Oh ho, you vicious fucker.

[camrogers]

An interesting article about google's approach to your search history and the thoughts of its CEO.

-- http://www.findmysoft.com/news/CEO-Eric-Schmidt-s-Comment-Spurs-Google-Privacy-Concerns/

"The Mountain View-based search engine giant announced earlier this month that even if you’re signed out of your Google account, your browsing habits will still be tracked - to provide a personalized search experience of course."

And Eric Schmidt said "I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." 

I've said it before, I'll say it again, Google needs to be reined in.

Comments

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I *think* CustomizeGoogle trashes that particular function.
Of course, it shouldn't have to.

[ashamel.livejournal.com]

There is an option there to 'anonymize the Google Cookie UID', which I guess does that.

I have my history paused, since forever, more or less. It's unclear what that now means, although I don't see any customisation info in a search.

(Although I did just get an ad for 'Cyber Sex Sydney' whilst searching for "stuff".)

[hestia.livejournal.com]

I've always been very uncomfortable with all this tracking business but it seems to me that there is so much information supposedly being kept on everybody that it's threat to the privacy of the average user is nil.

I'm imagining that alarms only ring on the relevant fascist surveillance board if a person does something very specific because they can't be breaking down everybody's door and hauling them off to a gulag. That would be inefficient and costly and since this is corporate fascism, corporations hate that. So they'll keep that to a minimum.

So if we all just keep being curious monkeys and innocently googling everybloodything under the sun then there won't be any incentive to do anything with that data. I'm not paranoid enough (yet) ;) to think "They" will decide that everybody who has ever googled "The Anarchist Cookbook" should be the first in line for the seekret vaccination program that will kill off the most troublesome of the world's population. It's all just too much trouble and even the most rich and powerful have finite resources and probably finite interest too.

Far more likely is if authorities already have something against a person, they can use their Google searches to build a case against them or intimidate them. That's a legitimate worry. People who are up to something that really is a threat to corporate fascism are probably aware of this and use the internet in a completely different way to the average punter or just stay the hell off computers altogether.

When you think about it. That could be the most effective way to keep your life a secret these days. Just don't be on the internet. We've just reached the point where everybody is assumed to have been on the net with a facebook page or something that we can look up. It's almost like you don't exist if you're not online.

OTOH that's just as the internet and Australia stands at the moment. The blacklist and firewall idiocy continues and may change things. But as it stands, let them have their swathes of useless data.