Is Google Peeping into Too Many Places? Discussion

Some people fret that Google is growing far too nosy, in light of the search engine maven's buyout of face recognition specialist PittPatt, its insistence on "real names" in Google Plus, and its disclosure of the locations of notebook PCs and cell phones worldwide in 'Street View'.

Read the full content of this Article: Is Google Peeping into Too Many Places?

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I've switched over to using Ixquick for my search needs. Never liked how Google Docs worked, nor any of their other services (except Youtube, but they didn't develop it). The only Google service I still use is Gmail, since it's more professional-looking than a Yahoo! or Hotmail account, plus my university uses them for .edu email addresses.

 

+1 for Ixquick. I'm glad my proselytizing has had some effect.

 

switching search engines isn't enough. you'd have to stop using google stuff altogether. maps, google+, docs, android phones, and especially gmail. i'm pretty sure the amount of information they have on us is unimaginable, especially if you're surfing the net while logged into your gmail account.

 

There are plenty of decent free email services, I have two in fact. I've never played with google docs and don't know much about it however. What I do like about Ixquick is that it does not record IP addresses, and you have the option to use an SSL secure search.

 

I have thought of the idea of using a .live address for my personal email. However, My university solely uses Gmail for all students enrolled after 2006(?), which is called g.clemson.edu. Before that, the emails were stored locally on Clemson servers. At this moment, (excluding my .edu address) I have two Gmail accounts: a personal account I've had for years, and a newer one with a more professional-looking address that I use for ordering online and on my resume. I could probably get rid of the personal one easily, since most of my online communication with friends happens over Facebook (which is another evil in itself. Heh...). I rarely use Youtube at all, and I don't use any other Google services (Docs flat out sucks, I don't want to buy any smartphone right now, and other services I avoid due to redundancy).

 

wow, i had no idea that google was supplying email services to colleges/universities. more ways for them to farm information throughout the years of use for each individual. i'm not so paranoid about information being gathered, but i'm more concerned about the safety of that information. seems like everything is getting hacked these days...

 

Clemson uses Google Apps; the email service is just branded as @g.clemson.edu instead of @gmail.com. Google aims it at the educational, corporate, and government market and it's basically most of the common Google applications you and I use for free, but they charge companies by the amount of users (~$50 per user per year, or something like that).

 

When I got new machine back in April 2010 , I said no more google- at the time I was into a local blog that needed google credentials. Thank god I found this forum - I have no google stuff installed, use bing to search, zoho for web mail, and my password stopped working for google groups anyway.
Just for the heck of it I logged in on my old machine and was presented with this/?
ROFLMAO, man I have been trying to work that in for weeks.

I was told to turn of suggested sites in BING, Is this a good idea, I have about 20 favorites and don't really see the point of having it.

 

I thought that Bing copied Google searches? Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

What...? Not at all, Bing uses Microsoft's own search algorithms. In fact, Google "borrowed" Bing's page thumbnail preview feature after Bing first introduced it. Yahoo, though, uses Bing's search engine (you'll notice the results are exactly the same when you use either page).

 

Google's starting to learn it is no longer the gazelle it was 5-6 years ago; the company is very large now and may be losing some 'enthusiasm'. The company has never had any clear direction, they simply get into everything (summed up nicely in this article).

Nothing they have done besides their search engine/online ads has made them money.

They've been discontinuing a lot of projects recently. Buzz was a total epic fail ... Google+ might be their first success in a long time.

 

This article is rather shortsighted. Yes Google does collect enormous amount of information from internet users, but let's not forget that this information is not examined by human beings. Google, like many in the datamining business, rely on supercomputers and complex mathematical models to process the dataset. Privacy is a concept relating to human interaction with one another. How does privacy become a concern when it is essentially computers interacting with humans? Do people fuss when Microsoft word corrects their grammar or misspelling?

I would think federal surveillance on isp facilities to be a more pressing issue. But I suppose the fear mongering from anti google media outlets has worked and people don't see the forest for the trees.

 

The problem with that, even if computer do the datamining, is that there is always the possibility of data leaking out to the general public.

Though, I agree with you that federal surveillance on ISPs poses a greater threat. Proxies, Tor network, and encrypted links to the server you want to connect to should take care of a lot of the problems however.

 

What makes you think the feds wouldn't pour over the data google has mined if their ISP cop legislation passes?

 

Better ask if people are using Facebook to peep too much.

 

personally im fine with everything google is doing as long as it innovative

 

That's you. And for every one that doesn't mind, there are many more that do.