Windows 10 and also 11 - The Bear and Badger

AJ

cockbeard wrote:

Unlikely wrote:

duckduckgo is great, but it's a search engine, not a browser. My understanding is Chrome itself is merrily tracking what you do, regardless of what search engine you use.

None of it is identifiable though. They also have to comply with GDPR. My last role I was working very closely with Google, specifically the advertising guys, and also pulling datafeeds with that info from Google directly. Nothing is recorded at event level anymore, they roll it up every few minutes or so, and for those few minutes it's not available to anyone outside Google

Google only make their money by selling the advert info to agencies, they've no interest in storing event level information, they don't do the analysis themselves. The little analysis they do need to do is all done via deep learning algorithms anyway. Google have been like that for years, when I worked on YouTube midroll adverts, the amount of human input into the ad placement algorithms (where to put the break in the video) had very very little intelligent human input, more just monitoring behaviour to see what the desired response was

If none of it's identifiable, how does Google know to send me ads related to things I've been looking at?

Kow

You're predictable.

cockbeard

Web isn't my strongest point, so allow me to be wrong, but the way I understand it is poor cookie management. The cookie isn't stored or managed by Google, it's stored by you, and you decide whether to update the cookie with your browsing history or not. It's not very easy for you to do that, though easier than it used to be, thanks to GDPR

For the specific advert, it gets served to you by the website owner not by Google. So each media owner will have a suite of websites, and they will select a range of advertisers that fit the websites intended or perceived audience. Also the advertisers will check which websites they want to be served onto. I was working for Lloyds and the year before they got some bad press when they had an advert served alongside a terrorist video. Anyway, the slot on the website where the advert will appear will look at your cookies (any which you've granted permission to) and serve an advert from it's list based on which seems most relevant. None of this is stored anywhere, not at the event level. Google don't oversee that handshake between the media owner, the agency, and you the client, it just happens according to what cookies you might have

Dinostar77

replying to aj@

Google like to have their own CRLlist in the browser which is updated daily from their own list. I believe this is a fallback if the CRLlist cache of a website is out of date and the CA has revoked the cert. The offset in the update time can be anything from 30 mins to a few days for CRL lists. Whereas updates from an OCSP are instant.

Dinostar77

re:cookies,

Cocko is correct, targeted ads use you cookies which store website url info to target you. You can set your browser to auto delete cookies on browser exit. you can also get a 3rd party app which deletes flash cookies on exit as well (firefox).

AJ

It is cookies, but that's a case of specifically blocking Google again, unless you're happy logging into everything every time you use the web. There is talk of Google having things that identify people without cookies too, but I don't know how real that is.

Google do serve the ads though, the site owner just includes a bit of JavaScript.

Dinostar77

I wouldnt worry about it mate, if your really bothered use a vpn and if your really really bothered use TOR.

Your browsing habits on your browser of choice are unique enough now that you can be identified in all the Internet traffic unless your using a VPN, or a proxy or TOR.

AJ

I'm not bothered about it, I'm just saying that trusting any company to handle things in a way that's untrackable is silly.

Dinostar77

One simple rule they should teach everyone including kids, 'There is no such thing as privacy on the internet'.

cockbeard

AJ wrote:

It is cookies, but that's a case of specifically blocking Google again, unless you're happy logging into everything every time you use the web. There is talk of Google having things that identify people without cookies too, but I don't know how real that is. Google do serve the ads though, the site owner just includes a bit of JavaScript.

Google do serve many of the ads, but that's Google Marketing Platform, they really just provide a decent toolkit, which the other agencies work with. Admittedly I wasn't with them long but I good insight into the industry given my last contract was with WPP. However it's not always google, anyone can use their tools to place ads with media owners. That javascript might not always point to Google, just it's easier for a lot of media owners to just deal with the market leader. The same logic and client laziness is why WPP are so big, they work for about 70% of all companies on the biggest stock exchange

RedDave2

Excuse my naivety, but what exactly would Google be collecting on me that I should be worried about (without going full tin hat)

hunk

RedDave2 wrote:

Excuse my naivety, but what exactly would Google be collecting on me that I should be worried about (without going full tin hat)

Just about every search query you do. This in order to build highly detailed profiles for better and more personalised ad targetting. A personalised service is nice but like with facebook there are many dangers lurking in all this data collection. Targeted ads can easily be replaced with targeted propaganda and fake news. So yeah, google's business falls under the same scrutiny as facebook. MS also wants in on the action as it's a lucrative business model.

cockbeard

Or you could scroll up. No information 'about you' is being collected. Loads of information 'about people like you' is being collected

cockbeard

But that said, no harm in being secure. or me I decided years ago that the convenience I get from their free products is worth seeing a couple of adverts for

AJ

cockbeard wrote:

Or you could scroll up. No information 'about you' is being collected. Loads of information 'about people like you' is being collected

