It’s not just Google…

http://www.allgov.com/Controversies/ViewNews/Two_Years_of_Tweets_Now_For_Sale_to_Marketers_120229

Yet another good reason not to be on Twatter.

By all means turn it off, but if your really that paranoid it’s probably best you step away from the internet. As it’s not just Google that use your information.

The updates are part of Google’s drive towards social search. It’s not so they can sell your details. It’s about changes to search results, making them more personalised. Sure it has benefits for advertising as ads can be targeted more exactly. Is this really a bad thing? You’re going to get ad’s anyway, why would you want ones that are irrelephant to you?

As mentioned by someone earlier, if your searching for something that you don’t want to affect what you see at a later date, sign out or open an incognito window first. I’ve also heard tin foil hats work 😉

Yet another good reason not to be on Twatter.

When are people going to learn that Twitter is not a private conversation, it’s in the public domain?
If you you want to make private comments don’t broadcast them on the internet for all and sundry to see…

When are people going to learn that Twitter is not a private conversation, it’s in the public domain?
If you you want to make private comments don’t broadcast them on the internet for all and sundry to see…

I find the fact that my 12yr old daughter is following me on Twitter helps moderate what I tweet 🙂

I use Google and a number of different Google products. I am surprised that it has taken Google this long to realise that I am the same person and combine the knowledge about me into one place. Anything I do with a third party on the internet opens up another place where I send my data to someone else. As such I am making it public, even if public is only to Google.

We need to realise that the internet is about sharing information. If you are in a public place and have a conversation you are making that information public. Granted in a public place there may be very few people about. On the internet there are many, many, many users.

Sure it has benefits for advertising as ads can be targeted more exactly

that is pretty much the only benefit I can see for this
It does not add anything to the customer experience- unless you class being bombarded with “better” adverts as a good thing.

The updates are part of Google’s drive towards social search. It’s not so they can sell your details. It’s about changes to search results, making them more personalised.

Considering how Google makes its money, I very much doubt this statement. The cynic in me wants to claim all of Google’s innovation is driven towards the development of additional platforms across which advertising can be delivered, like their Google Goggles, driverless car etc.
Most of me doesn’t care; Google will peak and decline, users will move to other platforms, history will repeat itself.
Unless it gets political.
yadda yadda yadda

I think that I’d rather get ads that are targetted toward me than random ones, think I disabled the google history stuff ages ago for some reason anyway though! I also use ad-block…

Didn’t the new Google privacy thing fail to meet some European regulations anyway?

GlitterGary – Member

Why sign in to Google though? Simple, just dont sign in. Or use msn search. Can this thread be added to the First World Problems thread, please mods?

LOL. It’s really cute that you think that makes any odds at all to whether Google gathers information on you or not 😀

Don’t sign in, they still track you via cookies and IP address.

Use MSN. Yeah okay, and also avoid any website that is affiliated with Google (e.g. YouTube), or content from Google (e.g. folk posting up pics from Picassa), or that carries Google Ads (practically everywhere), or that has Google+ widgets on it?

Good luck!

Use MSN.

And MSN isn’t collecting data? Or just not telling you?

that is pretty much the only benefit I can see for this

Imagine you are planning a holiday. You’re searching for places to stay in Australia. A few of your friends have been to Australia a couple of them have rated/liked/recommended a hotel that comes up in your search.

Another has posted a couple of photos from their trip and a third has put a negative blog post up about a restaurant round the corner from the hotel you are looking at.

Would you not want this marked out in your search results?

Is it making Google a better search engine? The ability to have these results is better of course. And if you don’t want them that option is still there.

Is it making Google a better search engine? The ability to have these results is better of course. And if you don’t want them that option is still there.

You are Jeff Jarvis and I claim my 5 Google points. 🙂

That’s really bloody useful actually, I can now look back on searches I did previously and find them again! Excellent.

