Your thoughts on google

[Jaico]

So, partly because the sub-rosa forum is nearly empty and partly because of the subject I thought that it would be apt to put this thread here.

The main question is that given the amount of data that Google has collected/has the potential to collect, do you think that it is or will be a serious threat to people's privacies in the near future? I've done some (very light) background reading on the subject, and it seems that Google's in a pretty precarious situation, what with the massive traffic that goes through not just its search engine, but through youtube, google docs, and all that jazz - what's to stop a malicious individual (inside or outside of the corporation) from spying on a certain IP address? What's stopping google from handing over your individual preferences (that you might like kept secret) to businesses that can find out about you as a person, through your IP and search history?

On the flip side, does google have a responsibility to hand over data to the government if it's a matter of national security? Where should the line be drawn? Recently, google fought a subpoena along these lines, but should it have?

I'd just like to hear your thoughts on this matter - I find it quite intriguing.

 

[LifeLine]

Google is God.

 

[Ska]

Define "national security." To tell you the truth I don't trust the government one bit. I think they're all corrupt and at the end of the day the ones we know and recognize are just having their strings pulled.

I've already read some frightening things about how the government is going to demand ISPs to take away certain households' access to the internet if one person was violating copyright laws. Personally, I do not know nor do I want to know what the government will do when they get their hands on this data.

I think it's best they never have it.

Either way, at the end of the day, the technology us INTPs love so much is going to destroy us all. Plain and simple.

 

[Cavallier]

Google is God.

Not quite yet but soon and by Google-God we will love them for it.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Google is God.

Indeed.

 

[Cavallier]

There's really nothing left to do at this point but begin a Jihad.

Any takers?

 

[walfin]

Google should have a citizenship program.

And charge for it.

 

[Mary]

I <3 google.
Yay for free open source stuffs!

 

[MsAnthropy_Indefatigably]

Yeah, I too have become victim to Googlism and worship almost exclusively at its feet, but I have not, however, joined the Google+ Community solely because they ask that you use your real name which I refuse to do. I don't even know why it's necessary to give that kind of information to begin with! I want to be Ms. Anthropy N. Defatigably dammit!

 

[tepellian]

On the flip side, does google have a responsibility to hand over data to the government if it's a matter of national security? Where should the line be drawn? Recently, google fought a subpoena along these lines, but should it have?

I don't know if that's such a flip-side. Evidence/information gleaned from an online database is potentially very circumstantial, in my opinion, since anyone could write anything under whatever information (true/falsified) they choose to provide. (Though perhaps the need for an actual phone number to join google now - no more gmail accounts for me - is a deterrent to forgery, but there is probably some way to get around it without having to use a contact's number.).

So short of more reliable, even physical, evidence that someone wrote/produced whatever seditious information is under their name, I don't think that it should be admissible in a court of law. Never mind that the person might just be spouting crap, even if it is actually them, and it doesn't necessarily amount to actions taken, though if planned actions are taken and there is other evidence that they are involved, then it might be more appropriate for use.

Anyway, what kind of a terrorist would use google to communicate? "Oh yeah, let's put our information in with probably the biggest databank out there, which noticeably uses it to generate personalized advertisements; nobody's going to find out about my covert identity or secret plans."

 

[Otherside]

They're trying to emulate Apple, but the difference is that Apple pretty much has its customers locked in via hardware and proprietary software. If they implement it correctly, they may have some success with it and the masses will just accept it as the norm. I don't care for it, but I'm not really affected by it.

 

[Lydia]

It is a thing where I type in what I want to surf on.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Secrets are stupid. The only time they're acceptable is when they avoid the loss of life or limb. If you feel the need to lie or hide something, maybe you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. Otherwise, the person you're hiding it from is too immature to handle reality?

 

[Ermine]

The main question is that given the amount of data that Google has collected/has the potential to collect, do you think that it is or will be a serious threat to people's privacies in the near future?

