

My divorce from Google - One year later - jotaass
http://www.itworld.com/software/350485/my-divorce-google-one-year-later?source=itwfacebook

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risratorn
Well it's all just a mater of personal taste but tbh ... when someone says
"GPS. I don't use it, even in a car. I'm old-school as I like printed maps." I
don't find it that surprising he has no trouble letting stuff like gmail,
google maps and google search go.

It can be done, but for some it's easier as for others.

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Aardwolf
The strange thing is that despite this, the author uses Facebook and Amazon
and stuff. Weird selective exclusion based on whatever. Each to their own I
guess.

~~~
simonh
When you have high expectations and they are not met (or sometimes even just
have the appearance of not being met) that feels a lot worse than when you
have low expectations which are met.

Hence if Google does something even close to being interpreted as being evil
if you squint hard enough, they are ditched in favour of Facebook. If workers
on iPhone production lines have tough working conditions, even if they're
better than the working conditions on the Samsung lines and are better paid,
you still get people swearing to buy a Galaxy next instead.

It's just human nature.

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harel
To me this smell like paranoia for paranoia's sake. No real valid reason for
it. So Google track you. Everybody tracks you. Its the nature of the web. If
you don't get tracked you will still see ads. They'll just be random. At least
you have a chance of seeing something you might actually be interested in. And
really the bottom line is that all of this internet-scale costs money. And
since we are a bit touchy about paying for stuff we take for granted these
days, like 'search' and 'social' or 'maps', we might as well accept the ads
and get on with it. Why would I want to use an OK service for maps or
translation when I can use a Great one from another provider even if they
track me. (by the way, should we tell him that Facebook, Yahoo and in future
most likely DuckDuckGo too, tracks him in the same way or let him figure it
out by himself over time?)

~~~
holri
It is not about ads. It's about personal private data. For ads, anonymous
targeting would suffice. No one can garantee that this personal private data
is used for ads only. It is usefull for a lot of ugly things. And therefore it
will (is?) used for them.

~~~
harel
Yes but no one can really guarantee anything on the internet. What I don't
want Big G' to know, won't go on line and if it has to, it will be done right.
The only thing is, there's not much I can think of that I'd really give a #u!@
if G' Man is in on it or not. I don't have a deep rooted principles regarding
this leading my life and ultimately restring my movement. I use what I use,
until its no longer useful, and I'm well aware that what I use is also using
me. Fair exchange I think. H

~~~
holri
The power comes from combination. Even very small bits of information in your
email, photo tags, searches can build a very precise picture of your
personality if there are a lot of them. You can not control the small
information bits that go to Google if you are using their tools. This is a
dangerous illusion. The solution is to limit the overall amount of information
leaking and diversity. Therefore not using Google or other well known data
mining companies at all. And yes it is possible.

~~~
electrichead
I would disagree that you can escape from all data mining companies. For
instance, I would be willing to bet a lot on the fact that a company like
Acxiom knows a hell of a lot about you that you don't know yourself. And they
are not that well known.Facebook uses Acxiom, but you would never know that.
You would really only look at Facebook's privacy policy where Axiom would just
be listed as a "third party" in there.

It is very difficult not to be tracked at all, unless you are using Tor or
other anonymizer.

Edit:misspelled Acxiom

~~~
holri
I did not say that it is possible to escape all of them. But if you limit the
leaked data, their profile is useless. I do not get very well targeted ads.
That is a good sign that they do not have a good profile of me. But I never
used gmail or g+ for example.

~~~
harel
Retargeting companies share their cookies amongst themselves. So when tracked
by company A goes to a site published by company B, company A gets notified.
You are tracked, be sure of that. It might not be enough data to show you
exactly the ads you might accidently care about but its close enough and
closing in all the time.

~~~
holri
No targeting does not work in my case. Not at all. The targeting does not get
better. But I surf with JS disabled when possible (you'd be surprised how many
sites actually work _better_ with JS turned off) and ghostery. I use
duckduckgo and do not use any Google Service or Facebook, Twitter. And yes I
still enjoy a rich online live and have a lot of friends online and offline.

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writtles
>Some friends followed my example onto other social media sites. Not many.
Perhaps they weren't really friends.

Wow, OP really feels his friends chose Google over the friendship?

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yanw
This was dusscissed here a few hours ago:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5476812>

HN ought to weed duplicates better.

~~~
jotaass
Submitter here. I did search for it first, but I clearly did a poor job.
Apologies for that.

