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    • New note by bobjonkman 30 May 2023
      I'd be more inclined to say "people voting the way the polls said they should..."
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by hubert 30 May 2023
      RT @hubert I have to laugh and shake my head at Smith calling it a "Miracle on the Praries". No, you were leading in the polls pretty much the whole time. You're in a strongly conservative province. I mean, if you're saying that it's a miracle that the majority of Albertans chose to ignore your […]
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by blacksam 28 May 2023
      RT @blacksam I’ve been getting more into the game Gaslands with my son and also with adult friends. It’s a Mad Max-esque tabletop game where you’re expected to create your own game pieces by kitbashing with toy cars. I already have all the crafting, painting and 3d printing supplies I need from my other wargaming […]
    • Favorite 28 May 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by blacksam: I’ve been getting more into the game Gaslands with my son and also with adult friends. It’s a Mad Max-esque tabletop game where you’re expected to create your own game pieces by kitbashing with toy cars. I already have all the crafting, painting and 3d printing supplies I need from […]
    • Favorite 28 May 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by blacksam: Here are a couple more cars I've made for #gaslands
    • Favorite 28 May 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by tobias: I'm in need of a little Nerd-Pr0n... what little useful thing comes into your mind as tool of at the Linux command line? Not a super-nerdy command to sophisticated resolve a problem, but a tool for actual problems that would also be useful for n00bs to take their fear about […]
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by tobias 28 May 2023
      RT @tobias I'm in need of a little Nerd-Pr0n... what little useful thing comes into your mind as tool of at the Linux command line? Not a super-nerdy command to sophisticated resolve a problem, but a tool for actual problems that would also be useful for n00bs to take their fear about using the CLI?So […]
    • Favorite 23 May 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by steve: From mcnees@mastodon.social on Mastodon: If you aren't too busy, take a minute to look through NASA's Project Apollo archive on Flickr. https://www. flickr.com/photos/projectapoll oarchive/albums This is a totally safe use of your time, you definitely won't look up two hours from now and ask where your morning went. Images: NASA
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by geniusmusing 9 May 2023
      RT @geniusmusing @lnxw48a1 I have my own workaround for just this issue. I raise my hand to the "Stop/Hold" position. Get to a point where I can stop and leave myself a note on the next thing to do. Then let them interrupt me. I have even done this to my former boss and the […]
    • Favorite 9 May 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by lnxw48a1: https://www.monkeyuser.com/2018/focus/ This is me.

Google Spyware considered harmful

Posted by Bob Jonkman on 16th April 2012

Google wordmark in a "No" symbol

No Google

One day I was asked:

Hi IT Peeps,

I was wondering if I would cause major havoc if I downloaded google chrome? Will it mess anything up? Any recommendations?

My answer:

What problem are you trying to solve? What’s the question that gets answered “Install Google Chrome”?

Google the company is becoming ever more pervasive in our Internet lives. Google’s business is not providing a search engine for free; Google’s business is to sell our demographic information to advertisers. They gather that demographic data by luring us in with relevant search results, free e-mail and slick looking browsers.

Google collects personal information, including information that was voluntarily given to Google (for instance, by signing up for GMail or Google Plus; posting a video on YouTube), information that was collected anonymously (eg. when you perform a Google search or watch a YouTube video and Google records the search terms, your IP address, and leaves a cookie on your computer), and information that Google collected as it does its web indexing (comments you’ve left on a newspaper site, Tweets you’ve made, messages you’ve posted to public mailing lists). Google then correlates all this data based on IP address, cookies, e-mail addresses, your name, geo-location (finding out where you are based on your WiFi connection or IP address).

As of 1 March 2012 Google changed its privacy policies to combine data mining from all its holdings – the search engine, YouTube, Picasa, Google Maps, Google Plus, Google Mail, &c. I didn’t think too much of that, since I had thought that Google had always aggregated its data. According to an article I read[1] that’s actually a new development. Google used to keep all its data mining separate, in fact, kept it so separate that it didn’t even correlate its adwords between different messages in GMail. With the new privacy policy that’s all changed, and everything is now aggregated, correlated, and retained to be sold to the highest bidder. Google says we’ll never sell your personal information or share it without your permission, but you grant that permission every time you agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policies when you sign up for Google’s services.

Remember the Google Toolbar? Every search request, every URL, and every local file you opened in a browser with the Google toolbar installed was sent to the Google servers. There was a report of someone who opened confidential company documents with IE and the Google toolbar, only to find those reports cached on Google’s servers. Google Chrome is far more invasive than a mere toolbar.

Google Chrome does not have the same set of security-related add-ons that Firefox offers. For your best privacy protection and security, use Firefox with the NoScript, AdBlock Plus, HTTPS-Everywhere and Force-TLS extensions. See my article on Browser Security for details on installing and configuring them.

–Bob, who will be getting fitted for a new tinfoil hat at lunch…

Footnote 1: I wish I knew what article that was. To my recollection, the author said he wouldn’t trust Google with his data again. He had visited the Googleplex some years earlier, and was told how Google kept the data from its different projects in separate silos, so that profile aggregation was next to impossible. Data silos were so extensive that although one GMail message might trigger certain AdWords, there was no tracking between messages. I read the article in March of 2012; if you can provide me with a link let me know in the comments.

Update 8 Nov 2012: A similar quote about data silos from Google’s Vic Gundotra appears in the CNN article Google exec: We won’t break users’ trust.

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Posted in considered harmful, Google, Google Free, Internet, privacy | 2 Comments »

 
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