It could be if google made a change in policy against personal liberty/privacy. Here's my perspective. At the moment, I work in a dental office, and a lot of my job is data entry for the patient records. I have access to a wealth of information that I could easily exploit if I had the motivation. There are plenty of privacy laws in place, but still. I can see people's social security numbers, insurance info, medical history/issues, who their family is, where they live, phone number, and a significant amount of personal information (you'd be surprised what kind of stuff is divulged in a dental office, especially when there's family issues. That's more than enough information for me to exploit any patient and invade their privacy. The point being that the level of intelligence google has on its users is not new or unique. I don't think information collecting becomes a threat until Google chooses not to keep its users confident that they are safe and that the internet is (mostly) free. Perhaps it's time to create internet privacy laws like there are for health care so users only share the information they want to share.

what's to stop a malicious individual (inside or outside of the corporation) from spying on a certain IP address? What's stopping google from handing over your individual preferences (that you might like kept secret) to businesses that can find out about you as a person, through your IP and search history?

Not much, it seems. It seems the big thing keeping google from betraying the trust of its users is that Google is not only a business, but an idea. Google is not just a search engine that has open source software, google docs, etc. I think they're also a symbol of online freedom, particularly freedom of information. That can be seen in how "google" has become a commonly used verb, and also how google, along with wikipedia and other websites fought against SOPA and PIPA. Online freedom doesn't automatically equate to online privacy, but if google betrays what they stand (or appear to stand) for, people will stop using google. If they see google as bad or intrusive, it will hurt Google financially.

On the flip side, does google have a responsibility to hand over data to the government if it's a matter of national security? Where should the line be drawn? Recently, google fought a subpoena along these lines, but should it have?

I think Google should only have a responsibility to hand over information about itself, not its users. For one, Google has millions upon millions of users, many of which are not US citizens. I don't think Google's responsible for any of its users, so why would they have the right to hand over information for people they're not responsible for? Making google responsible to hand over users' information to the government would step on the toes of other countries as well.

 

[SpaceYeti]

I think Google should only have a responsibility to hand over information about itself, not its users. For one, Google has millions upon millions of users, many of which are not US citizens. I don't think Google's responsible for any of its users, so why would they have the right to hand over information for people they're not responsible for? Making google responsible to hand over users' information to the government would step on the toes of other countries as well.

So if a murder weapon is found, should the company who produced the weapon not give law enforcement officials the information of where and who they sold that particular item to?

If it helps bring a murderer to justice, why would or should google not share something that may be pertinent with the people who would do the justice bringing?

It has nothing to do with being responsible for what their users do, just like knife and handgun manufacturers aren't responsible for murders committed with their product.

 

[Fukyo]

I <3 google.
Yay for free open source stuffs!

The thing about Google is that it's not free.

I assume people here are familiar with targeted advertising. If there were no users there would be no Google, not just because of the lack of demand, but because the users actually fund Google. Yes, I'm talking about ad revenue. Google is a business, it's not an altruistic foundation. It's pretty insidious actually. They use your personal information as payment in a sense, while telling you it's all for your good. More shiny stuff. Personalized searches. You can't even get a Youtube account without signing up for Google.


What makes Google dangerous isn't merely that it stores information about what you search, it's how it lures you into signing up which effectively makes all this data much easier to connect to your real identity, it's also the monopoly Google has on Internet and data mining and the scope of the information it stores. Google practically has no competition. Do you know anyone who regularly uses Yahoo and Bing? I don't. Using Google is so pervasive, googling is now a word.

 

[Fukyo]

Secrets are stupid. The only time they're acceptable is when they avoid the loss of life or limb.

What about the loss of employment?

 

[SpaceYeti]

What about the loss of employment?

I would say it depends on if it's because your boss is irrational or because you did something wrong.

 

[Cognisant]

Google's the middle man, in that sense what's good for Google is good for the internet because what's good for the internet is good for Google, they won't exploit you because your trust and loyalty has value to them, indeed if anyone out there is going to have the clout and the balls to stand up to the US government, it's Google.

