[kwlug-disc] DailyTech - Concerned About Privacy? You're Probably up to no Good, Says Google CEO

Insurance Squared Inc. gcooke at insurancesquared.com
Wed Dec 9 14:39:05 EST 2009


I disagree that Yahoo or MS are more closemouthed about their search 
engine policies.  I also disagree that Google has some sort of great 
record when it comes to their policies and practices.  They've changed a 
few things, but only after much public pressure (*).   And the point 
behind the bingathon is of course not to promote MS. It's to provide 
some sort of balance in what is currently a monopoly. 

Their new public DNS is another example.  What's going to happen if they 
decide to start serving ads on unregistered domain names or typos (or 
whatever else they like)?  Some IPS's already do this, and their clients 
are generally not happy. 

However I think the public DNS won't be a taker.  DNS is something most 
people don't understand.  And as you've noted, your local ISP's DNS is 
going to be quicker in most cases anyway.

(*)example 1:  every see a 100 year cookie?  Google used to do that.  
They changed after much public opposition.
example 2) ever see those crappy pages full of nothing but ads, 
typically used by squatters?  If you advertised on those 'adsense' ads, 
Google used to force you to advertise on those pages as well.  When 
people screamed, they attempted to justify it as the ads being 
'relevant' to what people where looking for on things like typos on 
domains.  After much public pressure they finally relented and now allow 
advertisers to opt out of that garbage.


Bob Jonkman wrote:
> Insurance Squared Inc. thinks:
>
>> December is 'bing-athon' month.  It's the month where you switch to 
>> using Bing! as your search engine.  No, the idea isn't that MS needs 
>> to take Google's place. The idea is choice - a subject we should all 
>> be familiar with.  1/3 Google, 1/3 MS and 1/3 Yahoo is far better for 
>> our choice than 90% Google and 10% also-rans.
>
> If anything, Bing and Yahoo! are even worse than Google.  At least 
> with Google there are some announcements of their policies and 
> practices.  Yahoo! is close-mouthed about its operations, and 
> Microsoft even more so.
>
> If I'm going to switch search engines I'll go with a small independent 
> like http://www.ixquick.com/ (which claims to not collect IP 
> addresses), or one of the search aggregators -- remember 
> http://www.metacrawler.com/ ?  Better that Google, Yahoo and Bing 
> collects their IP address than mine.
>
>
> Speaking of Nefarious Google, has anyone tried their public DNS? IP 
> addresses of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, real easy to remember.  I pointed my 
> router there yesterday, but I've experienced no observable difference, 
> so I'm going back to my ISP's DNS.
>
> --Bob.
>
>
> Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com>         http://sobac.com/sobac/
> SOBAC Microcomputer Services              Voice: +1-519-669-0388
> 6 James Street, Elmira ON  Canada  N3B 1L5  Cel: +1-519-635-9413
> Software   ---   Office & Business Automation   ---   Consulting
>
>
>
>
> Insurance Squared Inc. wrote:
>> I told you so!  I did!
>>
>> I've been whining for years that we need to be very very concerned 
>> with Google's corporate actions surrounding privacy. For those of us 
>> who follow Google's actions, they're getting worse, not better.
>> And if you think they collect data only when you do searches, you'd 
>> be very, very wrong.  I'd wager that for most on this list, they know 
>> every single web page you visit.  Every. single. webpage.  And have 
>> for years.
>>
>> Got any sort of toolbar installed that uses Google?  Have that little 
>> green pagerank bar installed?  Then every page you hit, you're 
>> sending data to Google.
>> What about if you visit sites that use Google analytics.  Any one 
>> here NOT using free Google analytics on their site?  Every site you 
>> visit running analytics can not only track you on that site, but as 
>> you visit other sites, they can tie your visits across different 
>> sites.  And if you're using them on your site, then you're giving 
>> them all your competitive visitor data.  Every single visitor that 
>> hits your site, they know where they came from, who they are, and can 
>> tie that in with every other move they've made.
>>
>> They're collecting it.  But not using it...yet.  Except they just 
>> possibly started.
>>
>> Google recently banned affiliates from advertising on Google.  
>> Affiliates are people that sell stuff for other folks, basically 
>> commissioned salespeople.  Yay everyone says - that's great.  Except 
>> after doing that they immediately announced that they had a new 
>> advertising venue for mortgage rates - a traditional bailiwick of 
>> affiliate marketing.  If you're still not connecting the dots, they 
>> ban affiliates, then become one themselves.
>>
>> Still not a problem?  What happens when they decide to walk into your 
>> business market.  They're already in mortgages.  I could be next.  
>> You could be next.
>>
>> December is 'bing-athon' month.  It's the month where you switch to 
>> using Bing! as your search engine.  No, the idea isn't that MS needs 
>> to take Google's place. The idea is choice - a subject we should all 
>> be familiar with.  1/3 Google, 1/3 MS and 1/3 Yahoo is far better for 
>> our choice than 90% Google and 10% also-rans.
>>
>> Like the MS-Opensource battle, a competitive environment is healthy. 
>> Choice is healthy.  Lack of choice is bad for us all.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Lori Paniak wrote:
>>> Friend of open source?
>>>
>>> http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=17069
>>>
>>>   
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-- 
Glenn Cooke
Insurance Squared Inc.
(866) 779-1499
www.insurancesquared.com

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