Google 'Updates' Privacy Policy - Goodbye Google for some?

Wayyyy overboard, in my opinion.

Google said Tuesday it will follow the activities of users across e-mail, search, YouTube and other services, a shift in strategy that is expected to invite greater scrutiny of its privacy and competitive practices.

For instance, a user who has watched YouTube videos of the Washington Wizards might suddenly see basketball ticket ads appear in his or her Gmail accounts. That person may also be reminded of a business trip to Washington on Google Calendar and asked whether he or she wants to notify friends who live in the area, information Google would cull from online contacts or its social network Google+.

Google said it would notify its hundreds of millions of users of the change through an e-mail and on its main search site.

Privacy advocates say Google’s new policy may betray users who did not expect their information would be shared across different Web sites when they signed up for a single service, such as Gmail. ​

A lot more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin.../24/gIQArgJHOQ_story.html?wpisrc=al_comboNE_b

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57365195-281/google-wants-ability-to-combine-your-user-data/

 

Re: Google Updates Privacy Policy - Goodbye Google for some?

People seem to forget that Google is a company built on advertising, tracking and profiling. It's where the core profit comes from, not like hardware/gadgets from Apple or software from Microsoft. To cut to the point: This should be expected, and I'm sure many members here on Wilders already knew this would happen and don't care/are ok with it.


That being said I don't really use many Google products anyway other than YouTube (which could theoretically be replaced by Vimeo) and Chrome portable (rarely these days). DuckDuckGo is my primary search engine with Bing as secondary.

 

Re: Google Updates Privacy Policy - Goodbye Google for some?

I certainly don't forget it. But when they change their Privacy Policy and make it "link" all Google online products, it has nothing to do with where their profits come from and should be discussed in the privacy section at Wilders. I disagree strongly that most Wilders members won't care about this change. At least those that lurk around these parts of Wilders will most definitely care. By your having made the choice to opt out of Google products, maybe you care more than you realize.

 

Fair enough

 

First the Google+ push, now this. Are there any good substitutes for Gmail? I've recently set up a Live Mail account, didn't even use it anywhere and received spam already...

 

Switch from Chrome to SRWare Iron, and no gmail, googleearth or youtube.
Bye Bye google! Now I wait for the next monster to attack.
I use Iquick search.

 

Google made their privacy statements way clearer and much more explicit. They tell you the straight truth without those silly EULA legal jargon statements no one ever reads.

Google says that if you want to leave their service if you're uncomfortable with any of this stuff that you absolutely have the freedom to and you can remove all of your data via dashboard. They put a "This is important - regarding privacy" up on search and all google products to get users to understand these privacy concerns.

Google makes it clear that all Google services will be used in conjunction to provide relevant results. IE: If I use youtube to search for "Apple products ipad iphone" and I google search "Apple" it won't show me the fruit it'll show me the company.

Gizmodo thinks that this is evil because cross-referencing data from their services is "too much" or something. Gizmodo is being moronic and is probably being bought off by Facebook (we know they're tried smear campaigns about Google in the past.)


Somehow people don't like this? You don't like a clear policy statement? You don't like the blatant efforts made to inform users of privacy policies?

You don't like that the data you've been giving them all of this time (actually, I doubt anyone who cares was using them to begin with) is now being used in conjunction? It's the same damn thing lol and you're free to not use any of these services.

FYI Since Chrome has absolutely no data collected it's entirely irrelevant to the conversation.

Here's the thing. If you were using google's products before you knew they were using data to provide results. That's hwo they stay relevant all the time. The only thing that's changed is that your youtube searches now factor into your youtube searches etc.

If you cared about your youtube searches being logged you probably weren't using Google to begin with.

Google is making it absolutely and explicitly clear exactly what they're doing this was not some behind the scenes "let's get them all now!" deal - every google product has a popup telling users to go read their new privacy policies immediately and it's all very very simple to understand.

EDIT: Part of this was posted from another board (hence Gizmodo references) but here's a tl;dr:
If you don't like Google go ahead and take Google's advice - don't use their products.

 

Hungry Man, You say: "FYI Since Chrome has absolutely no data collected it's entirely irrelevant to the conversation."

It seem your wrong on that point just read:

httx://www.aclunc.org/issues/technology/blog/paying_for_chrome_with_personal_data.shtml

And this: httx://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php


Other news: Google shares, which have fallen 9 percent since the report, closed Tuesday at $580.93, down $4.59 for the day.

 

I remember using a friends laptop to do a few searches for a gift idea, while at the same time logged into gmail. For over a month on any website pushing ads tied with google(90% of them) I saw ads related to those searches. Really was an interesting eye opener. Not just how easy it is for the internet and google in general to track you when you let your guard down if only for an instant.

 

lol I thought they were already collecting the data in one place!

 

Hungry, I hope you're not going to get into one of your marathon arguments

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmir...roves-no-one-actually-reads-privacy-policies/
and
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/24/you-call-that-evil/

 

Same here. It's my homepage.

