Is the Google "privacy policy" the most intrusive policy EVER concocted by corporate authoritarians?

[Faryn Balyncd]

http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/aclu-lens-googles-new-privacy-policy

[msongs]

1. doesn't seem to much privacy in that data strip mining for sale policy nt

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Nah-- par for the course. At least they're telling you about it...

Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, even MySpace, the phone company... You'd be amazed at how much they know about you.

All your searches, your GMail, every thing you do with Google has been tracked and analyzed for years-- it's how they make their money.

The big deal now is that if one part of Google gets a subpoena, all of Google gets a subpoena, and your info could be seen by all sorts of prying eyes.

[Initech]

3. Firefox + adblock + trackblock = truly anonymous surfing

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Yeah, right...

AFIK, most sites ignore "No Tracking," Opera doesn't even bother to include the option. Besides, do you know what's in that index.dat file you can't get rid of?

Do you clear ALL your cookies every time you log off? Even the hidden ones?

BTW, did you forget you signed up with some site Google owned, or now owns? It still sees you.

More to the point is if you have a Facebook or Google+ account, or, worse yet, Gmail, you put all that stuff up there yourself.

[TroglodyteScholar]

8. Odd, I don't find any index.dat on my system...

Guess people should probably take that issue up with Microsoft and their shitty practices.

Seriously, though, I do like having the ability to misrepresent myself online to people who want to exploit my information. I have the obligatory Gmail account with my real info because it's required for my Droid 2, but I don't use it. I do use my Droid, though, and I know some kind of profile inevitably emerges from that usage. I guess the key is doing your best to control what that profile really looks like.

For routine web searches I'd recommend Scroogle SSL search for Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/scroogle-ssl-search/)...it returns Google's results, but it's secure and they delete search logs within like 24 hours. And you don't have to touch Google's site at all to use it.

[customerserviceguy]

4. I always figure

I'm never getting anything for "free". Every Internet site I go to that is not explicitly paid for in a transparent way (and maybe a few that are) I expect is going to try to use my time there to sell data on me.

Of course, my ultimate defense is to be oblivious to the crap that people want to sell me on the Internet without my seeking it out first.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Heh! I assume everyone from marketers to the Mossad can see...

what I'm up to unless I'm on a super-secure connection. And even then...

I do use Hotspot Shield if my laptop is on an open Wifi connection, just because that's so freaky.

[JDPriestly]

5. Income tax filings used to be considered to be very private.

Bank statements are also private.

What if someone uses Google to find the site to file their income tax forms? Will Google have that information?

What if someone receives bank statements via e-mail? Will Google also have that information? What if some Google employee steals the personal information of a Google user? Will Google be held liable for any damages?

Further, seems to me no lawyer should use a Google e-mail account for attorney-client privileged communications. A lawyer who did could get in trouble for breaching the confidentiality of the lawyer/client relationship, it would seem to me. In the real world, Google's policies may not work out as they think they will.

[AZ Progressive]

9. Simply don't use google without using a VPN / anonymizer

Learn to use something like hidemyass.com with google to do your searches so Google will not collect any further information on you. You are not required to sign in to use google's search engine or youtube.

We should not be allowing them to abuse us, corporations will be corporations. VPN's can be easy to use and it assures that the government doesn't get further information on you as well.

[jsmirman]

10. How good is hidemy

ass.com?

I went to the site and I am very intrigued.

Sounds like just the sort of thing a not that tech savvy person can use who wants to be left the fuck alone.

I'm running trackmenot on my firefox and ghostery on my chrome, but want I really want is IP cloaking.

Can you give a layman's breakdown of your feelings about hidemyass.com and what one can expect from it?

I'm more than down with paying for the VPN Pro they offer, if it hides my surfing and even allows me to interact with a website I'm building without having my IP out there for the world to see.

That "Good luck, I'm hiding behind seven proxies" sounds so appealing, but I'm just not tech savvy. Can this get me closer to that sort of situation?

And advice/information would be greatly appreciated.

[sfpcjock]

11. "Ripe for picking by nosy government", I think it said.

You're going to have to schiz over to Yahoo to do some of those searches and not use Gmail when you don't want to be quoted by strangers. I can't believe there is no opt out! Maybe just stay at Yahoo when you get there