Of course Google is still a corporation, there's no such thing as a "good" corporation, it's just that in this particular situation being profitable necessitates being more-or-less ethical, so of course they're going to profile us as much as they possibly can and sell this information to whoever will buy it, but don't be mistaken, to Google you're just a number.

Personally I'm far more worried about ISPs invading my privacy, they know who I am, where I live and they're more often than not working closely with the government, indeed it's in the best interests of an ISP to suck up to the government and if I, the customer, feel that they're invading my privacy, well if they're the only ISP in my region I either learn to live with it or learn to live without the internet.

What I'd like to see is Google investing in its own ISP service and if it ever does I'll be signing up as soon as I can, because that'll be an ISP with an interest in protecting my privacy and the means to stand up to the government if they ever try to invade it.

Wow that was pro-Google.
Again let’s be clear, they are a corporation, they exist to only make money.

 

[Fukyo]

True dat.

 

[Cognisant]

First there was pirate radio.

Soon there will be sky pirates too.

 

[Cognisant]

Cognisant
Thank you for posting! Your post will not be visible until a moderator has approved it for posting.

WTF?

 

[Fukyo]

Damn it Cog, stop summoning the government...

 

[Ermine]

So if a murder weapon is found, should the company who produced the weapon not give law enforcement officials the information of where and who they sold that particular item to?

If it helps bring a murderer to justice, why would or should google not share something that may be pertinent with the people who would do the justice bringing?

It has nothing to do with being responsible for what their users do, just like knife and handgun manufacturers aren't responsible for murders committed with their product.

I think there's a significant difference between google and the weapon seller. Google doesn't choose it's clients. And while I don't have any actual knowledge on the subject, the weapon seller would probably use more caution dealing with more dangerous goods and potentially more dangerous people. I think it's fair to say that weapon sellers have a bit more responsibility for their clients when they can refuse to sell a weapon if they want. Google can't withhold its services in a similar way. Also, I'd say this whole "guilty until proven innocent" approach is a bit unfair to google users as a whole.

 

[SpaceYeti]

I think there's a significant difference between google and the weapon seller. Google doesn't choose it's clients. And while I don't have any actual knowledge on the subject, the weapon seller would probably use more caution dealing with more dangerous goods and potentially more dangerous people. I think it's fair to say that weapon sellers have a bit more responsibility for their clients when they can refuse to sell a weapon if they want. Google can't withhold its services in a similar way. Also, I'd say this whole "guilty until proven innocent" approach is a bit unfair to google users as a whole.

I don't understand this privacy issue. It's not like you have the right to download whatever you want without what you're downloading being tracked. It's not like you're the owner of the internet and you go there to for privacy. The internet is networked computers which share information. If you don't want what you do to be known, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

The thing about Google is that it's not free.

I assume people here are familiar with targeted advertising. If there were no users there would be no Google, not just because of the lack of demand, but because the users actually fund Google. Yes, I'm talking about ad revenue. Google is a business, it's not an altruistic foundation. It's pretty insidious actually. They use your personal information as payment in a sense, while telling you it's all for your good. More shiny stuff. Personalized searches. You can't even get a Youtube account without signing up for Google.

I just started noticing my personalized ads. It's annoying propaganda in its overtness, the subtlety of Google registering my net footprints is upsetting.

I read somewhere that you can opt out, but from a glance it looks like a complicated process, even then that probably only saves your information from being included in analyses, if that.

 

[Fukyo]

You have Chrome? http://www.slashgear.com/google-do-not-track-extension-for-chrome-available-now-24215204/

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Yea I checked it out, seems you can opt-out by browser plug-in or through one of their web pages. I'm skeptical though, I doubt much is accomplished from that since Google will definitely protect its interests.

 

[Fukyo]

Third party solution?

http://www.ghostery.com/


I use DNT+ for Firefox with NoScript and Adblock plus.

