How Do I Keep My Privacy While Using Google? 533
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the encrypt-your-search-terms dept.
from the encrypt-your-search-terms dept.
hubert.lepicki writes "I use Google all the time. I keep two GMail tabs open when I'm online (one is private, another is a corporate account), I use Google search, and recently I switched to the Chromium browser. Google's services are fast, easy to use and usually reliable. At the same time, I know Google is tracking everything I do; I can see it in search results or their ads on web pages, which tend to match my interests. After the recent post by Mozilla's community director suggesting Bing has a better privacy policy (a response to questionable comments from Google CEO Eric Schmidt), I started to... 'google' ways of keeping my private data safe while browsing and using Google services. The results weren't very helpful, so I ask you, Slashdotters: how do I stay anonymous to Google while using their services?"
If you asked me... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you asked me I would say resistance is futile unless you are ready to commit illegal actions.
You could always use anonymous services like scroogle fro searching but if I was a intelligence gathering organization, I would run such "anonymous services" myself so there is a risk that you might be followed even more by using such services.
Hacking into 10 machines and forwarding your connections through all of them might be a solution that will get you into trouble but that can be an efficient way to stay anonymous. But then again, intelligence gathering organizations might set up honey pots that you will end up using and you will bring even more attention to yourself this way.
So anyway:
> how do I stay anonymous to Google while using their services
is a really hard to answer question: There might be solutions for anonymous services like searching but for gmail and all other services that require you to log in, I would say forget it.
Intelligence gathering organizations have come to fully realize the potential of the Internet to track people, in contrast to the situation in the early 90s. Maybe Google CEO knows all about this and that he was just saying; you will be tracked anyway so you may as well be tracked by us ! He kind of screwed up on this because he is now stuck, unable to further explain his point of view, he would have to admit that Google, Bing and many other track you for business and marketing reasons but that they also "share" information with security oriented intelligence gathering organizations.
So in the end, I would choose who I want to be tracked by for marketing purposes and forget about not being tracked for other purposes unless you want to risk getting into trouble. You may be safer just acting as a normal day to day user thus making the amount of traffic play into your advantage in order to stay anonymous.
You don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously.. despite all the controversy it has stirred up.. if you don't have anything to hide.. who cares
It's not that black and white.. but chances are unless you have some very disturbing fetish.. chances are "the stuff you don't want your boss to know" is fairly similar to 10 million other people.. to the point where you are just a tiny blip in a stats bucket. Your just search #234521 for "sex with staplers".
They arn't publishing your search history in the newspaper .. they are using it to increment a counter that you might be interested in office supply ads.
If you are really paranoid though.. use adblock.. route everything through tor.. disable cookies.. and be sure to encrypt your hard-drive with a 20 gazillion bit cypher.
What's the big deal? (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess in the end I fail to see what the big deal is.
As long as Google isn't selling my financial data to unscrupulous persons and having me get billed all kinds of money for things I don't want, or creating a dossier on all the weird shit I've searched for and forwarding it to my boss, what's the big deal?
So what if some marketers know everything about what I like to buy or look for? How, in the end, does that really affect my life? Yes, it's a bit creepy sometimes, but it makes no impact on my quality of life.
What *does* freak me out is how my credit card company can ask me to confirm my height and weight when I talk to them on the phone, and when I ask them how the f**k they found out how much I weigh, they tell me that by law they're allowed to download all the information from the Department of Transit and so they know everything that's on my drivers license. THAT's the kind of stuff that I find extremely scary, and that's the kind of thing you can't do anything at all to prevent other than living in a shack in the mountains somewhere.
Truth is, there is no privacy anywhere. (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks to 9/11 there arent anywhere on the world you can expect any privacy. Not online, not offline, not your medical records, your purchases, your bills or anything else thats in electronic form are private.
Weather you use Bing, Hotmail, Gmail, Google doesnt matter the least bit since ALL of them logs everything and have to keep it and release it at any governments whim. The differences between them are highly superficial and has zero importance in reality. The terms of service from the different vendors are worth about, not a damn thing. They have to log everything and have to release whatever a court or intelligence agency wants released.
