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I jumped on board early when I received an invite. I despised FB and was looking for for something that might actually resemble the tribe.net model of freedom a

by clsec 12y ago

I jumped on board early when I received an invite. I despised FB and was looking for for something that might actually resemble the tribe.net model of freedom and anonymity. Unfortunately, I was told that I had to use my real name and signed up accordingly. Everything was going along fine for about the first 9 months until I got into a small flame war with a woman in Canada about Scientologists (I used to work for some). That turned out to be the end of G+ for me. It seems that the woman reported me for using a pseudonym, which to me and a few of my friends I obviously wasn't. I was livid! I immediately protested loud and clear in my timeline. One of my "hooped" IRL friends works at Yahoo! and told me that he had good connections at Google and could probably fix it for me. And that if he couldn't do that that he could at least vouch for me. As he was trying to work his magic the pressure from Google was getting stronger. I had a big notice across my profile telling me that if I didn't provide legal proof of who I was that my account would be suspended in a week. I received the same threats in my gmail. So I started trying to work with them on this matter only to find that I was dealing with bots. I was beyond frustrated! A few days later my friend came back to me and told me that there didn't seem to be much that he could do. I sure as hell didn't want to send them my my ID or birth certificate! So I caved in, scanned a court document with my full name on it and a judge's signature, and gmail'd it it. I should mention that by this point Google had decided to lock my profile and place a huge notice across it demanding documents. It took almost a full 2 weeks for them to get back to me and say that my document was legit. Well, duh!! With my new found "legal" status I continued to use G+ for about another year or so. But as time marched on I became more and more disillusioned with Google and their products and interacted less and less with G+. Then June 5th 2013 happened and I was introduced to the world of Edward Snowden. I immediately went and deleted everything from my profile and timeline (no small chore!). I then put a notice on my "about" page stating that due to privacy issues with Google and the NSA that this account is no longer active. I now only use my gmail account, have been a happy DDG and IXquick user since before this all went down, and haven't been back to G+ since.

pron 12y ago
I can understand not wanting the NSA to snoop your correspondence. I can't understand letting Google do that for years, analyze it, profile you and sell that information to just about anyone, but then thinking that the NSA is the final straw.
- clsec 12y ago
  Fair point, I agree. My gmail addy is used as a back-up account. I use it for sign-ups, minor business, and as a spam trap.
- tabio 12y ago
  Because "Google employees might find out that pron interested in computers and dogs" is less sensitive than "someone might send pron to a Saudi Arabian prison to be tortured because pron talks to someone with the same last name as a suspected revolutionary"
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    >"Google employees might find out that pron interested in computers and dogs" This as an extremely naive characterization of what google knows about you. Google would probably guess that much about you if you had never used the internet, but had a few friends that did.
    - schoen 12y ago
      One thing I think many people miss in such privacy debates is that Google knows things about you that you don't know about yourself. (Clearly the sense of "know" in each case has to be somewhat different.) For example, they probably know an enormous amount about your sleep habits (not just when, but where! ← from IP address data) and your travel (← from IP address data, not just Maps). There's plenty of noise in that data, but it's been collected over a long time. They remember searches and interactions from many years ago that you don't. They might know about a fight or conflict with someone that you had in the past that you've forgotten. Thanks to Maps, they might know about excursions that you've taken that you no longer remember. They may be able to determine things about the state or evolution of your relationships with other people when you're not consciously aware of those things yourself, in terms of patterns in how and when and how often you contact each other, and perhaps with what degree of affection or intimacy. (Obviously people often know a lot about the state of their own relationships, but they might not consciously notice certain kinds of gradual changes.) If there are inferences that can be made from your searches, they might be able to make those inferences when you haven't made them yourself. One example would be a disease that someone is trying unsuccessfully to self-diagnose (so they search for the symptoms), or a set of symptoms over a long period of time whose combined significance the sufferer never recognizes. Another example would be a person who has same-sex sexual attractions that they haven't consciously admitted to themselves, but that are evidenced in some of their searches or search patterns or clicks on search results. (Or just other online activity; there was research about figuring out if people are gay from their Facebook likes, and there must be lots and lots of correlates.) Clearly Google hasn't productized most of these inferences in the sense of making them available to advertisers to use for targeting. There are many possible reasons for that. Some inferences would require a manual analysis of data; some are too speculative and have too high a probability of error; some are too creepy or alarming to the user. This actually makes me want to start a separate thread: What does Google know about you that you don't? (What questions about you can Google answer that you can't readily answer yourself?)
ikusalic 12y ago
"Only" gmail? But isn't email the most important part of your online life? I moved away completely from Google. Fastmail.fm instead of gmail was one of my first moves. And I never looked back...
- clsec 12y ago
  See my reply to pron, but yes. Everyone, and all business, that I want to know me are in my contacts on another service. I also use Thunderbird, and PGP when possible, with my gmail account so at least I don't see any advertising.
oneweekwonder 12y ago
For interested sake what do you think Google and the NSA would have been able to get out of G+, that they can not get out of email? I understand you deleting the data does not remove it from Google but only publicly, but I just wonder.
- clsec 12y ago
  In email I generally don't share all my beliefs and opinions whereas with G+ I did.
rlu 12y ago
Google really asks for proof of real name if a single person reports you? I would imagine it only happens if a "ton" of people report you.

