Topic: {Beware}: Google accused of giving personal data to advertisers (Read 465 times)

I used to play a little game called “Let’s See How Completely I Can Ruin My Internet Experience.” I used a Firefox browser with about 50 privacy-related plugins. Any website I visited had large chunks missing due to blocked JavaScript (thanks, NoScript). Once I’d allowed the barest number of scripts necessary, I had to talk my zealous cookie managers into allowing me to log in. That is, of course, after I closed the alerts of analytics packages tracking me, since they typically covered up login forms. Browsing the Internet was, frankly, a chore.

 I treated myself like a criminal, obsessed with keeping a very low online profile. I deactivated my Facebook and ran a Diaspora node instead (no one ever friended me), I left Twitter for Identi.ca (you wouldn’t know her; she’s from Canada), and I ran an unstable build of CyanogenMod on my Android phone that let me remove permissions from applications. I was a ghost in the shell, communicating only in dark alleyways of the Internet like a nerdy drug dealer.

 Regular Internet users rolled their eyes at me when I said, “I don’t use Facebook,” or “I won’t see your tweets; just find me on identi.ca.” In my righteous stand against being tracked online, I became an Internet hipster. And like a hipster, I was pretty smug about it.

I was fighting the good fight, ready at the drop of a hat to offer my cool, insidery 2 cents. “Oh, you’re using Google Chrome? You know, Google knows everything about you now.” “You allow scripts? You’re letting Facebook know every site you’ve visited.” “Do you know how many ad networks you’re plugged into when you visit the Wall Street Journal online?” I felt that if everyone did what I was doing, the big companies would learn their lesson. They’d change, and the Internet of the mid-2000s would come back. We’d have our privacy.