If you dont want it read and scrutinized, dont put it online. Period.
Re:Ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
Spread the confusion by always killing your cookies and use different browsers.
But personally I run my own mail server and use only Google for searching.
Privacy is the next killer ap (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not exactly what you want, but (Score:1, Insightful)
Slashdot ate my <s and >s.
# cat << EOF >> /etc/hosts ...
> google.com 127.0.0.1
> doubleclick.net 127.0.0.1
> youtube.com 127.0.0.1
google-analytics.com 127.0.0.1
> #
>
Logs + Google's machine learning expertise make this the only (nearly) foolproof suggestion.
Re:You don't (Score:5, Insightful)
They arn't publishing your search history in the newspaper ..
They are keeping it, and sharing it with secretive agencies. You may think you have nothing to hide, but you don't know which way the political wind will blow in the future. Maybe you'll be a dissident to those agencies later on...
You don't (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me you have two options. 1) Accept the trade off of having Google uses your information for targeted advertising in exchange for their service. 2) Stop using Google's services.
Use Bing instead of Google search. Switch to Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or use an email client. Use Bing's maps instead of Google Maps. etc. I don't think any of these options really ensure your privacy any better than using Google does but if your fear is of Google specifically (sort of irrational IMO) then these are options.
Personally I don't mind the first option because honestly I'm not that interesting. I don't do anything with Google services that would be very interesting to anyone at Google or an intelligence service. There seems to be very little risk for a decent reward.
clusty; whitelisting cookies (Score:3, Insightful)
I do my searches using clusty.com rather than google, for exactly this reason. In most cases, the search results are exactly the same quality as google's. It doesn't have certain specialized features that google has, e.g., book search and image search.
A simple way of enhancing your privacy is to set your firefox preferences so that it deletes all cookies when you exit the browser, except for cookies from a specified whitelist. Edit : Preferences : privacy. Uncheck "accept third-party cookies." Firefox will: Use custom settings for history. Keep until: I close Firefox. Exceptions: [set your list of exceptions]
But basically, if you completely hitch your wagon to gmail, google docs, etc., then I don't see how you can expect to preserve your privacy from being invaded by google. Google is an advertising company, and their whole business model revolves around selling your eyeballs.
Re:Truth is, there is no privacy anywhere. (Score:2, Insightful)
lastly, don't trust any computer but your own if you're saavy enough to trust your computer. and more importantly, you shouldn't trust security software anymore than you would a virus with your personal information. software meant to secure your information and computer is meant for the paranoid, not the security conscious.
to be secure is a state of mind, not something you can simply buy or use.
Re:You don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the new Slashdot, where everything Google does is great, and only people with something to hide would care about privacy.
Re:Remember your tin foil hat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
My, my. Slashdot sure has changed.
If you let it slide that a company tracks everything you do, that then becomes the norm, and you no longer have any privacy anywhere. The opportunities for exploitation of this data are too numerous to list. You don't know whether or not Google is selling your data to unscrupulous persons, and with a CEO who says only wrongdoers have something to worry about when it comes to privacy, chances are that advertisers know all about you at this point.
Let me get this straight. It's okay for a company to index all your information so that advertisers know everything you do, but it's "scary" when a credit card company does a good thing and uses info on your driver's license as a security confirmation over the phone? Are you for real?
Re:Dear Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
Security isn't the joke on the internet, the ones expecting it are.
You shouldn't be asking yourself how to be more secure, but who you are trying to secure your information from. If you are trying to secure your information from the government, you have no more problems than an overinflated ego.
Re:Dear Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
I use my butler Jeeves for everything. He arranges my travel, does my bills, and picks up anything I need from the store. He is fast, courteous and usually reliable. At the same time I know that he is aware of everything I do; I can see it in the way he can often provide suggestions which tend to match my interests. Do to some misplaced comments of his, I am now suspicious that he may not respect my privacy. How do I remain anonymous from my butler while still having him provide all the personal services that I am accustomed to?
You need a RAIB, often redundantly described as a RAIB array.
"Redundant Array of Inexpensive Butlers"
The worst privacy problem is cross correlating otherwise innocent isolated activities. Using multiple butlers prevents them from cross correlating. Of course, they may collude behind your back.