by clsec 12y ago

pron 12y ago

I can understand not wanting the NSA to snoop your correspondence. I can't understand letting Google do that for years, analyze it, profile you and sell that information to just about anyone, but then thinking that the NSA is the final straw.

clsec 12y ago
Fair point, I agree. My gmail addy is used as a back-up account. I use it for sign-ups, minor business, and as a spam trap.
tabio 12y ago
Because "Google employees might find out that pron interested in computers and dogs" is less sensitive than "someone might send pron to a Saudi Arabian prison to be tortured because pron talks to someone with the same last name as a suspected revolutionary"
- pessimizer 12y ago
  >"Google employees might find out that pron interested in computers and dogs" This as an extremely naive characterization of what google knows about you. Google would probably guess that much about you if you had never used the internet, but had a few friends that did.
  - schoen 12y ago
    One thing I think many people miss in such privacy debates is that Google knows things about you that you don't know about yourself. (Clearly the sense of "know" in each case has to be somewhat different.) For example, they probably know an enormous amount about your sleep habits (not just when, but where! ← from IP address data) and your travel (← from IP address data, not just Maps). There's plenty of noise in that data, but it's been collected over a long time. They remember searches and interactions from many years ago that you don't. They might know about a fight or conflict with someone that you had in the past that you've forgotten. Thanks to Maps, they might know about excursions that you've taken that you no longer remember. They may be able to determine things about the state or evolution of your relationships with other people when you're not consciously aware of those things yourself, in terms of patterns in how and when and how often you contact each other, and perhaps with what degree of affection or intimacy. (Obviously people often know a lot about the state of their own relationships, but they might not consciously notice certain kinds of gradual changes.) If there are inferences that can be made from your searches, they might be able to make those inferences when you haven't made them yourself. One example would be a disease that someone is trying unsuccessfully to self-diagnose (so they search for the symptoms), or a set of symptoms over a long period of time whose combined significance the sufferer never recognizes. Another example would be a person who has same-sex sexual attractions that they haven't consciously admitted to themselves, but that are evidenced in some of their searches or search patterns or clicks on search results. (Or just other online activity; there was research about figuring out if people are gay from their Facebook likes, and there must be lots and lots of correlates.) Clearly Google hasn't productized most of these inferences in the sense of making them available to advertisers to use for targeting. There are many possible reasons for that. Some inferences would require a manual analysis of data; some are too speculative and have too high a probability of error; some are too creepy or alarming to the user. This actually makes me want to start a separate thread: What does Google know about you that you don't? (What questions about you can Google answer that you can't readily answer yourself?)

ikusalic 12y ago

"Only" gmail? But isn't email the most important part of your online life? I moved away completely from Google. Fastmail.fm instead of gmail was one of my first moves. And I never looked back...

clsec 12y ago
See my reply to pron, but yes. Everyone, and all business, that I want to know me are in my contacts on another service. I also use Thunderbird, and PGP when possible, with my gmail account so at least I don't see any advertising.

oneweekwonder 12y ago

For interested sake what do you think Google and the NSA would have been able to get out of G+, that they can not get out of email? I understand you deleting the data does not remove it from Google but only publicly, but I just wonder.

clsec 12y ago
In email I generally don't share all my beliefs and opinions whereas with G+ I did.

rlu 12y ago

Google really asks for proof of real name if a single person reports you? I would imagine it only happens if a "ton" of people report you.