A dumb post about google and my sig

[VOX - DEI]

FYI: My custom sig from http://www.danasoft.com only shows the viewer his/her own ** addy, some simple stats and a nasty comment or question by me.

An overly biased "Top 9 List" by crack addicts. Please read with a healthy dose of skepticism. Then again I have a tendency toward excessive suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others...hehe

Quote:
Google-Watch.org - a site looking into the worry implications of
Google's near monopoly of web search engines.

Take a look at this...

1. Google's immortal cookie:

Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether.
Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie
places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and
record your unique ID number.

2. Google records everything they can:

For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet ** address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is
customizing results based on your ** number. This is referred to in the industry as "** delivery based on geolocation."

3. Google retains all data indefinitely:

Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.

4. Google won't say why they need this data:

Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this
information, he had no comment.

5. Google hires spooks:

Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their
corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.

6. Google's toolbar is spyware:

With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy
confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet,
Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard
disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any
software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.

7. Google's cache copy is illegal:

Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can
avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters
have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for
webmasters, not "opt-out."

8. Google is not your friend:

Young, stupid script kiddies and many bloggers still think Google is "way kool," so by now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites.
No webmaster can avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming he wants to increase traffic to his site. If he tries to take advantage of some of the known
weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, he may find himself penalized by Google, and his traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by
Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time they don't even answer email from webmasters.

9. Google is a privacy time bomb:

With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining
bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.



Code:
http://google-watch.org
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/10/278746.htm



International Intellectual Masturbation Proponent Society (IIMPS) Member

[archive_Ulter]

Lavasoft ADWare 6 Removes tracking cookies and registery entries.
http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=506

[archive_macrophage69alpha]

two very good posts

MP

[archive_pornosonic]

I have been skeptical of all MS, yahoo, google practices for years, and added ADWARE 6 about the same time I joined the board. But what other security measures can be taken?

[archive_therealj]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="**-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by pornosonic:
I have been skeptical of all MS, yahoo, google practices for years, and added ADWARE 6 about the same time I joined the board. But what other security measures can be taken?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wear protection when surfing, normally latex gloves

230lbs or Bust