 

Iron is scamware, as I've said before. The creator has outright said he's in it for adsense money from his website. Everything Iron does can be natively done to Chrome/ Chromium (ie: uncheck a few boxes and voila - it's Iron.)

Your first article basically says "We think Google is spying on you but they provide the means to turn these services off." So.... again, uncheck a few boxes.

https://mikewest.org/2011/09/chrome-privacy
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-chrome-communication/

There's some info for you.

 

Two articles taht will be overlooked because they aren't alarmist and they aren't yelling about the big bad Google. OR at least I assume - the Forbes one won't load

It comes down to this - if you think data collection is evil and that opting out doesn't make up for this take Google's advice and don't use their products. If you think that consolodating privacy policies and alerting users to these policies is evil... I honestly don't think there's any conversation to be had! lol that's a viewpoint I'll never understand.


EDIT: And Google's stock has been falling for months.

 

Hungry Man > You have to be one of them, a googletron (employee). I don't think you are that ignorant, I hope.

 

https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php

Installation ID doesn't even exist anymore I don't think.
Suggest can be disabled.
Alternate error pages can be disabled
Error reporting can be disabled.

RLZ tracker is a nonissue. It tells Google "Chrome was installed on Windows 7 64bit." Hardly a privacy concern. It's actually able to be removed on Linux but the functionality hasn't made it to Windows yet.

SRIronWare's creator went into the Chromium developer chat and basically said "I'm starting a fork because people in Germany don't like Google and I want money from ads."

From Mike West - one of the guys who ensures Chrome stays private:

Privacy concerns with Search, GMail, docs, whatever? Sure, by all means. Those are at least somewhat justified. But with Chrome? No. It's never ever been substantiated.

 

I guess you missed my sarcasm? I agree with you about Chrome & probably the whole Google catalogue.

 

I think I actually am quite a bit younger than some users on here - 20. Maybe I'm naive but I hardly believe businesses are good. They're out to make money and that's all there is to it. They have to uphold stockholder rights, so to speak.

I'm actually very critical of businesses and the government and consider privacy to be a universal and inalienable right that is underwritten by both the government and companies far too often.

If you think that someone can't post on a forum and maintain some semblance of a social life you're incorrect - I'm not here to defend myself, I have absolutely no issues with my ego/ self-esteem as I'm sure we're all aware - I do just fine lol I'd just rather not taint discussion with personal issues. Suffice it to say... I get mine

If you want to believe that condensing a privacy policy is "Evil" and this is really the thing that makes Google evil, go right ahead. I have no idea how you manage to believe that but your beliefs are on you.

If you want to call Google evil, by all means go ahead. Point to their future crime program with the NSA - please! Point to the data collection! But don't point to them changing their privacy policy, which essentially says "We're goin to keep doing exactly what we've been doing with each service but now with all services." Especially when they make it so public.

Feel free to believe Google is evil there's plenty of evidence to go off of - you can call them inherently evil in that their company is all about data collection. Maybe that's just what gets you bothered?

My issue is the blatant misinformation about Chrome (or really any product (I'd do the same for Firefox, OSX (and I have), Microsoft, individual users) , which has been address over and over and over and over again. The fact is that there is no convincing some people - the fact is that I'll probably keep trying regardless of that.

@Seven - that's the URL bar omnibox thingy. You can disable the search suggestions etc if you think it's a privacy issue. This issue is dealt with in the mattcuts link I provided with a full explanation of what it is and how to remove it.

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399344,00.asp

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16720406

 

Sorry if you took offense. Let's leave it at you love google, and I hate it.
People can do their own researching and find the truth.

As far as "You can disable the search suggestions" It comes back as enabled.
No way to disable.
Search (not google) and be enlightened.

 

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/24/you-call-that-evil/

Here's something you can complain about that's justified AND you can bring Google into it:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/google-and-cia-fund-political-precrime-technology.html

Much better to talk about the real issues IMO.

I don't love google - that's my point. And I don't think it does... but I guess I'll look into it. I took no offence to your post lol purely to the insinuation that if I have posts on a forum I'm suddenly spending all of my time here (and not out and about), which I can assure is not the case (not that it's relevant lol this isn't a social board or I'd talk about my social life.)

 

Hungry Man said:

Yes indeed, and that's a big part of what's so offensive and offputting about Google i.e. their apparent belief that everything and everybody is predictable, to the point that they seem to think that they know better what you want and need than you do yourself. The "Holy Grail" is prediction. It's an insult to individuality.

 

And that's an entirely valid complaint. I'm sure that that link has been posted on wilders before or I'd suggest a new topic to discuss it.

 

Regarding to Google, "Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier". Unfortunately, Google Chrome is using a client_id variable which is unique for every Chrome user, and which can be used to create exact user profiles of a user's actions while using Google Chrome.

 

1. It was loading then. It is loading now. In both Fx and GC.
2. You're sure it's GOOG that has been falling for months or its main "rival" who may even be the sponsor of the orchestrated outrage?