Re:You don't (Score:4, Insightful)
"Seriously.. despite all the controversy it has stirred up.. if you don't have anything to hide.. who cares"
Ah, the old "if you have nothing to hide" argument. So, we don't need any expectations of any privacy.
To the degree that you really believe what you wrote there, you are an idiot.
Re:You don't (Score:5, Insightful)
only people with something to hide would care about privacy
An entirely correct position. The place where the argument breaks down is that there's nothing wrong with having something to hide. For example, I would very much prefer it if my Slashdot password remains a secret, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Re:You don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the new Slashdot, where everything Google does is great, and only people with something to hide would care about privacy.
For people who don't 'get it', compare the situation to getting frisked by the police.
The principle is exactly the same, but the practical difference is that Google's invasion of privacy
causes you no inconvienence... which somehow makes it okay. Out of sight, out of mind.
Re:You don't (Score:5, Insightful)
They arn't publishing your search history in the newspaper ..
They are keeping it, and sharing it with secretive agencies. You may think you have nothing to hide, but you don't know which way the political wind will blow in the future. Maybe you'll be a dissident to those agencies later on...
Anyone who has studied history and actually learned from it would come to the same conclusion. I'm amazed that there is anything resembling controversy over this.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
What *does* freak me out is how my credit card company can ask me to confirm my height and weight when I talk to them on the phone, and when I ask them how the f**k they found out how much I weigh, they tell me that by law they're allowed to download all the information from the Department of Transit and so they know everything that's on my drivers license. THAT's the kind of stuff that I find extremely scary, and that's the kind of thing you can't do anything at all to prevent other than living in a shack in the mountains somewhere.
But the sum of all your purchases, searches, emails ect... becomes a very accurate picture of who you are (or your behavior anyway). Google may not have nefarious intentions, but the profile now exists in a form which is not even promised to be private.
Given the experience you had with the data sharing between corporations and government, I'm surprised you don't see the potential negatives. A profile of your whole life and lives of all those around you is just a subpoena away. Maybe less than that.
Use multiple browsers (Score:3, Insightful)
For years, I have used one browser (Safari) for nothing but online banking. I now use Chrome for all google related browsing (GMail+Google Apps, Blogger, Reader).
I do all other browsing on Firefox, blocking Google and most other cookies.
This is slightly inconvenient because if someone emails me a link, I need to copy and paste it into Firefox - probably copy/paste links between Chrome and Firefox about 5 to 10 times a day so this is a small overhead.
I usually use Google Search (on Firefox), but I also use Clusty and Bing.
Re:You don't (Score:1, Insightful)
They arn't publishing your search history in the newspaper yet.. For now they are using it to increment a counter that you might be interested in office supply ads.
You forgot the other bits... They also link who you talk to, what you talk about, who you know, what kinds of things you're interested in, what kinds of things you look for, do for a living, what you eat, where you live, where you shop, how often you look for the cheapest ot just settle for the first price you see.
At the moment they only share this information with law enforcement and governments. That too will change eventually.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real issue is a generational one --- the younger generation doesn't have the expectation of privacy that the elder ones did.
I'm 25, and I don't have anything "secret", really. I'm about as political as you can be, and I think there is a damned good chance (as those things go) that I'll be on the "list" of my own government in the future. The thing is, I don't see that there is any way to prevent being on that list without changing who I am, so I'm okay with that.
Re:Ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
or creating a dossier on all the weird shit I've searched for and forwarding it to my boss
Well, they ARE creating that dossier (they've admitted to retaining all search queries), although supposedly anonymized.
The thing is, Google may not be e-mailing it to your boss or anyone else, but since your search history is saved then there's a chance of it getting out. Maybe Google gets acquired by another company who's not interested in your privacy, maybe they get hacked, or a disgruntled ex-employee leaks it... What's the betting that it's totally anonymous anyway since as such it'd be of little use to them for their business of selling targetted advertizing...
Wrong Problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Your ISP knows much, much more about you than Google does.
Re:Ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about you guys, but if they decided to shut down my account it would be pretty devastating - I backup a lot of information and important e-mails only on gmail.
