My angry voice re internet privacy

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    • My angry voice re internet privacy

      If you've read most of my comments here in the forum over the last two years, then you've probably read one or more of my rants about how G00gle, Am@zon, and other multi-gazillion-dollar internet-based companies collect personal data from individuals on the internet, and then either use to market it additional goods and services to you, or worse, collect your personal data and then sell it to third-parties for their own purposes. In the United States, consumers have virtually no protection from this daily invasion of privacy, and in the European Union there has been only modest success in restraining these unseemly activities. I stopped using Google's Business Gmail for my company several years ago because Google was collecting information from private email communications as part of their commercial data collections services, I have re-registered my Youtube (a Google subsidiary) under a completely anonymous pseudonym, and and I have stopped using several websites completely, including Facebook (one of the biggest offenders). My personal data and communications are not to be sold or used without my express permission and informed consent. Period. Non-negotiable.

      If you're not aware of these so-called "data-mining" activities, and the violations of your privacy they represent, I urge you to get up to speed.

      All of that is introduction . . . in the last several days, I came across a new internet search engine service that was expressly created to respect and protect your internet privacy. It's called "Start Page," by Ixquick. Start Page uses the G00gle search engine's algorithms, but then strips out G00gle's cookies and other privacy-invading apps when it presents the search results to you. The Start Page service is completely free. And I am certainly not trying to sell you anything . . . this is just my small, rebellious way of poking my little finger in the eye of Big Data.

      If you're interested, here's the link to the Start Page search engine, which includes a much longer explanation of the steps it takes to protect your privacy:

      (Link removed)

      Cheers.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by MontanaBB ().

    • injinji wrote:

      A self proclaimed "safest search engine" is a bit suspicious . . .
      It got a very nice write-up in USA Today back in 2015, as well as several tech publications. This is sort of how Mozilla Firefox got started -- it was very much a word-of-mouth thing with users who were fed up with Microsoft's Internet Explorer (or whatever they are calling it now), and all of the online viruses, etc., that targeted its weaknesses because it was the dominant web browser.

      I'd tell you to "google" Start Page, but that sort of runs counter to the thrust of this thread . . . . you can always use Yahoo (another big data miner) or DuckDuckGo (which apparently is not) to check out their claim of being the "safest search engine."
    • I typed a typical search string in both google and startpage... oddly, the result was identical, except for startpage adding two ads (vaguely related to the search string but certainly not a good search result) to the top of the page...?
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      I typed a typical search string in both google and startpage... oddly, the result was identical.
      Nothing odd about it, really, when you know that Start Page is using the G00gle search algorithms, but strips out the G00gle cookies and other apps that G00gle uses to compile and track your personal data and internet activity. Which, of course, is the whole point. To G00gle, it appears that Start Page is doing a search, and G00gle compiles the personal data and internet activity of Start Page, and not you. Start Page acts as a blind buffer.
    • the odd wasn't in the "identical", the odd was that startpage had ADDED two advertisements to the google result. Which seems to be closely related to the Google business model.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      . . . the odd was that startpage had ADDED two advertisements to the google result. Which seems to be closely related to the Google business model.
      Obviously, Ixquick has to pay for their servers, too, or take donations like Mozilla.

      G00gle's business model, beyond simply posting a couple of advertisements plus adding sponsored (i.e. paid) results to the first page of search results, is to sell your personal data to third parties. Which, of course, brings us back to the original point of this exercise: G00gle and others collecting and selling your personal data. Keep in mind that when you have a Gmail account, a Youtube account, a Waze account, etc., G00gle combines your name, mailing address, email address, etc., with your internet search data, plus the tracking data of other websites you have visited before they sell it. It really is quite insidious, and G00gle has their fingers in a lot of things that most people don't even realize are affiliated with G00gle.
    • Quasi-duck wrote:

      Would you not be afraid that StartPage sells your data in private?
      I know G00gle is data-mining from every internet search, and follow-on page-to-page jumps. So is Yahoo. StartPage claims they are not, that's their specific marketing niche, and it's supported by write-ups they have received in various tech industry publications. They are a niche service for persons concerned about internet privacy.

      G00gle was previously scanning metadata from for-fee Business Gmail accounts, but they claim they no longer are. I learned this when I started getting pop-up advertising that seemed to be related to the content of recent confidential emails that I had received, and then I started making inquiries, and discovered they were data-mining their Gmail accounts. I canceled my multi-user Business Gmail account as soon as I could arrange a new service for myself and my former employees. I work in a profession and an industry where scanning my email correspondence with my employer, clients, and other business affiliates could be considered a breach of my professional obligations of confidentiality, etc., if not a direct contractual breach of my obligations to my present employer.
    • MontanaBB wrote:

      Quasi-duck wrote:

      Would you not be afraid that StartPage sells your data in private?
      I know G00gle is data-mining from every internet search, and follow-on page-to-page jumps. So is Yahoo. StartPage claims they are not, that's their specific marketing niche, and it's supported by write-ups they have received in various tech industry publications. They are a niche service for persons concerned about internet privacy.
      G00gle was previously scanning metadata from for-fee Business Gmail accounts, but they claim they no longer are. I learned this when I started getting pop-up advertising that seemed to be related to the content of recent confidential emails that I had received, and then I started making inquiries, and discovered they were data-mining their Gmail accounts. I canceled my multi-user Business Gmail account as soon as I could arrange a new service for myself and my former employees. I work in a profession and an industry where scanning my email correspondence with my employer, clients, and other business affiliates could be considered a breach of my professional obligations of confidentiality, etc., if not a direct contractual breach of my obligations to my present employer.
      Sounds fair enough to me, I'll probably install it so.
      :00000441: Forum Gang Commissar :00000441:

      Black Lives Matter!!!!! All Lives Matter!!!!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:



    • From today's edition of The Guardian, an interview with Apple's Tim Cook regarding privacy rights and the need for regulation:

      theguardian.com/technology/201…zuckerberg-business-model

      As a believer in free markets and free enterprise, I still could not agree more with Cook's call for the regulation of Facebook and G00gle's data-mining practices.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by MontanaBB ().

    • And of course, Apple would NEVER resort to such practices.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      And of course, Apple would NEVER resort to such practices.
      Hey, I'm not here to defend Apple and their own near-monopoly practices. If you read The Guardian article linked above, it's about privacy protections and criticism of the business models of Facebook and G00gle, which to a large degree rely on data-mining, or as some of the more blunt among us might say -- violating the privacy of their users/customers to make an extra buck.