[kwlug-disc] DailyTech - Concerned About Privacy? You're Probably up to no Good, Says Google CEO

[Bob Jonkman]

Insurance Squared Inc. thinks:

> December is 'bing-athon' month.  It's the month where you switch to 
> using Bing! as your search engine.  No, the idea isn't that MS needs 
> to take Google's place. The idea is choice - a subject we should all 
> be familiar with.  1/3 Google, 1/3 MS and 1/3 Yahoo is far better for 
> our choice than 90% Google and 10% also-rans.

If anything, Bing and Yahoo! are even worse than Google.  At least with 
Google there are some announcements of their policies and practices.  
Yahoo! is close-mouthed about its operations, and Microsoft even more so.

If I'm going to switch search engines I'll go with a small independent 
like http://www.ixquick.com/ (which claims to not collect IP addresses), 
or one of the search aggregators -- remember http://www.metacrawler.com/ 
?  Better that Google, Yahoo and Bing collects their IP address than mine.


Speaking of Nefarious Google, has anyone tried their public DNS? IP 
addresses of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, real easy to remember.  I pointed my 
router there yesterday, but I've experienced no observable difference, 
so I'm going back to my ISP's DNS.

--Bob.


Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com>         http://sobac.com/sobac/
SOBAC Microcomputer Services              Voice: +1-519-669-0388
6 James Street, Elmira ON  Canada  N3B 1L5  Cel: +1-519-635-9413
Software   ---   Office & Business Automation   ---   Consulting




Insurance Squared Inc. wrote:
> I told you so!  I did!
>
> I've been whining for years that we need to be very very concerned 
> with Google's corporate actions surrounding privacy. For those of us 
> who follow Google's actions, they're getting worse, not better. 
>
> And if you think they collect data only when you do searches, you'd be 
> very, very wrong.  I'd wager that for most on this list, they know 
> every single web page you visit.  Every. single. webpage.  And have 
> for years.
>
> Got any sort of toolbar installed that uses Google?  Have that little 
> green pagerank bar installed?  Then every page you hit, you're sending 
> data to Google. 
>
> What about if you visit sites that use Google analytics.  Any one here 
> NOT using free Google analytics on their site?  Every site you visit 
> running analytics can not only track you on that site, but as you 
> visit other sites, they can tie your visits across different sites.  
> And if you're using them on your site, then you're giving them all 
> your competitive visitor data.  Every single visitor that hits your 
> site, they know where they came from, who they are, and can tie that 
> in with every other move they've made.
>
> They're collecting it.  But not using it...yet.  Except they just 
> possibly started.
>
> Google recently banned affiliates from advertising on Google.  
> Affiliates are people that sell stuff for other folks, basically 
> commissioned salespeople.  Yay everyone says - that's great.  Except 
> after doing that they immediately announced that they had a new 
> advertising venue for mortgage rates - a traditional bailiwick of 
> affiliate marketing.  If you're still not connecting the dots, they 
> ban affiliates, then become one themselves.
>
> Still not a problem?  What happens when they decide to walk into your 
> business market.  They're already in mortgages.  I could be next.  You 
> could be next.
>
> December is 'bing-athon' month.  It's the month where you switch to 
> using Bing! as your search engine.  No, the idea isn't that MS needs 
> to take Google's place. The idea is choice - a subject we should all 
> be familiar with.  1/3 Google, 1/3 MS and 1/3 Yahoo is far better for 
> our choice than 90% Google and 10% also-rans.
>
> Like the MS-Opensource battle, a competitive environment is healthy. 
> Choice is healthy.  Lack of choice is bad for us all.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Lori Paniak wrote:
>> Friend of open source?
>>
>> http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=17069
>>
>>   
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