I don't use gmail anymore and have a google account not linked to my personal identify for this reason. For one company to have your emails and internet search history as well as location data is just too open to the possibility of abuse, and with the increasing erosion of basic civil liberties under the conservative government you want the state and private corporations alike to have as little data on your internet activities as possible, lest you get charged with "hate speech" for insulting someone on reddit. Decentralising the storage of your personal data is definitely a good thing.
Google and all your data are belong to us
- Thread starter LiE
- Start date
What abuse? This Google not some back street business.
This is the whole point of the thread, I'm trying to understand what exactly people are worried about.
I honestly don't care if Google knows where I go and my shopping habits. It makes zero difference to me.
Soldato
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- 18 Oct 2012
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Nuke Google Data base from orbit ?
Although, SAS should be able to take on any Private Army, merchs don't really have much of a chance against professional soldiers.
after the sas raid the usa declares that killing american citizens on american soil counts as a declaration of war, and despite their objections to googles obstinance they cannot let this state continue.
meanwhile google has blanket cut all it's services to the uk, i don't know what they are but i imagine our economy is going to go down the toilet without it.
your move
I think people feel like its a basic human right to have privacy online or off so knowing google using your date is off putting.. Personally i don't care what google does as long as its not restrictive, i believe its done more good than bad, youtube on the other hand uses your trend to further it, kind of making you an extremist of whatever it is you're watching be it cars, politics etc.. It can breed fanatics and possibly why it was attacked recently..
Doesn't matter how reputable the business may be, employees steal data from companies all the time and hackers break in. Google is a huge target because it's so big.
You must be the only person in the world who just uses the internet for online shopping. Google holds much more sensitive data than that on many groups of people that the state and criminals alike would like to target, we see blackmail cases when websites get hacked and personal information gets out.
Also if you hadn't noticed people are being arrested left right and centre by the UK government for "hate speech" for the most trivial things, in such an hostile environment it make sense to obfuscate your online activities.
Soldato
- Joined
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The UK deficit problem would be solved by fines?
ahh, another challenger comes to take on the mighty google
the uk takes google to court, but google can afford better lawyers and point out they're an american company that beleives in freedom of speech.
your move
Soldato
If the bottom fell out of Googles many business units, or even just advertising, how long would it take for them to try and monetize all that data in another way? They are a business - they exist to make money, things might be great while the revenues stay strong, and it may seem impossible for Google to loose at this point - but companies in similar market domination positions have failed before.
Soldato
Wanting to use the internet without leaving a trail is like wanting to do a poop without making a smell. I couldn't care less who gets a sniff, to be honest. So I get a pop-up ad for beef hula hoops while surfing the Guardian website?... the OP is right, who gives a ****.
It's just bored people with too much free time to dream up doomsday scenarios.
It's just bored people with too much free time to dream up doomsday scenarios.
When I was a kid in the 70's life was much more free. I wasn't on CCTV wherever I went. If I wanted to disappear for a few hours then no-one knew where I was or where I'd been. No-one actually cared. Everything was paid for in cash with no trail left behind. My medical history was only available to my local doctor and he probably couldn't read his own writing. If I made a mistake in life only my friends and family would know it. Only my friends and family would know any political (or other) views I had. This was how it should be. I was a free person.
Skip forward to the modern day. I'm on CCTV everywhere. If I drive somewhere I can be tracked on ANPR. If I walk somewhere there is facial recognition. If I buy something my debit card leaves a trace. Wherever I go my phone signal is being tracked. My medical history is known to just about every government organisation and company they choose to sell it to. Companies know my spending habits and what I like to buy. Companies track what I watch on streaming services. If I make a mistake in life everyone can discover it anytime in the future. If my political (or other views) are against group think then people will try to shame me, remove any platform of speech and affect my employment.If I try to hide any of this or if I object to more information on me being gathered then increasingly it looks like I have something to hide.
...and we are still in the early days of technology. Although I accept some of that loss of freedom in exchange for conveniences I try not to give away anything unnecessary. Who knows what will be possible tomorrow and what new ways today's information will be used for. I'm trying to reduce my footprint and my default answer nowadays is "No, you don't need to know that" to most questions.
Skip forward to the modern day. I'm on CCTV everywhere. If I drive somewhere I can be tracked on ANPR. If I walk somewhere there is facial recognition. If I buy something my debit card leaves a trace. Wherever I go my phone signal is being tracked. My medical history is known to just about every government organisation and company they choose to sell it to. Companies know my spending habits and what I like to buy. Companies track what I watch on streaming services. If I make a mistake in life everyone can discover it anytime in the future. If my political (or other views) are against group think then people will try to shame me, remove any platform of speech and affect my employment.If I try to hide any of this or if I object to more information on me being gathered then increasingly it looks like I have something to hide.
...and we are still in the early days of technology. Although I accept some of that loss of freedom in exchange for conveniences I try not to give away anything unnecessary. Who knows what will be possible tomorrow and what new ways today's information will be used for. I'm trying to reduce my footprint and my default answer nowadays is "No, you don't need to know that" to most questions.
ahh, another challenger comes to take on the mighty google
the uk takes google to court, but google can afford better lawyers and point out they're an american company that beleives in freedom of speech.
your move
Microsoft tried that....didn't work.
Google also tried it in Germany...don't work.
Funnily enough being an American company doesn't exempt you from fines elsewhere
007after the sas raid the usa declares that killing american citizens on american soil counts as a declaration of war, and despite their objections to googles obstinance they cannot let this state continue.
meanwhile google has blanket cut all it's services to the uk, i don't know what they are but i imagine our economy is going to go down the toilet without it.
your move
Soldato
I also use Duck Duck Go, but if I really want to find something - particularly if I want to buy something - then I find Duck Duck Go to be virtually useless. Unfortunately, Google has the upper hand by targeted advertising in knowing what it is you're actually looking for. Duck Duck Go is crap for buying things.
Glad I'm not the only one.
So far all I've heard is that people worry about what Google may do one day. Otherwise the data Google does collect on you only helps to improve their services and AI/ML.
Google are very much in the public eye, if they decided to do something shady in the future, it would cause a massive backlash and mass exodus of their services. I think they are entirely aware of this.
rightly so. we're not allowed adblockers at work and when you browse like that it's immediately obvious just what's going on behind the scenes. i idly look at something on, eg, Amazon and the next time i fire up the browser it plasters ads for what i was looking at over the page. i find that annoying and invasive. if i want the thing off amazon i'll buy it, i don't need nagging ads taking up my screen space for every things i look at.
A lot of conspiracy theorists in here.
I bet if someone trawled through your 27k posts on this forum, they would build up a very good profile of you, and technically the overclockers forum data is in the public domain, so it's not like someone would need to break into a high tech company to retrieve this kind of data.
I bet if someone trawled through your 27k posts on this forum, they would build up a very good profile of you, and technically the overclockers forum data is in the public domain, so it's not like someone would need to break into a high tech company to retrieve this kind of data.
That's an issue of ads though. The tracking just means they are based on you, and not something random.
My point is that if they didn't track you, then you would still get ads in the exact same places, but they wouldn't tailored.
The data mining is how Google provides all it's services for free. If you don't use Google services that's fine, but I imagine a lot of people use Search, Gmail, Maps etc.
My point is ads are invasive and the tracking is far more so. that's why i use an adblocker. if google services wanted a chargeable service i would prefer to pay for that rather than have them secretly harvest data. since they don't, i use the blocker.