pouët.net

This is not paranoia. They (Facebook/Google/...) are using your data offering their "free" services to earn fuckloads of money. How else could they run their business?! People just have to be aware of that!

I'm not saying this is evil, but people have no choice. It's either "take our sevices and give us your data" or "forget it", which does mean, "y(our) data is much more valuable to us then you'd be willing to pay...".

Do what you want, but keep in mind: What ends up on the net, STAYS on the net.

agree with raer. don't like it, pay for your mail services. simple. :)

I love google and they can have all the info they can possibly gather about me. i've got nothing to hide. i'm not a muslim terrorist!

There are some hilarious examples of how true this is out there :D Never, ever link your personal and business accounts.

Privacy issues aren't only an online thing any more btw. There are plans (possibly even in effect by now) to link credit cards to online accounts, so you can be followed around offline too and have your purchasing history collected. The shops associate goods, locations and times to your card account, the card company associates that with your online ID, and suddenly that pregnancy test you bought in a panicked moment results in you seeing lots of adverts for abortions 2 months later when your parents are using your computer :)

And there have been cases of supermarkets doing this kind of stuff - even sending out vouchers for stuff only a pregnant girl would need to 13 year old girls who live at home and haven't had chance to tell their parents they're pregnant yet. Fucked up eh?

It all comes down to a simple question or two: are you happy about companies following you around and learning as much as they can about you for this kind of thing? And if not, what's it worth to use a service that doesn't do this kind of tracking?

From what I've seen so far, email is available for free with zero or minimal privacy invasion, RSS readers are available for free (or $1/m or so if you use it really heavily) with no tracking, there are good search engines that don't track at all. You can get free document editors for offline use, online I've not looked into.

So, 2 services to choose from. One is free but profiles you and uses that data to try and sell you stuff all the time, and has a long history of getting more and more invasive and has a few ongoing government investigations. The other is free for light use or costs next to nothing for heavy use. Easy choice for me :)

now you are getting to the real meaty stuff. i like.

credit card tracking? lol. i pay with paper. they gonna check my bank how many money i lifted? ;)

yumeji: and you call me paranoid? I pay almost everything on card ;) (And no, my card company doesn't track me for marketing and link it to my online accounts :D )

Wasn't there a US shopping mall that was using wifi access points to track smartphone owners around their shops recently too?

another good point yumeji....and it's not as if paper money will ever disappear and be replaced by electronic transactions.

"That's why here at google we changed our policy to not allow minors to use google services anymore, and to confirm you are not a minor all you have to do is provide us with your real name and phone number."

psonice: I think your assumed trust is a point of failure - just because a service SAYS it's honest doesn't mean it is. 1. Remember that Google used to be a stalwart of "Don't Be Evil". and 2. http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/privacy/231602248. In that sense, using Google might even be a better idea because they're more likely to be regulated if they step over a line.

gargaj: that's the other way to look at it. The lulzsec hackers should definitely have been a lot more paranoid - I remember at the time thinking it must be an absolute nightmare hiding their tracks, using multiple proxies in multiple countries etc. But they used just the one commercial proxy. I guess at least they had a fast internet link while it lasted ;)

I don't think that situation is really relevant to my case though. The company wasn't selling them out for cash from what I remember, but because the police were demanding the info and had a warrant. Was the dodgy bit that they were keeping logs when they promised not to?

In that case I can see why they would keep logs. They were providing a slightly dodgy service, it's pretty normal to keep info on other people in that line of work. If your ass is on the line you make sure you have the next guy lined up to take the hit for you :)

That's not the world I live in though, and I can't see a company taking the time to build a profile on me, risking their reputation + business when they're promising not to, in return for what.. future ad revenue? It's unlikely.

Back to google: If they're going to step over that line, I'm not supporting them while they do it :) Maybe the service I use instead is run by dishonest crooks who're misleading me, but at least I'm not giving them my business while knowing where they're headed. I'd rather give my business to a company that I think looks honest than one that I think is headed the wrong way.

psonice: So you prefer one that might BE wrong to one that might GO wrong?

No, I prefer the one I think is going right to the one I think is going wrong :)

check this out https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/collusion/

just to add to the paranoid convo, I've always used iron instead of chrome. works well.

BarZoule: nice, didnt know about that one! thanks!

Trying it now. Built on chromium it seems. Try the --single-process switch to stop it getting too greedy with the processor.

...and that is why we have to pay CASH at the party entrance ;D

About the philosophical and sociological view on that whole marketing/consumerism/public relation issue I recommend two excellent documentaries by Adam Curtis:
- "Pandora's Box" from 1992
- "The Century of the Self" from 2002

So... google's free stuff is evil, it tracks what you do and who you know.

...but microsoft's and apple's free stuff is tolerable. You think they are "good" and they won't track you or your friends.

Well, there are no good and bad companies, only companies that want to make money. And if the product is free, probably you are the product.

So if all this upsets you really, close all your accounts down, turn off the computer and go live in the woods like a free man. Otherwise you are just part of the system, just on a different team.

or use Linux.

Yeah, that's it, I'm switching to linux, then google can't hack my computer and install viruses.

mot: if you read back a bit, you'll find it's not simply about being tracked (which I don't particularly object to if it's done in an ok way), but the sheer scale of what google is now doing. I don't mind them knowing a bit about me to provide me with a better service, and I don't mind them knowing what I'm currently doing so they can show a few relevant ads and make some money. I *do* mind them knowing almost everything about my life so it's time to spread my service use between a few companies.

And on apple + google:

Apple provides stuff for free mainly to sell me hardware. As an iOS dev I'm tied into buying that anyway, and I make sure I can walk away with my data when I want. I don't see any issue at all there. Google on the other hand provide stuff for free because they want to know as much about me as possible to try and sell me stuff.

Microsoft don't offer many services I use, in fact all I use is bing + maps occasionally. I don't even have an account with them, so there's minimal issues there. Compare that with google, where I was logging in, using personal + business email, maps, RSS reader, analytics, shopping...

See the difference now?

solely being profiled and targeted with ads for products (which you might actually like) based on a profile of you is a small price to pay for all the services they give for free. they're not a charity.

You paint a pretty dark picture there, my friend. There's probably good way to go, but we're not seeing it yet...
Related: Trying out Collusion atm

Put it this way. Imagine they pay a guy to follow you everywhere, watch everything you do and record every conversation. At night he's right outside your bedroom window at the top of a ladder, with a microphone and camera. Whenever you go out he knows where you're going and what you're doing, and starts shouting recommendations for alternative places or products at you.

That's still technically just profiling you and delivering targeted ads so they can make money. But I'm guessing nobody here would consider that acceptable in return for free email right?

So somewhere between no profiling with random ads and that creepy guy following you around you have this line. If the company crosses that line you take your business elsewhere.

Google have crossed that line for me, that's all.

What you're basically saying is that now (with the new policy) they only pay one guy instead of several. Right?