News Search engines and tracking

[Deleted member 8714]

I've been listening to commentary on TV this last week about search engines's online tracking your whereabouts and everything you buy. Specifically this relates to Google. It's interesting how I slowly accepted every new change they made in their search engine. I never once questioned it. When I started seeing their ads all over the place on whatever new site I was on, I just thought, that's par for the course of using a search engine. I found out this week that it also tracks private browsing. I thought private browsing kept it private. Wow! An eye opener.

Well, this week I changed to a search engine which doesn't track anything. Period. It reminds me of how Google used to be in its infancy. Amazing. No search engine is following me around and suggesting things I should do or buy or see. Logging into websites is a little different because it's not instantaneous like Google is.

My next stop is getting rid of gmail. It does the same thing, tracks everything you write about and then show you ads pertaining to those emails you sent. I've got some emails on there though I don't want to get rid of. I think I'll switch my one email list to another email account with my internet account.

I already jettisoned Picaso, Google's photo libraries, and G Drive, Google's online file storage. I've got two back up hard drives on my computer so I think online storage with Google for anything is repetitive. Though I did like it for a place to put my other photos. Not any more after hearing about Google's control.

Amazon has an app you download onto your browser and it tracks where you shop. It was so annoying. Everywhere I went it had suggestions that it could give me a better price. Sometimes the price was more. That made me laugh a little. It only took a week of using it to become totally disgusted with being tracked. In the trash it went.

Big brother was watching me and I had become complacent to him/it.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

In addition, I'm thinking of jettisoning Godaddy. I've been with this hosting company since 2003. I don't like to hear that a domain parking and hosting company is sensoring their customers. This is the newest Big Brother Is Watching You tactic. Lately they've also started scanning customers' websites for any files they deem to be malware. I don't think all the suggestions which they send to customers are malware. So what are they really looking for? The last time I purchased something from them, the sales person tried to sell me something I didn't need. Odd behavior. Normally, they don't do that. I gave them feedback on it.

 

[Mach123]

When I get in my car my phone pops up a message and tells me how long it's going to take to get where I'm going.

 

[Flip flop]

In addition, I'm thinking of jettisoning Godaddy. I've been with this hosting company since 2003. I...

I couldn't agree more. Glad you spoke up about this issue.

 

[Gamera3000]

Kind of a difficult thing to accomplish if you're serious. I remember back in 2000 I was working somewhere that was about to go to electronic medical records. I had just gotten my first computer science degree. It was just an associate's and this was 2000, but I already realized how this wouldn't ever be secure and how the records would be used. I tried to tell the people at the practice where I was working and no one believed me. Then it turned out it was a government mandate and I realized who wanted the information in the first place.

You can try to manually purge the information like you're talking about, but once electronic data has been created, you don't have any control over who has it and where it is stored. You just kind of have to not think about that too much. But there is so much of it, it's pretty unlikely that anyone would ever look at YOUR data.

You could go "off grid" but then you'd have to stop using your computer, probably your TV, your phone, watch where you walk (for real), and also pay attention to what kind of car you drive. It's pretty hard. But see, then if you're doing all that, that alone creates a black spot. It looks weird that a person is going to such great lengths to disappear and someone might look into you, wondering what you're up to.

Interesting to think about.

I have another thing that I think about what would be the best defense or escape from wherever I happen to be. This can be challenging if you happen to be, say, in the shower, or an attic. Mowing the lawn. In your slippers getting the mail.

PTSD thoughts. :)

 

[Deleted member 8714]

Someone stole my SS# only. It was fun trying to get the stealer's information separated from mine. Credit companies assumed we were the same person with aliases. Luckily I belonged to a ID monitoring company at the time and they cleaned up the problem. Still, I must keep vigilant and stay on ID monitoring because of that woman. The ID monitoring company said it was the oddest case they had ever seen as because the woman hadn't stolen anything else. Though it enabled her to purchase big ticket items and yet didn't affect my credit rating. Weird.

At first I thought she was "accidentally" typing in my number. Nope. She was doing it on purpose because I had a better credit rating than her.

The truth all came out because she worked in her state and I got sent her info because I'm on disability. The SSA wanted to know how I could be working 3000 miles away from where I lived. And I wanted to know how I could work in another state and be hospitalized in my state, which they had records for.

Kind of a difficult thing to accomplish if you're serious.

I realize you can't purge all the info off the internet. However, I can now surf the internet and I don't get tracked. My search engine doesn't track me. Period. Years ago Google used to be like that. I remember when they first started up.