 in favor of (A).
I only see "being tracked is great as long as I get more targeted advertising" as a claim from Slashdotters.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Note that the tracking can be selectively turned off by the user.
Prove it.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
I wasn't really sure what this stuff was so had to look it up.
Apparently one jar of the stuff is a lifetime's supply. So having your privacy being worth 5 whole lifetimes is a pretty good valuation.
Chances are the users willing to do this for $25 are young and broke, this could end up biasing the results.
Dear Google,
I am not the average user. I am a technical user that is intelligent and values privacy. Please make me a google that gives relevant technical results for my queries instead of the hodge-podge that the average illiterate user can understand and click-through. xxx-answer or some similar should never be a result.
The results from the 25$ incentive will most likely be skewed in an unfavourable direction when compared to the search results I am looking for - due to the demographic (which I foresee) partaking in this research experiment. Please reconsider.
Signed: The guy that is always finding google harder and harder to use.
PS - Give me the option to search using an older algorithm.
That will a fetch handle of rum or a 1.5 liter of vodka.
Most people will happily surrender tons of personal, and incriminating, information about themselves when offered or plied with aforementioned liquid.
So it's same old same old, just now with no hangover!
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
Where did you get that information? I don't see any reference to payments other than the aforementioned up to $25 in Amazon.com gift cards anywhere.
People are willing to give up their privacy if it saves them 10% at Petco.
What's to stop you from taking their money and only using Chrome to visit a few websites?
We don't live in Shouldland.
I would never do it, but at least it starts to give people an idea of how much google values their privacy and they can then ask themselves if their privacy is really more valuable than what google is able to get out of it.
I would like to propose the reverse program - I pay google $5 month in return for never, ever being tracked at all no matter how many of their services I use. Not the typical BS of still tracking but not actually "using" the collected info, I mean the people who pay get their info logged to /dev/null instead of google's permanent databases.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You don't even get 25.00 up front, you get 5 dollars, and then every 3 months, they give you 5 more dollars. Anyone who signs up for this is my enemy.
What exactly does Marshmallow Fluff has to do with this? Is this some granular currency measurement that relates to libraries of congress? This is also based off of arbitrary pricing off Amazon. There is a LOT of stuff worth less than a Used Ethernet Cable by that measure. What's the sample size anyway? If 2 people do this, is that considered "enough"? I can get two people to sacrifice their privacy for free by sticking a pop up window in front of them saying "naked chicks if you click here". This is non news really, and you can get people to sacrifice their privacy for far less than $20, especially if you give it to them in gas rebates.
The money isn't much as a pure trade for privacy, but I suspect that many people would like to have their preferences be among those that shape how Google â" and other companies, too â" actually organize their interfaces. (Note that the tracking can be selectively turned off by the user.)
They're being told up front what is being offered in exchange for what. It's a browser extension so they could just flip to Opera or FireFox if they don't want Google to see. Some people might be enticed by Google improving their products with that information, and they get paid for it.
What's the drama? What does this even have to do with privacy? Are we going to complain about being paid to take a survey, too?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I've got a marshmallow fluff six-pack.
Sadly and admittedly, it's only because I eat so many fluffernutters every week.
Someone... please... help me... *sob*
so the new google service will be a.. torrent site that lets you watch porn tube and download nzbs while.. looking for android roms in webcam rooms?
Frankly I'm a bit more shocked at how much marshmallow fluff costs. Whatever the hell marshmallow fluff is...
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
It's a pretty subjective thing. I'll willingly tell anyone who really wants to know all sorts of things that others consider private (the colour of my underwear, various sex related things), but feel a little protective of all sorts of things. I'll rarely share my Slashdot username with anyone who knows my real name and vice versa.
I'll readily accept that some people really genuinely don't care at all about being spied on, and as long as they accept that I do, I have no quarrel with these people. I also understand that some people object vigorously to what I might consider some fairly minor infringements. I respect that as well, and feel that there should be no collection of personal information without a very compelling reason.
However, if people willingly give it away, and the deal can be clearly considered an honest and open agreement then who are we to tell them they shouldn't.
Am I the only one who remembers the study that found people would give up their passwords for a chocolate bar?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3639679.stm
(and that a good percentage didn't even need the chocolate)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Like google analytics and adwords don't give them enough coverage and they need more.
How is this any different than those Neilson Ratings trackers people carry around with them? What some privacy wonks don't seem to understand is your right to privacy is just that. You have a right to it, but it's yours to give away (or sell as in this case). Not everyone wants to wear tinfoil hats. Not everyone wants to sit in social isolation from the rest of the world, but yes you should have a right to do so if that's what you want. You might not understand people might not want that, but you're wasting their time convincing them otherwise.
You may think people are getting bribed into trading their privacy here. On the contrary, some people simply don't care. And yes they do understand the massive evil corporate overlord spying implications, they still don't care. Your job isn't to change their minds.
Yes I appreciate the irony that this is being posted as AC.