Well, that's your problem right there. No online service should be treated as a backup system, nor should you allow yourself to become totally dependent upon it. Period. Store your stuff on your own equipment, and burn it to a disc now and then if it's that important. I don't trust Google or any other corporation that offers free services to be there tomorrow: remember, anything free is worth exactly what you paid for it. Take steps to preserve your data: that's your responsibility, not Google's.
Re:You don't (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll live a relaxed and happy life until I have the misfortune of Dr. Horrible finally taking over the world, then I will become paranoid and try to hide. Not the other way around
Re:You don't (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it's not. It's impossible for Google to offer the services they offer without compromising your privacy. ANY search engine will know what you search for on it. ANY email service will know what email you send through it. ANY map service will know where you are trying to drive to. ANY photo service will have your photos. ANY news service will know what news you are reading. ANY RSS reader will know what you have subscribed to.
There is no legitimate reason for a police officer to frisk you for no reason. There is no alternative for a search engine to not care what you're searching for.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Odds are Google isn't sending much info about you downstream - probably none at all. They're in the business of selling ads. The metric on ads is response - whether measured by click-throughs, or resulting sales-per-dollar-invested in the advertising campaign. Google isn't in the business of selling their data on you. They're in the business of selling advertisers advertising services which may be far more efficient in effectively reaching productive customers than any other place the advertisers can spend their money. That means Google want to hoard their information on you. If they let the advertiser know anything about you, the advertiser can cut Google out - or sell your information onwards to someone else who will cut Google out. Google depends on the advertisers having no fucking idea who you are. All they need to know is that if they pay Google to reach 1000 people, that 1000 people will contain more good prospects than anyone but Google can deliver for them.
It's a fair bet that Google is tightly tied into the NSA infrastructure, so if your searches show Qaida-like patterns you do have a problem. But it's an even better bet Google isn't going to tell any of its advertising customers anything specifically about you at all. That Google alone knows who you are is the source of their profitability.
Re:If you asked me... (Score:2, Insightful)
R2.0's Ratio: The more times a Slashdot poster mentions how intelligence agencies are infiltrating everything, the less likely it is that said agencies have any interest in the poster.
Re:You don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. While the moment Google returns a search query for you, it must know what you're searching for, there's no requirement that it log that search query and associate it to you. However, Google does log everything and does store it indefinitely, also associating it all back to you, and that is the sound of your privacy being taken out back and shot repeatedly.
Re:Ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
Try Optimize Google [optimizegoogle.com] instead. It's a far more actively maintained fork.
Re:Tor? (Score:1, Insightful)
Except for the fact that most Tor nodes are trojaned DoD machines, with all sorts of data->disk logging features. Or not. But how could you tell?
There is a simple solution to this: Operate a Tor exit node, then use it yourself. If your purpose is to keep them from tracking you, whatever comes out of your exit node will provide much better cover than whatever comes out of TrackMeNot. Sure, if you use your own exit node then they have your real IP, but you get the benefit of a large volume of cover traffic without the risk of an exit node you don't trust logging everything you do.
Re:Ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
This is like a steer asking, "how can I keep getting this free food and board without being taken to the slaughter house later?"
Unfortunately when the steer emails aunty Daisy, who lives in a paddock in another country, and she writes back, she also gets taken to the slaughter house later.
This is my biggest issue with Google: I can control my own use of their services, but I can't control the drones around me who have all flocked to GMail as rapidly as they can. Even my alma mater has started using Google docs/apps/whatever and GMail to replace its old email system.
I search for random stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
I think my current profile must be for a pro-abortion conservative seeking vegetarian recopies for well aged beef, who is also looking for gun rights for married homosexuals who want to club baby seals to cut down on green house gasses, so that they can drive their Hummers as much as they like to anti-tax Tea Parties where they can dump their toxic CFL bulbs by the eco-friendly re-usable shopping bag-full. And, I may or may not have breast cancer, prostate cancer, alcoholism, feminine hygiene needs and or ED, PE, weight loss or weight gain issues. Surely I can get cures for all of the above cheaper from Canada...