Thing is, it's been shown that previous attempts to make data anonymous can be undone. If you're worried about these things, would you want to trust that even the best current methods can't be?

cockbeard

Well then I suggest we all live off grid. I'm intrigued as to what previous attempts though. Google is performing aggregations constantly then discarding the raw data as it's too voluminous to be of any use. The metrics they want they aggregate, given the amount of interactions that Google has every second you can see why they'd want to do that. It's not about trying to anonymise the data, it's about discarding the stuff they don't want, a natural by product is that they (I) can no longer make explicit joins between data, many implicit ones, and given access to all the datasets that Google has I could probably say with a massive level of probability who someone might be. That takes effort though, and believe it or not, 99.999999% of us simply aren't interesting enough to warrant that effort. So the realistic choice is go off grid entirely and be conspicuous by your absence, or simply hide in plain sight. In this digital age, with portable devices, the best advice for avoiding becoming a target, is exactly the same as it was in the 90s: vary routes, don't form habits, mix up your routines, don't be predictable

It just frustrates me somewhat because I was working inside it for a while and saw just how little information they were working with. That my company charged around 80 billion quid the previous year all based on guesses, hunches, and inference, as opposed to real raw data. So the very idea of data driven improvement was an anathema to them, because no one was looking behind the curtain, yet they were still winning. Often when I hear 'someone might be collecting data' bad bad bad, but why? The concept, that you feel that as it's you're data you deserve a cut of that economy, or is there an actual fear, of something that might actually happen in the real world. Something with a level of risk that makes sense to invest in mitigating against, because otherwise, it's a specious endeavour

That isn't you personally, you're making half decent points, more at the amount of conspiracy theorists I deal with regularly, or the idiots who think feminists want a female Santa, or think Muzzers are banning Christmas

Unlikely

You can always download the data Google holds on you and see for yourself.

From a Guardian article a while back.

You may well have downloaded your Facebook data already; it has become something of a trend in recent days. Now take a look at what Google has on you. Go to Google’s “Takeout” tool and download your data from the multiple Google products you probably use, such as Gmail, Maps, Search and Drive. You’ll get sent a few enormous files that contain information about everything from the YouTube videos you have watched, your search history, your location history and so on. Once you’ve seen just how much information about you is in the cloud, you may want to go about deleting it. I highly recommend deleting your Google Maps history, for a start, unless you are particularly eager to have a detailed online record of everywhere you have ever been. You may also want to stop Google from tracking your location history. Sign in to Google, open Maps, then click on “timeline” in the menu. At the bottom, there’s an option to manage your location history.

Link to original article.

The Daddy

Why would I care if Google knows where I’ve been?

Unlikely

You may well not.

RedDave2

The Daddy wrote:

Why would I care if Google knows where I’ve been?

This is kind of what I am thinking. For the average law abiding citizen, what is the worst that Google could have on you? I may be being incredibly dense on this but I would assume like most adults of a certain generation that we are a bit more tricky to fool with advertising and propaganda stuff

Kow

The old if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear line. Just plain old privacy is enough.

Frosty

RedDave2 wrote:

I would assume like most adults of a certain generation that we are a bit more tricky to fool with advertising and propaganda stuff

I think that recent events have proved this to be untrue.

GurtTractor

The reason that digital privacy is important is that any personal data will always inevitably be lost or misused to your detriment by criminal or governmental forces. It happens all the time and will continue to happen, particularly with the way things are looking politically at the moment.

Blue Swirl

Two things:

"Why would I care if [company] knows [thing] about me?" Well, you probably wouldn't, but the answer I always give is: a) it's none of their fucking business and b) we have no idea what they're doing with that data.

Secondly, "It's meta-data, it's not linkable to you" is pretty much bunk. With enough meta-data it stops being meta and is just data. You'd be surprised how little meta-data is needed before it's only possible to attribute it to one person.

I don't know where the line is between protecting your privacy and wearing a tin foil hat, but I reckon installing an ad blocker of some sort, Privacy Badger, and using DuckDuckGo is probably on the sane side of things.

Blue Swirl

In other news, the latest Windows 10 update adds the dark theme to the File Explorer, and it is teh s3x.

mrsmr2

Gurt knows where it's at.

cockbeard

You might find it useful though. Much like a photo album, I quite like being able to look back and where I've been. That doesn't mean that you or anyone else should, just that it adds a value to me

RedDave2

For anyone like me who is not so up on things this article might be a good read

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2018/dec/20/how-can-i-remove-google-from-my-life

hunk

So, that's twice (thrice?) Wupdate borked my W10 laptop with lousy unstable updates. Wasn't stability and compatibility the ms windows trademark? I guess that went out of the window (pun intended) when they booted their in-house test teams. That's W10 update disabled for the next 3 months. BSOD's not allowed.

If MS keeps this up I may be tempted to switch back to Linux, especially with their improved W10 back compatibility.

Dinostar77

Win10 OS updates are a nightmare.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories