RogermcAllen: bulldg4life: It seems to be disabled with Google Apps accounts (or, at least, I can't do anything about it). My personal account has never had it turned on. But, I use Chrome all day long, use the aforementioned Google Apps account constantly, and have my Facebook account linked to 9 million things...so whoopty-doo.

At this point, ensuring privacy and preventing data sharing is more of a pain in the ass than dealing with the effects.

By the way, my full name is Bill S. Preston and my SSN is *********

Weird, all I am getting is *********. Fark must have some sort of filter that screens out SSNs. What happens when I type mine in? 457-55-5462

I STEAL YOUR SOUL

jaylectricity: Shadow Blasko: Naked Alyssa?

Embrace of The Vampire.

/There .. did that for you for nothing.

NSFW (new window)

Hawt! I've never actually seen that before.

If somebody has nothing better to do than sift through my google searches, that's a reflection on them, not me.

unlikely: Google search history?
That thing smart users cleared and turned off as soon as it was possible to do so?


...they're going to stop you from doing that?

This. Almost all my email accounts (.edu, .org, .net and even .gov) are in Google Apps domains, and most of the domains never turned on web history in the first place. :)

The One True TheDavid: Notabunny:

If somebody has nothing better to do than sift through my google searches, that's a reflection on them, not me.

Just because somebody's bored and stupid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

I may be uninformed, but what's the worst they could do? Try to embarrass me? I doubt that's possible. But even if it is, who are they going to embarrass me in front of? A brazilian strangers who've never heard of me? Somehow, I'll find a way to soldier on.

Notabunny: If somebody has nothing better to do than sift through my google searches, that's a reflection on them, not me.

you can learn a lot about a person by the titles in their bookcase.

movieman_1979: jaylectricity: Shadow Blasko: Naked Alyssa?

Embrace of The Vampire.

/There .. did that for you for nothing.

NSFW (new window)

Man, been many a moon since I snuck out of my bed during free Showtime weekend to peep that (and then returned soonafter to the bunk, if ya folla..)

That's no moon....

/oblig
//starcelebs(dot)com (new window)

KrispyKritter: Notabunny: If somebody has nothing better to do than sift through my google searches, that's a reflection on them, not me.

you can learn a lot about a person by the titles in their bookcase.

Let them learn. I really don't care, and don't think anyone else should, either. I suspect that for the rest of my life dozens or hundreds of people and companies will collect all the information they can about me, with and without my knowledge and/or consent. I'll bet all of that effort will go toward trying to sell me something. That's all. No Ill intent. They'll target me with some crummy commercial taylored to my interests. I'm just as capable of ignoring commercials for items which would fit thematically on my bookshelf, as I am for items in which I have no interest.

CygnusDarius: BTW, what happened to scroogle?.

They're dead. Between DNS attacks and Google legal action, Scroogle has been shut down.

When the Social Security Number was created, the Government of Canada promised that it would not be used as a universal identifier allowing the Government (and others who get their hands on your SSN) to cross-reference all files they have on you. This promise failed to be kept. As a result, every Government file at 23 departments and agencies can be cross-referenced and combined into a database that knows more about you than you do.

With the outsourcing of government databases to firms in the USA and possibly elsewhere, the US government and others also have access to these massive databases, not to mention their employees, subsidiary employees, any hacker in the world, and so forth.

Google is not just collecting private data that is extremely dangerous in the hands of legitimate and illegitimate users, it is breaking down the firewalls between this data. That is the real problem. Thousands of companies may have your personal information, but they only share it in a limited way. Google has more information on you than the Government(s) of the world, and than all the other companies you deal with combined. And now they are breaking down the walls between assembling this data and mining it. What they are creating is not a portrait of their users (who number in the millions or billions) but the Matrix. The data they can and do assemble on you is a long way towards being a copy of you. A copy that can be used to predict and manipulate your real world behaviour, not only by selling you goods and services that you will not be equipped by evolution, culture, experience or personal attributes to resist, but by learning things about you that it is dangerous for anybody, possibly even you, to know.

When you are really a cog in a giant soul-crushing machine, you can not be paranoid. Paranoia is a delusion. The Matrix is real and its name is currently Google.

The USSR, Nazi Germany, the USA, and many of the imaginary consiracies of the world are nothing to what Google already has. And it doesn't help much if you are off the grid--everybody else is on it.

Google is just too important to its users for many of them to give it up. We are attracted by "free" stuff, ease of use, usefulness, speed, efficiency, effectiveness. Google is all those good things, but it is inevitably all the bad things also. Because a knife can be used to do a thousand useful things and to torture, maim and kill. A gun is more powerful than a knife and a database is way more powerful than a gun to your head. If somebody puts a gun to your head, you're probably going to know it.

When I did a Google search for the name of an Iranian singer recently, ads in Arabic turned up in my Gmail. Well, I guess I'll never be able to enter the United States without being suspected of terrorism ever again.

what if I don't have a google account?

JimmySlicings: bulldg4life:

By the way, my full name is Bill S. Preston and my SSN is 2323623462

Okay, wait, if we were one of Europe's greatest leaders, and we were stranded in San Dimas for one day, where would we go?

Waterloop.

*Air guitar*

citoriman: Got Nigerian'd this week somehow. 5 charges 150-200$ show up on my account for the TOEFL, call them and get the names of the testees: Maureen Mbugua, Florence Maina, Serah Ohngegu, Francis Awvori, and Charles Kigera.

None of those sound Nigerian. More Kenyan/Ugandan/Rwandese.

I'm surprised, actually.