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Google's Data Collection is Hard To Escape, Study Claims (cnn.com)
Citing a report [PDF] published on Tuesday by Digital Content Next and Vanderbilt University, CNN writes that "short of chucking your phone into the river, shunning the internet, and learning to read paper maps again, there's not much you can do to keep Google from collecting data about you." From the report: So says a Vanderbilt University computer scientist who led an analysis of Google's data collection practices. His report, released Tuesday, outlines a myriad ways the company amasses information about the billions of people who use the world's leading search engine, web browser, and mobile operating system, not to mention products like Gmail, platforms like YouTube, and products like Nest. Although the report doesn't contain any bombshells, it presents an overview of Google's efforts to learn as much as possible about people.
[...] Google collects far more data than Facebook, according to the report, and it is the world's largest digital advertising company. Its vast portfolio of services, from Android to Google Search to Chrome to Google Pay, create a firehose of data. Professor Douglas Schmidt and his team intercepted data as it was transmitted from Android smartphones to Google servers. They also examined the information Google provides users in its My Activity and Google Takeout tools, as well as the company's privacy polices and previous research on the topic. The researchers claims that almost every move you make online is collected and collated, from your morning routine (such as music tastes, route to work, and news preferences) to errands (including calendar appointments, webpages visited, and purchases made). "At the end of the day, Google identified user interests with remarkable accuracy," the report states. In a statement, Google said, "This report is commissioned by a professional DC lobbyist group, and written by a witness for Oracle in their ongoing copyright litigation with Google. So, it's no surprise that it contains wildly misleading information."
[...] Google collects far more data than Facebook, according to the report, and it is the world's largest digital advertising company. Its vast portfolio of services, from Android to Google Search to Chrome to Google Pay, create a firehose of data. Professor Douglas Schmidt and his team intercepted data as it was transmitted from Android smartphones to Google servers. They also examined the information Google provides users in its My Activity and Google Takeout tools, as well as the company's privacy polices and previous research on the topic. The researchers claims that almost every move you make online is collected and collated, from your morning routine (such as music tastes, route to work, and news preferences) to errands (including calendar appointments, webpages visited, and purchases made). "At the end of the day, Google identified user interests with remarkable accuracy," the report states. In a statement, Google said, "This report is commissioned by a professional DC lobbyist group, and written by a witness for Oracle in their ongoing copyright litigation with Google. So, it's no surprise that it contains wildly misleading information."
Google: No it's not!
Everyone: Well how did you know about the article then?
Google: No comment.
By widely misleading, Google is referring to a missing Oxford comma on page 78 of the report. Everything else is spot-on.
From their own mouth (Alphabet Inc 2016 SEC 10-K filing)
Our innovations in areas like search and advertising have made our services widely used, and our brand one of the most recognized in the world. We generate revenues primarily by delivering online advertising that consumers find relevant and that advertisers find cost-effective.
Just look at page 24 and you will see that in 2016 Google had $90B in revenue... $79B of which was advertising revenue.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
there's not much you can do to keep Google from collecting data about you."
But that doesn't mean you can't block most of it. It does not mean you should not try.
You can go a long, long ways to avoid data collection by Google.
Do not use Android.
Do not use GMail, or the google search engine.
Do not use Google Maps.
Block their web scripts from loading, and use DecentralEyes instead.
Given Google's reach and breadth it is almost certain they will still gather some data about you, but you absolutely can minimize it.
Let surveillance capitalism die the death it should die. There are alternatives out there. Support them.
The researchers claims that almost every move you make online is collected and collated, from your morning routine (such as music tastes, route to work, and news preferences) to errands (including calendar appointments, webpages visited, and purchases made)
Google does not know my morning routine, my route to work, my news preferences, my calendar appointments, or my errands. They would only know that if I let them harvest that data.
Stop giving them a window into your life to peek through.
You can't opt out of modern surveillance capitalism unless you opt out of society, go full Kazcynisky and live in a hut.
But you can take advantage of the pervasive surveillance in order to feed them bad information. Create alternate personas and use them for certain things in your life. Don't just reserve them for the weird stuff, give them regular things too. You can start with a pre-paid phone and use that phone# to sign up for shit like web mail, grocery loyalty cards, etc. For example, If you do all your grocery shopping as Joe Blow, but never do anything else with Joe Blow then these digital stalkers will have a hard time connecting your food consumption with your real identity.
If you do screw up and accidentally give them the info to link a fake persona with your real identity, just stop using it and get a new persona. At least you firewall the damage.
Its imperfect and it is kinda fragile. But you can't look at this stuff as black and white, you evaluate the risks and the costs and you take precautions that match your requirements. Its better than just giving up all your privacy or living out the boonies and never getting laid.
Oh for pete's sake, just buy a flip phone/feature phone and call it a day.
That's not enough - google has an enormous footprint when it comes to webpage tracking, not to mention maps and ajax libraries. Lots of webpages won't work at all if you block google.
Plus, there is all of your friends & colleagues who entered info about you into their phones and then they share all their contacts info with google.
Well, since Google goes out of its way to hide any contact info for its Data Protection Officer and/or Company Secretary you can get a good idea of their likely level of concern.
For a company built on finding data they are very keen not to reveal their own details (unlike most other responsible companies) -- a real insight into their ethics -- plenty of protection for us but none for you.