 

[eagor]

Third party solution?

http://www.ghostery.com/


I use DNT+ for Firefox with NoScript and Adblock plus.

well never mind then i was gonna suggest the same thing

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Third party solution?

http://www.ghostery.com/


I use DNT+ for Firefox with NoScript and Adblock plus.

Nice, thanks for this.

 

[Orja]

Third party solution?

http://www.ghostery.com/

Ghostery is awesome, though the little purple box gets annoying.

On a bit of a side-note, all seeing, all collating Google may have made a bit of a mistake with their newest ranking policy. They claim to be focusing more on original, current content and lowering the ranks of sites that do "too much" SEO. This is a great idea in theory. However, they appear to have gone to far with it, ignoring some metatags entirely. I say this only because it seems like recently, Google has been misinterpreting some website content and has been producing more irrelevant results than usual. Yet somehow, as if by magic, Wikipedia and YouTube are always the very most relevant websites for every search.
Has anyone else noticed this? At the moment, even Bing is bringing up better, more relevant search results (which is a little sad). If they don't fix it soon, this may begin to hurt ad profits and allow someone else to take the lead in our newest phase of brain-washing.

 

[Cognisant]

Evidently Google thinks I'm in the "guys who date lesbians" demographic.

 

[eagor]

apparently i need tampons

 

[kora]

Secrets are stupid. The only time they're acceptable is when they avoid the loss of life or limb. If you feel the need to lie or hide something, maybe you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. Otherwise, the person you're hiding it from is too immature to handle reality?

although that reasoning is essentially correct, it may lead to a rather 1984-ish world which I would not be very comfortable in, think about the snowball effect that would have on society...Human beings always push everything to the extreme

 

[Pistoli]

Has anyone else noticed this? At the moment, even Bing is bringing up better, more relevant search results (which is a little sad). If they don't fix it soon, this may begin to hurt ad profits and allow someone else to take the lead in our newest phase of brain-washing.

I know this wouldn't happen but, I wish search engines segregated e-commerce sites from non e-commerce sites. Giving you the option to select between the two for your search and results. You still could have ads within the non e-commerce, just not a avenue to purchase anything. Nor have sites that are nothing but an ad with links to an e-commerce site.

 

[Stoic Beverage]

I, for one, an extremely skeeved out by Google and go to considerable lengths to avoid any interaction with them. It's not that I distrust the company (any more than I inherently distrust any,) but that the idea that the government may be able to demand information from such a huge pool of data about people terrifies me, and I don't want to be a part of said pool.
(For those also interested, duckduckgo is a handy replacement search engine, which is probably the most used of Google's services.)

 

[A22]

They give me 5GB of online storage space, for free! They're really cool.

There isn't enough people to read all the information everyone is sending. They cold filter stuff like people looking for illegal content, but I don't think they do that as well.

 

[Stoic Beverage]

They give me 5GB of online storage space, for free! They're really cool.

There isn't enough people to read all the information everyone is sending. They cold filter stuff like people looking for illegal content, but I don't think they do that as well.

(Your post wasn't directed at me, but...)
I don't dislike them because I think they will read my information because I don't really have much to hide, and because there's just too much of it for mine to be specific. It's mostly an idea I hold that data should be as private as possible unless chosen otherwise.

 

[pernoctator]

The point being that the level of intelligence google has on its users is not new or unique.

That pretty much sums it up.

The Google privacy paranoia is apparently based on misunderstanding how the internet works. It simply cannot function without storing your information. Why no paranoia about email servers? Bank servers? Why is Google being singled out? Because it's big? The internet is big. Like Cognisant said, you ought to be far more worried about your ISP. Everything passes through them, and unlike Google, many of them do violate your privacy, and cave to government pressure. I too would immediately sign up if Google became an ISP.

 

[nedenom]

The thing about Google is that it's not free.

Yes, when something looks free, then you know that you are the product.

 

[pernoctator]

Though perhaps the need for an actual phone number to join google now - no more gmail accounts for me - is a deterrent to forgery, but there is probably some way to get around it without having to use a contact's number.).