I'd pay that cost yearly for Google to guarantee to not track my registered identities (work, personal). If that's the price they put on it, sure!
Amazon is going to pay me 2 cents a day to know my private business. Gee what bargain!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
"We appreciate and are overwhelmed by your interest at the moment. Please come back later for more details."
I'm underwhelmed that they're overwhelmed. This is /.
Sign me up, I'll just start using firefox
Since the big corporations have, wrongly, labeled copyright infringement with "piracy", perhaps we should consider to label corporate privacy intrusion with the term "voyeurism" or something similar.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
It should read, "What's left of your online privacy is not worth a six-pack of marshmallow fluff."
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
So I install this, collect my $25 and continue to not use Chrome just as I have for years now. Sounds like a good deal to me.
http://searchengineland.com/google-screenwise-panel-open-110716
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Same as before, except you only get payed once.
Marshmallow Fluff? If you're going to give yourself up to Google like this you need to think big. For $25 you could buy 2500 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints from Poster Revolution via Amazon. Not only do you exchange your measly $25 for $2,500, you also wind up with enough posters to cover 16722 square meters. That's over four acres. You'll never have to buy wallpaper again!
And better yet, those (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints look sort of like real money, so maybe Amazon will accept them as legal tender, and you can exchange your $2500 for 250000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, then exchange those for 25000000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, exchange those for 2500000000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, exchange those for 250000000000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, exchange those for 25000000000000 (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints, and suddenly you've got enough (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints to cover the Earth with a layer of (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints almost four (24x36) The Godfather Movie (Dollar Bill) Poster Prints deep. Thanks to Google and Amazon/Poster Revolution, all of your mad genius-destroy-the-Earth desires can be realized!
Here's one way to rephrase the discussion.
How about an alternate version of the plugin where *everybody* gets to see your search history? After all, you're edging close to the "I have nothing to hide" department, so as a medium-classic privacy advocate here, I reply "prove it".
If that suddenly changes things, then we're getting into "Oh, but I trust Google but I don't trust you". What about the government?
Remember, it also becomes a 1 stop shop for the government to buy the profiles in bulk.
The unfortunately beautiful evil logic of the Big Brother process is it's *always* stated as "So we can make shopping a bliss for you."
Then in a flash (say a month's worth of backroom deals) you get an example like the one earlier, "Insurance companies will use GPS Vendor satellite feeds to see that leadfoot habit of yours, so your insurance goes up," (and mild satire next) "A complimentary copy is sent to the cop on Highway 4 so he knows to try pulling you over."
So sorry, I'm taking the pessimist view on this. 7,000,000 site visits per person (20ish a day maybe). Yeah, tell me that's not juicy in the wrong hands.
"But won't someone think of the Products!"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'm happy with your answer, but before I address that I have to nitpick this one comment:
After all, you're edging close to the "I have nothing to hide" department..
No, I am not. If you are personally approving what all goes out then that is not 'nothing to hide'. What I said would not qualify for that unless Google had ALREADY done it and I was apologizing for them.
Remember, it also becomes a 1 stop shop for the government to buy the profiles in bulk.
Okay, this is a good reason. Thank you.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Putting it in units of Marshmallow Fluff is pointless and misleading, especially to the Slashdot crowd. This needs to be put in units we can understand. Here goes:
Library of Congress- ~286,720 GB (est from wikipedia info)
Cheapest DVD I could find (Melody 600 pk, on Amazon, use your credit) $0.2065 per DVD including shipping. There may be tape cheaper per GB, but most people don't have tape drives. The $25 from Amazon will buy 121 DVDs at that cost, assuming you split the package with someone else.
This works out to about 0.198% of the LOC. People will trade their online privacy for less than 1/5 of 1 percent of the LOC! Truly shameful.
It just dawned on me how I can get my Raspberry Pi for free.
1) Buy a Raspberry Pi for $25
2) use it as an HTPC
3) install chrome and let Google track my website viewing.
4) ???
5) BREAK EVEN!
And of course, I won't visit any "illegal" websites, but websites such as southparkstudios.com, thedailyshow.com, colbertnation.com etc.
but where is the cut off? and can't google track what your searching on with Chrome anyways? why would they pay you for something they could track you on for free? might as well get the $25 then.. got a lot in my Amazon wish list if anyone wants to help donate ;-) .. example: Diablo 3
The value of making part of your life public: $25.00.
The value of making part of your life private: Priceless.
Here you go - "march2011" - that's my password. You still need to know my user name and the application it's for. Oh, and you'll need a different user name and password to get on the system before you can even try to get into the first.
So I don't care about telling people what it is.
If Google made such an extension for Firefox I'd consider the option of installing it. SInce I'm not using Chrome - I won't bother.
If you're that hard up for $25usd, then perhaps you should look at how it'd get you nearly 1/20th of a metric ton of rice .. in bulk mind you.. so you probably have to buy in multiple dozens of metric tons.
By itself, it's enough to keep your belly full for about half a year... not to shabby..
