Google knows too much about you

[News Feed]

If you use Google, and I know you do, you may have noticed a little banner popping up at the top of the page announcing: "We're changing our privacy policy and terms." It gives you the choice to "Learn More" or, another option, the one I'm betting most people followed, to "Dismiss."

Continue reading...

 

[robert l. bentham]

 

[ilwrath]

Well, fortunately, it looks like Google is only doing this through the use of conventional cookies, not IP addresses or other machine identifiers. If you want to make some money off this, Google ScreenWise will pay you to install more detailed tracking voluntarily.

Personally, I don't like this turn of events. If you use Firefox, might I suggest a nice TACO? (I confirmed that according to Google, I'm still opted out.)

Also, for all browsers, if you haven't set the option to flush all temp and cookies on exit... I'd really ask... Why not?

 

[Glaucus]

Again I don't see the big deal. ArsTechnica ran an article about this and the comments section is full of people wondering what the big deal is. Google will have the same amount of data about you as before, it's just that they're organizing it better. This really only affects people who've already opted to create an account with Google (gmail, g+, etc) and decide to stay logged in all the time. Google itself also suggests people use incognito mode if you're really worried, plus a number of other options:

Google also says in the letter, "if a user is signed in, she can still edit or turn off her search history, switch Gmail chat to off the record, control the way Google tailors ads to her interests using our Ads Preferences Manager, [and] use Incognito mode on Chrome."

Google is still obligated to require an opt-in policy for when it shares your data with third parties.