Topic: Why Google Is the New Evil Empire - page 7. (Read 11333 times)

Google will let companies target ads using your email address


Google will soon let advertisers tap into one of the most lucrative types of ad targeting: email addresses. The search giant is rolling out a new tool called Customer Match, which lets advertisers use a list of email addresses to target specific users across Google services. To be targeted through this technique, you only need to be logged into your Google account and have given your email address to a retailer, perhaps by buying something from their website or giving it out to sign up for a loyalty program. Google says the individual email addresses are anonymized through Customer Match. That means companies won't be able to create personalized profiles of individuals, but they will still be compiling lists with general customer habits like YouTube viewing and Google search histories to target ads with.

For instance, Google will let a retailer you've shopped at upload your email address to Customer Match so that it can serve up ads while you're watching YouTube, searching Google for related products, or checking your Gmail inbox while signed into that email account. The ad product also lets companies create a general audience profile based on existing customers' habits and interests to target new customers when they use Google services.

Google rose to the upper echelon of tech titans by amassing a lion's share of the web advertising market. Now, the company is looking for new forms of ad revenue as more consumers gravitate toward mobile devices, where an ad's money-making potential is reduced. Further complicating Google's position are strategic moves from Apple and Facebook to reduce the strength of the web. Apple is doing this by allowing new ad-blocking software on iOS 9, accessible only from using its own mobile Safari web browser as opposed to Google's Chrome. Facebook, on the other hand, has created a robust web and mobile ad service from within its social network while expanding the variety of the web's information, from news articles to videos, users can access right from their News Feed.

By tapping into email addresses, as both Facebook and Twitter do with their own respective products, Google can take higher cuts of the more costly and better targeted ads being served even from within the Gmail and YouTube apps on mobile devices. Google calls Customer Match a "privacy-safe" product, but that may not quell the concern of users who feel that advertisers are getting even more specific with their ad targeting.


http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/28/9410975/google-customer-match-ad-targeting-email-addresses

Google Ideas assembles the usual suspects to help combat online abuse


Those familiar with #GamerGate should recognize some of those people right away, but suffice it to say that group does not consist of cyber security experts, criminal investigators, master psychologists, or pretty much anyone who could contribute productively to stopping Internet trolls from making life miserable for everyone.  Instead Google Ideas picked out a handful of the same feminist agitators, social justice warriors, professional victims, and all around despicable personalities that have been the bane of the Internet for at least a year now.

Of the bunch, Anita Sarkeesian is probably the one most recognizable to HotAir readers since Jazz reported on her cancelling a talk last year.  She’s made a small fortune off accusing the video game industry of being a misogyny factory with her Feminist Frequency videos, and she’s parlayed the inevitable backlash she’s received into being the go-to spokesperson for anyone interested in talking about women getting harassed online.

Gamers will note Zoe Quinn’s on that list too.  Quinn’s the infamous creator of the game, and I use that word as loosely as possible, Depression Quest whose dalliances with members of the video game press created the conflicts of interest that sparked the #GamerGate movement.  Just a few days ago a judge finally tossed out the unconstitutional gag order she had placed on her ex-boyfriend to stop him from airing any more of her dirty laundry online, but despite that she’ll be joining Sarkeesian to talk about cyber violence at the UN today.

Rose Eveleth you may remember from the #ShirtStorm incident, as she was one of those people who thought Dr. Matt Taylor’s choice of apparel was more important than him having landed a probe on a comet for the first time in human history:




http://hotair.com/archives/2015/09/24/google-ideas-assembles-the-usual-suspects-to-help-combat-online-abuse/

While Google is one of the most powerful entities(and a monopoly) it's quite easy to avoid it(especially if you don't use android). Don't use Google Chrome, Gmail, Blogger, or their search engine. There are good alternatives like firefox/palemoon/opera, you can buy an email for like 60 dollars a year that has PGP capabilities, and there are alternatives like duckduckgo and other search engines, If you are worried about Google analytics and stuff like that you can use Noscript and refuse to accept cookies.

Many of their services are not terribly great.  The Chrome browser, for example.  Google+, for another example.

There's no reason to allow a data aggregator like Google to have access to your every thought through a browser interface.  That's your decision.

I enjoy using Google services and I think they are some of the best online services around, but when I step back and think about it it is pretty crazy how much Google knows about me.

there has been a growing mentality that Google is becoming too big and are collecting too much data
When you think about it that is a lot of stuff Google has it's hands in

Good points.  I moved away from Windows three years ago and hate to go back even for minutes.

Yes. I use it often when I am toying with linux distros. My old pc can handle virtual stuff easy thanks to multicore blah blah. But if you want full access to every ounce of juice of your machine, the lesser it does the better it will fly. When I turn on windows I wonder why is my drive spins that long. When you boot in linux, you are in. Done. The drive stops spinning. No more long light of drive activity like in windows when you are looking at your desktop...

"The fantastic number and variety of "updates" you are continually told to install suggests otherwise."... That is EXACTLY why I am thinking why wait for windows to do its stuff, then boot up virtualbox, then load an image, then go on bitcointalk.... Just restart and boom. No more behind the scene file collections and activities, etc...

Aren't virtual OS systems like Virtualbox simpler and more reliable?

Beside a total number of less than 5 apps on my windows machine I can do everything else on linux. I toyed around but that new windows 10 is so cool, I'll be booting into it ONLY when I need to use those apps (that can't be used on Wine). They are pushing and pushing then ask why people lose their trust in their company...

We were supposed to forget we have options. MORE options now than ever.

https://www.winehq.org/

Your link reminds me of something I was wondering about.

How many still believe the latest "update" you are commanded to install is in fact anything remotely related to a program bug fix update? 

The fantastic number and variety of "updates" you are continually told to install suggests otherwise.

How many have any awareness of their machine's upstream data reporting?

Yes. Beside running a Linux distro on a brand new hard drive, you could do like hillary and manage your own email server at your home. The thing is it will not change a thing if you do stuff the fbi and most people on this planet find disgusting. They will simply come to your home and grab your server, instead of asking google to do it.

Until we move to a true decentralized search engine it will not matter if it is google search or bing, etc.

youtube, google search those:

https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium

http://www.iredmail.org/

One interesting thing is that Google isn't a good search  engine.  It's results are virtually stuffed with links that lead to malware, and it appears this is due to such companies buying position in the search queues. 

A lot of the search results are completely fake, because of the way that Google sends the terms of your query out to various companies who then respond with whether they have the product or service.  This is because, say if a company has it's goods in an online catalogue that produces pages when a query is done, Google cannot search those pages internal to that company's database.

Other companies, though will simply take the search phrase and claim they have it.

Google could strip these bad links out, but they won't.  Given these severe deficiencies, one would think the era of Google search engine domination would be coming to an end.  But is it?

EDITED:  On doing a Google search on this topic I find the following (note bolded)-

http://www.google.com/policies/faq/

Are my search queries sent to websites when I click on Google Search results?

In some cases, yes. When you click on a search result in Google Search, your web browser also may send the Internet address, or URL, of the search results page to the destination webpage as the HTTP Referrer. The URL of the search results page may sometimes contain the search query you entered. If you are using SSL Search (Google’s encrypted search functionality), under most circumstances, your search terms will not be sent as part of the URL in the HTTP Referrer. There are some exceptions to this behavior, such as if you are using some less popular browsers. More information on SSL Search can be found here. Search queries or information contained in the HTTP Referrer may be available via Google Analytics or an application programming interface (API). In addition, advertisers may receive information relating to the exact keywords that triggered an ad click.

Google is a company made up of people who are smart, google can do anything at this time. do anything and can get what they want

No, they do not know these things.  Not unless you have let the Evil Goog into your home.

Wait.  I'm not totally sure that's true.

Let me ask Google.

So if I am using Google Chrome and I use duckduckgo as a search engine, will Google still be able to track my searches?

I'm usually signed into Chrome, with Gmail and Youtube signed in as well, and assume everything I do is being tracked.

We need to create an anonymous internet... (Tor and I2P are not)

They are not umbrella, they are Genesis, from the new terminator.

But in real life will be people that will overrun the rest of mankind, but they will look like machines for common people

Google Inc. is reorganizing into a holding company that gives its main Web operations greater independence while offering investors more visibility into ambitious plans to expand new businesses, including health and Internet access.

Alphabet Inc. will be name of the new conglomerate. Google Inc., along with YouTube, Android mobile software and other Web-based products, will be a key part of that. Alphabet will also include Calico, Google Ventures, Google Capital, Google X and other subsidiaries, the Web company said in a blog post Monday. The goal isn’t to make Alphabet a consumer brand, Page said.

The new structure will give greater clarity into how Google invests in various ventures, including driverless cars, high-speed Internet service and health-related technologies. It also makes it easier to make any future acquisitions or potential divestments. Wall Street cheered the news, pushing the shares up 5.9 percent in extended trading.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-10/google-to-adopt-new-holding-structure-under-name-alphabet-

Google CEO Eric Schmidt Advises You Change Your Name To Escape Online Shame


In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt discussed the future of search, how newspapers will survive, and what's next for Google.

As ReadWriteWeb highlighted, Schmidt also shared some surprisingly frank, eyebrow-raising opinions on privacy online and the lengths to which we will have to go to protect our reputations in what the New York Times called an age defined by "the impossibility of erasing your posted past and moving on."

The Wall Street Journal's Holman Jenkins writes in his interview with Eric Schmidt that the CEO "predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends' social media sites."

"I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," Schmidt said.

Will we really use this "restart button?" Many have questioned Schmidt's stance. "This notion isn't just scary--it seems downright pointless," wrote TechCrunch of the proposition. Researcher Danah Boyd calls the idea "ludicrous," adding it "completely contradicts historical legal trajectories," "fails to account for the tensions between positive and negative reputation," and "would be so exceedingly ineffective as to be just outright absurd."

Schmidt also discussed what Google knows about its users, and how it intends to use that information.

"I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions," he explained. "They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."

Google, said Schmidt, "[knows] roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are," as well as your location, within a foot. Jenkins offers an example of how this could be applied, explaining, "If you need milk and there's a place nearby to get milk, Google will remind you to get milk. It will tell you a store ahead has a collection of horse-racing posters, that a 19th-century murder you've been reading about took place on the next block."

Earlier this month, Schmidt offered additional insight into his views on privacy at the Techonomy conference. As we reported here, he argued that anonymity on the Internet is dangerous and suggested the days of anonymity online are numbered. Read more.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-s_n_684031.html



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Maybe we do not understand or exaggerate by calling google "evil" today. The thing is... We may be too close to the light of the star and make us blind to what kind of changes that 'star' will have for us, generations in the future in exchange of a couple of free apps on very expensive through away smart phones now.