"Start with standard Web search data, the backbone of Google’s business. Every search you perform is recorded and preserved for future analysis....
Really? BY WHO?
Internet advertising networks that follow you as you browse.... Google puts a “cookie’’ inside your Web browser, a little bit of data that identifies the particular computer you’re using. Google also tracks the Internet address of your computer, which gives it your approximate location"
Yup, cellphones, computers, cars, they ALL TRACK YOU now!!!!
"Your life story, as data points; A look at Google Dashboard reveals just how much information you’ve shared" by Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | November 12, 2009
Now appearing on Google: The story of my life. And yours.
Not everyone can read it, but the engineers and advertising specialists at Google can. And now users can get a peek, thanks to Google Dashboard, a new service developed at the search giant’s outpost in Zurich. Dashboard lets registered Google users see what the company knows about them. If you’ve got a Google account, just punch up www.google.com/dashboard, and get ready to feel your skin crawl.
Google knows just about everything about me. No deep, dark secrets; just thousands of tiny data points which, when put together, could provide a pretty thorough biography. Start with standard Web search data, the backbone of Google’s business. Every search you perform is recorded and preserved for future analysis, to help Google improve its service. Study a person’s searches over months or years, and you can pretty much write his life story....
“It’s really unprecedented in the history of mankind what we’re sharing,’’ said Greg Conti, an assistant professor of computer science at the US Military Academy and author of the book “Googling Security.’’
Conti refuses to get a Google account, the better to preserve his privacy. After all, you don’t need an account to run Google searches. But that doesn’t mean you’re entirely anonymous.
Google puts a “cookie’’ inside your Web browser, a little bit of data that identifies the particular computer you’re using. Google also tracks the Internet address of your computer, which gives it your approximate location. After nine months, the address data is deleted; the cookie information is wiped after 18 months. Only then are your stored searches truly anonymous.
Ironically, using Dashboard makes me glad to have a Google account. I can look up my past searches and know exactly what Google knows about me.... There’s no reason to think that Google will abuse the data, but what if their computer network is breached, or somebody simply steals my Google account password? Storing this information online endangers my privacy and that of many others....
Yeah, even though they HAVE TO HAND IT OVER to GOVERNMENT UPON REQUEST!!! Somehow that never lakes the agenda-pushers concern.
Seeing all that I’ve shared with Google laid out on a single page got me thinking seriously about privacy for the first time in quite awhile. That’s the genius of Dashboard, and the creation of this tool gives me confidence Google respects my right to privacy.
The AmeriKan MSM is really hopeless.
But what about everybody else? We pass around chunks of personal data to hundreds of other websites. Think about what Amazon.com knows about you, or Facebook, or even Boston.com.
They KNOW ALL the STORIES I HAVE READ, huh?
Have they READ the BLOG?
Then WHY is their paper still such s***?
Then there are the Internet advertising networks that follow you as you browse from one site to another, tracking everything you read in an effort to send you the most enticing ads. “I think if we could lay out everything we’ve disclosed online, we’d be stunned,’’ Conti said. And even if each individual site follows Google’s lead and creates its own Dashboard, nobody has the time or patience to scour them all.
Oh, OVERWHELMED and OVERLOADED with INFORMATION!!?
Call it TOTALITARIAN OVERLOAD!!!!
Want a simple solution? Unplug that computer.
No.
Otherwise, your only recourse is constant vigilance.
Check!
Be choosey about giving personal data to Internet sites.
Check! Check!
Keep your address book to yourself.
Or HAVE NONE at all!!
Regularly remove cookies from your browser, to keep advertisers from tracking your online activities.
Every night when I shut it off, folks!!
Consider using an ad blocking program, because that will often block ad cookies.
Do I have to pay for that? No ads to clutter you up here, readers.
Every little bit of caution helps, but only so much. You give away a little more of yourself with every website searched and every e-mail sent.
Then THEY KNOW that WE KNOW, don't they?
Each keystroke helps to write the story of your life, and there’s no telling who might be reading it.
I hope they ENJOYED IT and got a few laughs amongst all the misery!