This paranoia thing – I used to be responsible for monitoring web-access in my company. That was 5000 people. That much information just becomes nothing.
The millions of people that this mythical person “Google” is watching? Gathering information on? What is Google going to do with it?
Advertise stuff that I’m interested in? Frown when I search for naked pictures of Christina Ricci? I really don’t give a toss.

[edit]Wow – in June 2007 I searched for “nice ass”! I wonder what that was about?! I bet it was to post something on here.

LOL. It’s really cute that you think that makes any odds at all to whether Google gathers information on you or not

Don’t sign in, they still track you via cookies and IP address.

Use MSN. Yeah okay, and also avoid any website that is affiliated with Google (e.g. YouTube), or content from Google (e.g. folk posting up pics from Picassa), or that carries Google Ads (practically everywhere), or that has Google+ widgets on it?

Good luck!

Answer: I simply could not care less, and you shouldn’t too.

I simply could not care less, and you shouldn’t too.

I don’t.

The difference is that I understand what it is that I’m not caring about 😀

over 23,000 searches recorded on the google dashboard since it started recording mine in 2007!
I need to get out more.
strangely deleting them seems hard to do – it’s a part of me!

Don’t sign in, they still track you via cookies and IP address.

… and?

Many, many, MANY companies do this. It’s hardly news. Companies have been tracking our shopping habits since the dawn of time, and not just online. Tesco Clubcard? Nectar card? Air miles?

There’s ways round it, but you’ve really got to consider what you’re gaining and whether it’s more trouble than it’s worth. I like having a Clubcard, Tesco can tie my shopping visits together all they like so long as they keep sending me twenty quid’s worth of vouchers through the post periodically. So long as companies are up front about it and give me a choice of opting out (or better yet, opting in), I don’t care.

If Google want to know that I was searching for a camera lens the other day so that they can offer me a good deal on buying camera lenses rather than sending me adverts for tickets to a football match, well, good luck to them.

The difference is that I understand what it is that I’m not caring about

Good for you, have a prize.

Cougar: I agree. Just pointing out that “Don’t sign in” is not a solution.

The way I see it is Google produce some excellent software and services and they let us pay for them with privacy instead of money. I’m quite happy with that to be honest.

Good for you, have a prize

Google are just picking out something appropriate. 🙂

This paranoia thing – I used to be responsible for monitoring web-access in my company. That was 5000 people. That much information just becomes nothing.
The millions of people that this mythical person “Google” is watching? Gathering information on? What is Google going to do with it?
Advertise stuff that I’m interested in? Frown when I search for naked pictures of Christina Ricci? I really don’t give a toss.

Yes, it’s a lot of data. But it’s stored. There is a lot of money to be made out of deriving alogorithms which can process and sift through this data for advertising purposes, turning it from reams of data and noise into useful information, which can be requested by the government, snooped upon internally at Google and hacked.

Just did it, not that fussed though.

However, deleted the Google+ shite though.

Tell me all about PGP ?

scuzz – Member
Considering the current implications

What implications?

Neither my address, phone number, bank details, date of birth or any other details such as these are online.

So actually Google and the likes have less ‘real‘ information about me than the bank, the mortgagte company, insurance companies, the DVLA etc.

And the governmant have more than any and we know how good they are at leaving laptops on trains.

Google are just picking out something appropriate.

Big pedantic goofy teeth and nerd glasses, I’d expect.

😆

What implications?

Neither my address, phone number, bank details, date of birth or any other details such as these are online.

So actually Google and the likes have less ‘real’ information about me than the bank, the mortgagte company, insurance companies, the DVLA etc.

And the governmant have more than any and we know how good they are at leaving computers on trains.
Sorry phil.w – that was left over from a previous draft. It was meant to be along the lines of ‘considering the current implications isn’t sufficient – we all know how processing power is scaling. The viability of algorithms good enough to perform this data processing is also increasing, especially considering the vast resources at Google HQ.’

