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I think you're being slightly overdramatic. I too wish that Google was more transparent with how they farm our data. But you do have a choice to stop using thei

by JTon 12y ago

I think you're being slightly overdramatic. I too wish that Google was more transparent with how they farm our data. But you do have a choice to stop using their products you know

anon1385 12y ago
Most users are not technically savvy enough to have the choice to stop 'using' Google Analytics. Is it really possible to exercise a choice about something when you don't even know it exists?
hosay123 12y ago
Actually it's almost impossible for a regular user to avoid using Google products any more, e.g.: - Over 63% of the top 100k web sites embed their web bug ( http://smerity.com/cs205_ga/ http://smerity.com/cs205_ga/ ) - I have no data, but a huge proportion of web sites use Recapcha in their sign up process. It's impossible to use some domain registrars without revealing the IP address of the probable domain registrant - I cannot host a web site without Chrome or Google DNS donating some huge percentage of data about my visitors to Google. I'm not sure the mechanism employed here, but I've set up 2 private web sites in the past year where upon having a Chrome user visit, Googlebot turned up within a day or so, despite all efforts to ensure the URL remained private - I cannot visit Reddit and many similar sites with a cold web browser cache without revealing my use of the web site to Google, thanks to their AJAX library hosting - A technical user has no difficulty blocking Urchin, but e-mail is a different issue entirely. I cannot find the article now, but one user reported 40% of all mail in his inbox passed through Google's servers at some point, even though he wasn't a Google user. On the average day, whether I like it or not (and really I don't), I generate tens to hundreds of new records in Google's databases.
- thmorton 12y ago
  > - I cannot visit Reddit and many similar sites with a cold web browser cache without revealing my use of the web site to Google, thanks to their AJAX library hosting Not disagreeing with anything, but in case you didn't know, you can actually disable this in your reddit preferences: https://ssl.reddit.com/prefs/ https://ssl.reddit.com/prefs/ Choose "load core JS libraries from reddit servers" under Privacy Options.
  - hosay123 12y ago
    Only if you're logged in, sadly :) Privacy centric folk like myself often have the browser clear all cookies at exit I submitted a Firefox addon for approval a few years back that introduced a separate cache for all the AJAX libs, but it was rejected for silly reasons
    - hegotapoint 12y ago
      > submitted a Firefox addon for approval a few years back that introduced a separate cache for all the AJAX libs, but it was rejected for silly reasons I have actually been looking for such an addon. I too clear cookies/cache/etc on exit in addition to using NoScript and a strict Adblock Edge (block social networks/tracking/not just ads). The only area remaining to be fixed would be the AJAX libs to be hosted locally. Would you consider making a github page or something so you can provide the addon without being in the firefox addon explorer?
      - hosay123 12y ago
        I've uploaded what I had to https://github.com/no2weblog/no2weblog/ https://github.com/no2weblog/no2weblog/ , but it needs a bit of work to return it to a useful state.. at the very least, updating to most recent versions of the cached libraries. One of the major complaints in the rejection mail (included) was that the add-on bundled copies of all those libraries. So it seems reworking it to have a dynamic list of URLs, and fetching these once on first boot would go some way towards solving that. Unfortunately this further complicates how the redirection works, so I never got around to investigating it
        hegotapoint 12y ago
        I tried it and visited css-tricks.com and when using the 'Live HTTP Headers' it still makes the request to Google with the referer. However, the Firebug net inspection appears to locally load it (0ms load time).
chaired 12y ago
On the issue of Google (and especially G+) and privacy, if one is only being even medium-dramatic, that's hardly a criticism.
dreamfactory2 12y ago
Not really, Google has most emails to and from me regardless of whether I use Gmail myself

by JTon 12y ago

I think you're being slightly overdramatic. I too wish that Google was more transparent with how they farm our data. But you do have a choice to stop using their products you know

anon1385 12y ago

Most users are not technically savvy enough to have the choice to stop 'using' Google Analytics. Is it really possible to exercise a choice about something when you don't even know it exists?

hosay123 12y ago

Actually it's almost impossible for a regular user to avoid using Google products any more, e.g.: - Over 63% of the top 100k web sites embed their web bug ( http://smerity.com/cs205_ga/ http://smerity.com/cs205_ga/ ) - I have no data, but a huge proportion of web sites use Recapcha in their sign up process. It's impossible to use some domain registrars without revealing the IP address of the probable domain registrant - I cannot host a web site without Chrome or Google DNS donating some huge percentage of data about my visitors to Google. I'm not sure the mechanism employed here, but I've set up 2 private web sites in the past year where upon having a Chrome user visit, Googlebot turned up within a day or so, despite all efforts to ensure the URL remained private - I cannot visit Reddit and many similar sites with a cold web browser cache without revealing my use of the web site to Google, thanks to their AJAX library hosting - A technical user has no difficulty blocking Urchin, but e-mail is a different issue entirely. I cannot find the article now, but one user reported 40% of all mail in his inbox passed through Google's servers at some point, even though he wasn't a Google user. On the average day, whether I like it or not (and really I don't), I generate tens to hundreds of new records in Google's databases.

thmorton 12y ago
> - I cannot visit Reddit and many similar sites with a cold web browser cache without revealing my use of the web site to Google, thanks to their AJAX library hosting Not disagreeing with anything, but in case you didn't know, you can actually disable this in your reddit preferences: https://ssl.reddit.com/prefs/ https://ssl.reddit.com/prefs/ Choose "load core JS libraries from reddit servers" under Privacy Options.
- hosay123 12y ago
  Only if you're logged in, sadly :) Privacy centric folk like myself often have the browser clear all cookies at exit I submitted a Firefox addon for approval a few years back that introduced a separate cache for all the AJAX libs, but it was rejected for silly reasons
  - hegotapoint 12y ago
    > submitted a Firefox addon for approval a few years back that introduced a separate cache for all the AJAX libs, but it was rejected for silly reasons I have actually been looking for such an addon. I too clear cookies/cache/etc on exit in addition to using NoScript and a strict Adblock Edge (block social networks/tracking/not just ads). The only area remaining to be fixed would be the AJAX libs to be hosted locally. Would you consider making a github page or something so you can provide the addon without being in the firefox addon explorer?
    - hosay123 12y ago
      I've uploaded what I had to https://github.com/no2weblog/no2weblog/ https://github.com/no2weblog/no2weblog/ , but it needs a bit of work to return it to a useful state.. at the very least, updating to most recent versions of the cached libraries. One of the major complaints in the rejection mail (included) was that the add-on bundled copies of all those libraries. So it seems reworking it to have a dynamic list of URLs, and fetching these once on first boot would go some way towards solving that. Unfortunately this further complicates how the redirection works, so I never got around to investigating it
      - hegotapoint 12y ago
        I tried it and visited css-tricks.com and when using the 'Live HTTP Headers' it still makes the request to Google with the referer. However, the Firebug net inspection appears to locally load it (0ms load time).

chaired 12y ago

On the issue of Google (and especially G+) and privacy, if one is only being even medium-dramatic, that's hardly a criticism.

dreamfactory2 12y ago

Not really, Google has most emails to and from me regardless of whether I use Gmail myself