Did you forget to read the fine print?

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Did you forget to read the fine print?

http://i.imgur.com/yWZxa.png

I'm not sure if it was temporary or a bug, or was due to some other thing but for a while and up until the last time I checked, Google required a phone number, without an option to opt out.

 

[Mia]

I hate how its linked itsself to my youtube account.

 

[RockinLollipop]

Google is going to become an internet monopoly for everything, except for social networking, for it is unable to suppress the power that is Facebook. Google will then admit defeat in that regard, and instead team up with Facebook to conquer the modern world. Every human living in a 1st or 2nd world country will have all of their personal information registered from birth, or later if they were already alive when this happened, if they want any services from society, or a job. Google and Facebook will have complete access to this database and use it to their advantage under the guise of personal convenience. This will continue until a natural disaster, war, or other massively disastrous event wipes out at least a few of the necessary components for worldwide internet access, at which point the world will be thrown into chaos, and society starts on the slow path of rebuilding itself by humans, if they're not extinct, or, if they are, the next superior species of Earth.

 

[lungs]

i have an android phone so i thought i'd get in the habit of just using google for everything because it would be all synchronized and easier. but some of the services just aren't as good, like i'm not a big fan of the google play music service and everybody else uses facebook, not google +. so i have all of these services flashed in my face all the time and i don't use them and its a little annoying.

 

[intpz]

Google dominates the internet, and recently there was a change to their privacy policies. As far as I know, their privacy policy got a bit looser. However if you don't like the tracking, you can use various addons or different software. On the other hand, Google will expand, which means that we will find it in more places that we do now. Considering their recent policy change, they can do it again, after we become even more dependable on it.

Secrets are stupid. The only time they're acceptable is when they avoid the loss of life or limb. If you feel the need to lie or hide something, maybe you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. Otherwise, the person you're hiding it from is too immature to handle reality?

Why secrets are stupid? I am for honesty, but most people aren't, or aren't when it comes to them, therefore I can't be honest with someone who isn't honest with me. If you don't realize that, you are ignorant. Witholding information is more useful than letting everyone know everything about yourself. I have never been in a situation which would state otherwise.

I don't understand this privacy issue. It's not like you have the right to download whatever you want without what you're downloading being tracked. It's not like you're the owner of the internet and you go there to for privacy. The internet is networked computers which share information. If you don't want what you do to be known, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

I bet you did one of the following things: had sex before you were 18, gambled (even poker) before you were 21, drank alcoholic beverages before you were 18, smoke before you were 18, or had drugs, which is illegal even if you're 90. You've done something you shouldn't have, so why the hell are you telling us that we shouldn't do what we are not supposed to do according to the regulations? And why should we ignore the internet if we don't want to be tracked? That argument of yours is just plain stupid.

So if a murder weapon is found, should the company who produced the weapon not give law enforcement officials the information of where and who they sold that particular item to?

If it helps bring a murderer to justice, why would or should google not share something that may be pertinent with the people who would do the justice bringing?

It has nothing to do with being responsible for what their users do, just like knife and handgun manufacturers aren't responsible for murders committed with their product.

Ummm... Because it's private? You said that they aren't responsible for what their users do, so why should they give the information then? And in the first place, why should they track their users, and moreover know which user exactly had that or that piece of information?

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Did you forget to read the fine print?

http://i.imgur.com/yWZxa.png

I'm not sure if it was temporary or a bug, or was due to some other thing but for a while and up until the last time I checked, Google required a phone number, without an option to opt out.

Here we go:
http://www.niharsworld.com/2009/07/09/gmail-account-requires-mobile-number-activate/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_mail#Requirement_for_mobile_phone_number

It wasn't 2009 I was talking about though, this happened like late 2011. Google's gmail account creation required SMS / a cell phone number to activate an account. That image you posted which asks to add a mobile phone number to the account is for account recovery / protection, it's something different and you can opt-out.

 

[drifting cloud]

I find it creepy, personally, and try to limit my contact with them.