You’re right about the amount of info Google have compared to other sources. Naturally “it’s ok cause everyone else does it” doesn’t assure me. But what scares me with Google is that it’s financial gains driving a top IT company: they have the money and the know-how that the DVLA and the Government don’t.

for advertising purposes, turning it from reams of data and noise into useful information, which can be requested by the government, snooped upon internally at Google and hacked.

So it is about paranoia?
You mean the government, Mr Google or a hacker can find out I searched for “nice ass” in 2007? Sheeeite, where’s that Pause button? 😯

Big pedantic goofy teeth and nerd glasses, I’d expect.

Nah. Got all them already.
(which Google already knows from its face recognition software).

I’d always sort of assumed that anything in one bit of Google was shared around all the other bits of Google already, so I don’t feel compelled to change my behaviour overmuch 🙂

Looking at it from another point of view…

I bet most of the companies we work for use Google in some way to promote their business. So if your company can sell more stuff through better use of Gooogle targeted ads then your jobs are more secure!!

Nah. Got all them already.
(which Google already knows from its face recognition software).

I got mine from the pound shop. I was wearing a tin foil hat though, so I don’t think the CCTV saw me. 😉

Imagine you are planning a holiday. You’re searching for places to stay in Australia. A few of your friends have been to Australia a couple of them have rated/liked/recommended a hotel that comes up in your search.

Another has posted a couple of photos from their trip and a third has put a negative blog post up about a restaurant round the corner from the hotel you are looking at.

Would you not want this marked out in your search results?

I’m not fussed about adverts, or how well targeted they might be – but if I’m using a search engine I’m typically looking for the objectively best result – not the result google thinks I’ll be most subjectively happy with based on who they imagine I am.

Sure it has benefits for advertising as ads can be targeted more exactly

that is pretty much the only benefit I can see for this
It does not add anything to the customer experience- unless you class being bombarded with “better” adverts as a good thing.

This is it for me. I personally use adblocker on Firefox, and know just about enough to be able to find things on the internet without relying on paid for links telling me where to go. I’ve been reading the Guardian’s Q&A with the Google guy, and what was interesting was that he singularly failed to convincingly explain why this was better for the user. [To paraphrase:] “We’ll be able to tell if you’re looking for a plumber or a florist/a jaguar cat or a Jaguar car”. Errr… I should hope so.

Also, he said that “better targeting of ads means fewer ads”, which I don’t understand.

We’ve all seen the Minority Report targeted ads: “Mr Johnson, your wife hasn’t had a new handbag for six months….” The experience on the internet, however, is still so clunky, it will be interesting to see how/if it really starts to work. Although I, along with lots of others I’m sure, will be trying to avoid as much of it as possible.

And I agree with those above who mention Clubcards and similar, as just as dodgy. Loads of personal data about what you actually buy, rather than the more random internet search history. And, of course, the moneysupermarket-type sites which seem to do a pretty nifty job of getting us to hand over data.

Duckduckgo is pretty good actually. I think I’ll stick with it. Ta ta Google.

Duckduckgo is pretty good actually.

+1, it’s loads easier on the eye than Google, loads neater.

Thought we weren’t allowed to admit to such things..

Duckduckgo is pretty good actually. I think I’ll stick with it. Ta ta Google.

Enjoy.

If you are using it for privacy reasons then you probably want the HTTPS version of the site: https://duckduckgo.com/

But as explained earlier, using a different search engine will make absolutely no odds. Okay Google won’t get your search queries, but they can and will still track you.

Google, yesterday

if I’m using a search engine I’m typically looking for the objectively best result – not the result google thinks I’ll be most subjectively happy with based on who they imagine I am.

So how do you think search engines pick the best results? It’s always going to be subjective.

So how do you think search engines pick the best results? It’s always going to be subjective.

Usually by returning webpages which contain the terms you searched for. Not by ignoring one of the three words you searched for, using quotation marks.

Glad you guys like duckduckgo – once you get passed the initial “it’s not Google” shock, all is well.