I'm done with Google as of today. The evil genius of making links look like ads, is not just the straw that broke the camel's back; it's the entire bale.
There is mass hysteria about Google in general. They aren't the privacy nightmare the pitchfork wielding folks would have you believe. That said, they inspire others that are indeed nightmares. The entire third party tracking industry is a nightmare. And it was already, before Google. (Google bought doubleclick, don't forget.) But people see Google doing it and want to get in on it, nevermind the internal controls and oversight. So the net net is that it's a bad thing -- nobody can be trusted to hold so much PII.
I'm switching to Bing. DDG never did it for me. As an aggregator of other engine's work, I do not enjoy their business model either.
No they aren't and never did. They don't, for example, install a supercookie (like AT&T has done) so that they can track you the person vs "you" some uniquely identified user. Where are the pitchforks for AT&T?
To the extent they do collect as much data as they can, they limit it to identify you as a unique user, not you as a specific person. In the cases they necessarily identify you the person (e.g. Google Pay where they know who you are), they firewall that data and do not make the connection to you, some anonymous but unique user. They do an excellent job of not pulling a FB and selling the raw data. Their internal controls are extreme. They "quickly" aggregate and anonymize the data so that they can sell their customers (ad buyers) demographics, not individual people.
They could collect much more information than they do.
That you can say this make me think that we are using different definitions.
Have they also stopped buying real-world credit card usage and correlating it with your other actions?
> To the extent they do collect as much data as they can, they limit it to identify you as a unique user, not you as a specific person.
That doesn't really make it much better, in my opinion.
> They do an excellent job of not pulling a FB and selling the raw data. Their internal controls are extreme.
I never thought they did sell raw data. Having strong internal controls is wonderful, but a bit beside the point in my criticism. I object to the collection. How the data is handled post-collection is a separate issue.
> Have they also stopped buying real-world credit card usage and correlating it with your other actions?
Thank you. This is a really great example of pitchfork-ism. People want to see things that aren't there. Their desire to see those things blinds them to what is actually happening.
Google doesn't and never did what you are implying. Yes, they correlate those 2 sets of information. But neither side of the transaction (CC, Google) knows or can know the identifying linkage in the other direction. It allows the vendor (advertiser) to get conversion rate of online ads to real world purchases, without revealing who purchased them to any of the 3 parties. It isn't that Google or the CC issuer has to anonymise the data after they correlate the linkage, so as to hide the linkage from the advertiser; no party has the other piece of data in the first place, thanks to homomorphic encryption. It's actually a wonderful application of technology, being decried for completely wrong reasons. We need more of this specific technology, not less. (to the extent we need this at all)
> I object to the collection.
As do I, and I stated as much. My anti-complaint is that there is a huge backlash against Google when Google aren't the bad guys. There is a whole industry of actual bad actors -- doing "bad" things with the data they collect. vs Google that treats the data as sacrosanct, and they use it to actually provide a service to you. The other folks are simply stealing your data and reselling it for their own ends, without providing anything useful to you.
Look, I'm not saying Google is great, or even good. As I said here and elsewhere, they are evil. But evil people (entities) can do good things. We (collectively) have all agreed to Google's business model. And Google is acting as a responsible steward for the information they collect. There are much, much worse actors out there that are far more deserving of the spite that is sent in Google's direction. (only re: privacy specifically ... again, they are generally evil and deserve to die the death that will come to them and none too soon)
> Google is acting as a responsible steward for the information they collect.
OK, but that's beside the point. The point is that they collect information about me without my consent.
> There are much, much worse actors out there that are far more deserving of the spite that is sent in Google's direction.
Let's say this is true. That in no way means that we shouldn't complain about Google as well. I direct my ire at all companies that I consider abusive. That some of those may be more abusive than others isn't a free pass to the less abusive ones.
It's true, google is dominant and we should complain about them. But for what they do, not for what they don't do. That's where the pitchforks come out.
There is mass hysteria about Google in general. They aren't the privacy nightmare the pitchfork wielding folks would have you believe. That said, they inspire others that are indeed nightmares. The entire third party tracking industry is a nightmare. And it was already, before Google. (Google bought doubleclick, don't forget.) But people see Google doing it and want to get in on it, nevermind the internal controls and oversight. So the net net is that it's a bad thing -- nobody can be trusted to hold so much PII.
I'm switching to Bing. DDG never did it for me. As an aggregator of other engine's work, I do not enjoy their business model either.