> I would proffer that it was a better place.
Positive props for proper 'proffer' parlance in your prose. Pure poetry. Provokes punters pausing, too.
"short of chucking your phone into the river, shunning the internet, and learning to read paper maps again, there's not much you can do to keep Google from collecting data about you."
Don't own a smartphone, use DuckDuckGo instead of Google, use tracking protection, delete unnecessary cookies, use NoScript and a good adblocker like Ubox, and use OpenStreetMaps instead of Google maps. There, was that so hard?
Lazy and cowards will now say: "Oh they probably can still track you and collect data on you so why bother trying it's useless"
You're a bad example, no one should listen to you. Take back your privacy, even SOME of it, and take back at least SOME of your life.
Does that mean Google is Santa Claus?
Google can track you on the intarwebs!
Water is wet!
Pope catholic!
News brought to you by CORI - Captain Obvious Research Institute
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Google needs to allow people to opt out of more stuff. Period.
How do people feel about addons like trackmenot which attempt to drown the telemetrics in noise?
Nothing is certain except death and taxes -- and Google data collection.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
>"Oh for pete's sake, just buy a flip phone/feature phone and call it a day."
And the phone companies will still:
* Track your every move using very accurate cellular triangulation methods
* Store all that location data from above
* Filter/track/store all your text messages
* Track/store all your meta data (who you called, when, where)
So yeah, it will at least cut Google out of the picture, but tracking is still there. If you are using an Android phone, the best you can do is register under a pseudonym, turn off all the tracking features, don't use their client software (use a third party, traditional SMS, use an alternative search engine, use an alternative browser, etc) and never attach ANYTHING on it to a real address, phone number, credit card number, bank account, or Email address. You can get a maximally "private" smart device (as much as can be expected) although at the cost of it being a degraded "experience".
You can have more privacy or more convenience.... but probably not both.
Hear, hear.
* Turn your phone off or put it in Airplane Mode when you're not actively using it
* The above makes 'storage' irrelevant
* Don't use SMS messages for anything important or personal, save that for in-person conversations
* Phone companies have been doing that since there were phone companies so what's the point, how else do they bill you?
There was that so hard?
Honestly you can dump wireless entirely and get a landline instead if you want your privacy back. What everyone is doing, as usual, is trading their privacy for 'convenience'. You don't have to, it's all a matter of how important your privacy is to you.
Google may be well informed, but its reactions are not that smart. Advertising keeps focusing on goods I already purchased and I am not interested to buy for a while. Youtube even keeps recommending the videos I saw an hour ago.
"We're not saying your Christmas gifts were made by enslaved loved ones. They're mostly strangers."
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Can't you just use an iPhone, and anonymize your searches with something like DuckDuckGo?
Does your iPhone have ad blocking? Have you disabled all Javascript, or can you block at least the following domains on your iPhone (in all HTTP clients, including RSS readers etc.):
- *.google.com
- *.googleapis.com
- *.google-analytics.com
- *.googleadservices.com
- *.googlesyndication.com
- *.googleapis.com
- *.doubleclick.com
- *.doubleclick.de
- *.doubleclick.net
- *.adsensecustomsearchads.com
If not, you're out of luck. Many websites use Google for advertising revenue, which means you are tracked. Many websites which are too lazy to implement their own stats/metrics use Google analytics. All of these feed Google enough information about your device and Geo-IP based location and sites you have visited that even if you don't directly use any Google services, Google knows more about you than anyone else (except Facebook, if you have Facebook on your iPhone).
Back to showing people our penises in person, are we?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Lineage OS with minimal Gapps
...
FDroid app store
DuckDuckGo for searches
OsmAnd for navigation with OpenStreetMap
K9-Mail
Unless the Android system itself leaks data to Google (which the XDA dev crowd would probably have noticed), I don't see a problem. The setup is less comfortable than standard Android, but if that's not acceptable, there are apparently ways to install apps from the play store on it.
It's not enough. Every e-mail you send to a person using GMail gets scanned by Google. Every SMS and phone call you make to an Android user gets sent to them (the metadata, at least --- I hope they don't actually record your calls). The only way to avoid them is stopping communicating with people completely.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
The fact that they could not collect data from you does not mean it is not happening and it is not wrong. Basically you are blaming the rape victim for asking for it by dressing sexy.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
So you don't like the amount of "snooping" Google is doing on "your data", here are some alternatives:
Replace your Android phone with another brand, perhaps a flip phone.
Use Duck-Duck-Go for all your internet searches - https://duckduckgo.com/
Change your email provider, or encrypt all your emails - Heres my PGP Key ID - DCFB8830
Use another map provider, like Maps for iOS or your in-vehicle navigation system. People use Google because it works! Plain and simple. If you don't want a company to have your data, don't give that company your data. Lastly, I quoted "snooping" and "your data" for a reason. If you use a companies infrastructure for email, searching, etc, the data you post or receive does not belong to you any longer because you do not own the infrastructure. So Google is not snooping when they collect certain metrics from the data you willingly give them, and since you like the service they provide, usually free of course, you are going to continue to hand over your data.
I'm not. But each mail I send to a recipient who uses Gmail gets in the hands of Big G.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault