Google to track with no opt-out option

[PennLady]

Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Google to track users across products

I have a couple of gmail accounts, but not sure I want to go to the hassle of canceling. Also, those are not accounts I shop with, and I don't use other Google services, so I'm not sure how much it would affect me anyway.

Actually, it reminds me of the movie Minority Report, and a review I read (I think) where they noted it wasn't the gov't in that movie that tracked you, it was corporations.

 

[BONNIEBREA]

I suppose this might make people a little cautious about using Google and its various appendages. It's always uncertain just how much of an impacty any change will make. I'm sure Netflix never thought splitting up download and mail services (and charging more for access to both) would demolish its customer base and market cap. I also have a gmail account, but really don't do any shopping with them. It's not the kind of change a company wants to make when its financial performance is not meeting analyst expectations.

In Minority Report (both the Spielberg film and the Phillip K. Dick story) the pre-cogs were used by a federal police organization (pre-crime). The film was good, but Dick's story also got into very apropos themes about maintaining a large military complex in peacetime (the story was written in the 1950s).

 

[Stella_Omega]

Google's motto-- "Do No Harm" was a lot easier for them to adhere to back when they were smaller and less powerful.

I'm looking for the next google, something with good services but less omnipresence. I'll switch my email accounts as soon as I find them.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Google's motto-- "Do No Harm" was a lot easier for them to adhere to back when they were smaller and less powerful.

I'm looking for the next google, something with good services but less omnipresence. I'll switch my email accounts as soon as I find them.

Technically, their informal motto is "Don't be evil."

From the article:

The move will help Google better tailor its ads to people’s tastes. If someone watches an NBA clip online and lives in Washington, the firm could advertise Washington Wizards tickets in that person’s Gmail account.

We already know Google's computers "read" every email we send or receive via gmail, is this really much different?

Also from the article:

“If you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,” Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy for product and engineering, wrote in a blog post. “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience,” she said.

"If you're signed in" seems to be a big loophole for the privacy seekers.

I don't know, I see it more as fear mongering than a real concern. But that's just me.

("Motto? What's a motto?"
"Nothing, what's a motto with you?")

 

[estragon]

I use google's gmail for correspondence with the authors I copy edit for, and Chrome to access Lit. Goodbye to google effective 3/1; I'm outta there. Who I correspond with and what I view isn't google's business. We just had the SOPA/FIFA fight against government censorship; now we have to fight corporate snooping. These motherfuckers won't quit.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm pretty sure the barn door has been open for quite some time on this.

 

[sxyoldguy]

Bye Bye Google! Another corporate bonehead move.
Start cutting them off now...maybe they'll get the message.

 

[Darkniciad]

*shrug* Welcome to the internet.

Gmail has one of the better spam filters and a nice interface. Chrome has quite useful features for checking webpages that I'm not giving up. No way I'm giving up my HCBailey fix on YouTube either.

As it stands, I couldn't care less. Every one of these services has been delivering targeted ads in a reasonably unobtrusive manner, and hasn't been otherwise spamming me.

Websites have to pay the bills. When they're not charging you directly for membership, the money comes from ads. Targeted ads that generate more clicks generate more revenue, and the web keeps spinning along.

 

[R_Percival_Shackleford]

why complain? goggle is going to do whatever they want because 90% of people are too busy twittering what they had for lunch to give a s**t about anything. all kinds of businesses are going to keep doing this crap because people let them. it will keep happening until we are in an orwellian dystopia, at which people may finally start giving a s**t, revolt, and start the whole damn cycle over again.

welcome to humanity

As it stands, I couldn't care less.

case in point.

 

[ishtat]

The concern is not Google. The concern is the government's interest in what Google is doing. Is that interest benevolent?

 

[Handley_Page]

I cannot stand the "selected" adverts on 'facebook'.
I use fb for a means of informing my widely-spattered family, particularly while I was ill.
What really hacks me off about ads on fb is that I really do not want to be offered a free weekend (in some remote part of the USA) or a consultation with an Ophthalmologist in Washington.
I keep removing the ad but another takes its place - just as bad.
It's made more frustrating by not having an "opt out" or even a working "contact us" facility.

I might be more forgiving if the ads were for UK /or even EU organisations; but not much.

 

[Darkniciad]

All this information is already being tracked, and has been for a long time. It's been used to deliver ads by the sites for just as long.

The one and only difference is that the different divisions are now sharing information internally.

The sum total of the effect it will have on users is a change in ads, search results, and recommendations - with a goal of providing content that might be more useful/interesting.

And yes, generating stronger returns in revenue for both Google and advertised businesses by making it more likely you'll see something interesting, click it, and potentially make a purchase.

Anti-trust is another question... But considering how poorly Google+ is performing, I seriously doubt any benefit coming from this is going to help. Facebook is going to have to screw up hard to cause the mass migration Google+ needs to compete.

Government interest in the stored data is another, but that's been there from the beginning anyway. If the Feds wanted it, they could have acquired it from the individual sectors under Google control.

The negative blip on my give-a-shit-o-meter has nothing to do with apathy, and everything to do with a cost vs. benefit analysis.

Google delivers.

 

[Safe_Bet]

All this information is already being tracked, and has been for a long time. It's been used to deliver ads by the sites for just as long.

The one and only difference is that the different divisions are now sharing information internally.

The sum total of the effect it will have on users is a change in ads, search results, and recommendations - with a goal of providing content that might be more useful/interesting.

And yes, generating stronger returns in revenue for both Google and advertised businesses by making it more likely you'll see something interesting, click it, and potentially make a purchase.

Anti-trust is another question... But considering how poorly Google+ is performing, I seriously doubt any benefit coming from this is going to help. Facebook is going to have to screw up hard to cause the mass migration Google+ needs to compete.

Government interest in the stored data is another, but that's been there from the beginning anyway. If the Feds wanted it, they could have acquired it from the individual sectors under Google control.

The negative blip on my give-a-shit-o-meter has nothing to do with apathy, and everything to do with a cost vs. benefit analysis.

Google delivers.

XACTLY!!!!!

 

[lance gt]

And people wonder why I don't use Google, Facebook, Twitter, Skype or anything else online. Last thing I need is corps invading my computer to see what I'm doing. To me, the internet is becoming nothing but a feeding frenzy for companies to advertize. Look at the shitheads who come here to sell fucking shoes, for Christ's sake.
We're cancelling cable here, because there's nothing on TV but commercials and shows we don't watch. Anything we do like, is online and we can watch it commercial-free at our leisure.