WA doesn't have very useful results for a lame example of what I might want to search for (although that's just a quick example...)
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
2. Create the following AppleScript and use a cron job to run it once a month or so:
tell application "Google Chrome"
set URL of active tab of window 1 to "http://www.google.com"
activate
quit
end tell
3. Make Firefox your default browser
4. Profit!
5. Repeat steps one through four on another computer
Why does this seem oddly like mining bitcoins...
Hi there.
There's one more finesse.
By having it turned on, you're arguably approving it for "all audiences". This includes me, either via Anonymous hacking Google, or even Google just being evil and selling it.
The particular problem with this request is the duration. Someone was asking about college students and psych experiements - a lot of those are the day or even 1 week variety, where the student subconsciously knows "he needs to be on good behavior".
This is more like signing a waiver on Sept 1, getting your certificate to the campus bookstore, and then in February you decide to play a prank on the Dean ... well ... you signed the waiver, right? And yes, there isn't that much of a difference in concept between signing off for a "monitor anklet" or the browser. We aren't socially ready to be watched 24-7 with "digital interpretation of rules". Just think of mashing this up with the Copyright Brigade.
"Did you knowingly go to JustinBieberForever and download the UltraRareDrunkPartyEdition of his song, as evidenced to Google Log on Sat, January ___ 2012? You know that is an unauthorized copy, right? Pay up."
THAT's the curse. We're better than most at granular actions here on slashdot, but it's like that article where the entire first world breaks copyright a minimum of three times an hour or something.
And yes, in 1984 this would have been Tin Foil Hat territory, in 2012 with the SOPA-ACTA cousins, it's not. P.S. Smile for TomTom. We know that you went to that red light district. We will with-hold this information, for a fee...
You know what the last piece of this puzzle is, don't you? The one that brings about Mayan Dec21? (Lots of time left!) Anonymous Swipes/Google Traitor leaks *the entire database of what 30 million Chrome users surfed to for an entire year.*
I've been monitoring and cautioning against these sneakily worded Trojan Horses,
(Chuck show, Quinn characeter "...For too long now. But not tonight, not again!" (remixed) "This time we have to quit being ostriches burying our heads in the sand. Once we know the true dark side of the digital age, and all the pain that shall flow, then maybe we'll put a halt to all these draconian laws, faced with 110 BILLION web surf transactions."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You don't even get 25.00 up front, you get 5 dollars, and then every 3 months, they give you 5 more dollars. Anyone who signs up for this is my enemy.
No, anyone who signs up for this is their own worst enemy.
I do the bulk of my browsing in Chrome, but for $25, I'd inconvenience myself with Firefox for a year for my real browsing.
I wonder how many people signed up with my same mentality.
"Google is offering a total of $25 in Amazon gift cards" Did any one else read that as Google offering a portion of the $25 to everyone on gift card?
Yeah, but it would have to be a klondike chocolate bar.
Is this a glimpse into the future of Google? Why even bother with running a search engine? Just pay people to give up their personal information and resell it to the highest bidder!
Oh wait, someone already beat them to this grift... except they don't pay anyone!
If someone asks you if Google is God, you say "YES!"
Google, can you extend this to people all over the world? To OLPC deployments?
Make these non-Amazon gift coupons, that are redeemable for food? For seeds? To buy locally published books?
So after year or so of sheeeple signing up for google+ spy,
next step is to crank up capabiliities of sheeeple "google+ spy box" to spy on "friends, contacts and pass along other data" stored on sheeeple box, even though "friends, contacts, and other data" has nothing to do with google+ spy. Just like your facebook friends post photos of people who have nothing to do with facebook. Slowly everything gets into the system.
It also on a long enough time-line it will further destroy parts of the economy and leave a nasty coating of anger and distrust
The choices for stopping it are getting pretty grim.
* Boycott your (sheeeple) friends
* Sue your (sheeeple) friends.
* Boycott Google.
* Sue Google
* Drop all ISP service
* Revoke Conscent of current government and RESTORE THE CONSTITUTION
I would never use Chrome because I've heard it already records your browsing habits for Google. Honestly, I'd have a hard time believing it doesn't. Does anybody have any information on this? Has any analyzed packet sniffs from Chrome to see what it's really reporting home?
Considering we don't know how Google intends to use the gathered information or what the future ramifications may be, why aren't regulations governing human subjects research applicable here?
what percentage of time wasted on activity, eg voyerism when selectivly "turned off"
I'll readily accept that some people really genuinely don't care at all about being spied on
It's more that some people wouldn't use a loaded term like "spied" to define something they have voluntarily signed up for, and are aware of. I imagine you'll have a lot of people using Chrome for looking at slashdot, the news or facebook, then turning off the reporting or switching to another browser for looking at porn, banking, torrent or dating sites or anything where they want to retain privacy.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
They offered me $200 a year - $48 to start, and for that, they would show me their ads anywhere I surfed, and they'd get access to all the data on ALL the computers in my home.
Needless to say, I turned 'em down. :)