
Google will use Chrome browsing data for ad tailoring - dchest
https://twitter.com/phlsa/status/754337623964053504
======
corecoder
I don't know, I'm starting to think that all this is either propaganda for ad
sellers or a prank Google, Facebook et all are doing to me.

Google has my full search history, all my hangout chats, all my e-mails, and
yet:

* On my Android, it keeps proposing ultra boring "stories to read" about soccer, wannabe celebrities and YouTube videos of stupid teenagers doing stupid things;

* With the sole exception of when the sponsored link is exactly the same as the first result, ad words in my search results have never ever been relevant or interesting in any way.

Facebook is supposed to know everything I like, yet it only shows me ads about
stuff I dislike.

The same for Twitter and everything else.

They are supposed to know the inside of my heart and mind, but they have, till
now, utterly failed to prove it.

So, do they know me and just pretend they don't for some strange reason, or do
they actually know shit and just pretend they do so that they can sell to
advertisers at a higher price?

~~~
stefanix
Same. Although Youtube recommendations are very good at times.

~~~
jobigoud
I wouldn't have said "good". They are very relevant to what you watched
recently. But watch one random shit once and your side bar is now defaced with
thumbnails you can't throw away. I really wish I could opt out altogether from
this one.

~~~
earlz
You can! Go to youtube, then History, and there should be an option in there
to have it stop tracking your history. I'm sure they still track it, but at
least they don't give me recommendations anymore. This was especially annoying
for me when I would step outside of my normal youtube zone by clicking on some
youtube video from reddit or some such, and for the next week I'd have all
sorts of crazy weird and at times NSFW recommendations from it.

------
dochtman
Meanwhile, Firefox Sync encrypts your data with a password-derived key so that
Mozilla can't even see your browsing history.

Consider your choices.

~~~
20andup
I didn't realize how much data Google had on me until my search terms I used
on my laptop was almost immediately available on my smartphone. I felt shocked
and kind of stalked as well.

The data especially on Android can easily be hacked if someone has the
expertise. This made me think how easy it would be for stranger to learn
everything about me through my data.

~~~
sigi45
I like that very much.

Whenever i'm doing something with my normal chrome -> I'm part of the system
and look / am normal.

Whenever i wanna do something little bit different, i use incognito mode and a
different browser.

~~~
elcapitan
Same here. It's basically splitting up internet usage between a 'sync browser'
and an 'incognito browser'.

------
sesutton
The way the screenshot is cropped is misleading. The actual page makes it
clear this feature is opt-in.

If you're logged into a Google account and haven't already made a choice on
the page you can see it at
[http://www.google.com/settings/ads](http://www.google.com/settings/ads).

~~~
Dr_tldr
It's explicitly not "opt-in" since the default setting is turned to "on"
(tested with multiple accounts) without any prompting. Opt-out is better than
nothing, but it's a pretty suspect move to say "oops, you were accidentally
opted in to something that would make us money without your permission."

I'd respect them a lot more if they came right out and said "let us sell your
data or start paying for our services." That would at least be a fair choice,
and I'd be happy(ish) to pay google 10 bucks a month if they promised not to
sell my information on the side.

~~~
Oletros
> and I'd be happy(ish) to pay google 10 bucks a month if they promised not to
> sell my information on the side.

They don't have to do that because Google doesn't sell any data

~~~
victorhooi
Google does offer something like this - Google for Work is $10 a month .

[https://goo.gl/XNykgg](https://goo.gl/XNykgg) (Disclaimer: Referral)

But basically, Google for Work is like normal Google services (Gmail, Google
Drive, Hangouts, etc), except without advertisements and more restrictions on
what they do with your data:

[https://support.google.com/work/answer/6056650?hl=en](https://support.google.com/work/answer/6056650?hl=en)
(Privacy policy for Google for Work)

There are of course other benefits and extra controls/features as well, but it
at least covers your main point.

------
neotek
You can't go to Google and say "I want to buy a dataset (anonymous or
otherwise) of males aged between 18 to 34 who likes cars and drink beer".

You can go to Google and say "here's an ad I want you to show to a group of
people, none of whom will ever be identifiable to me in any way, who are male
aged between 18 to 34 who like cars and drink beer."

That's what I don't understand about all this outrage - nobody, not Facebook
or Google or Amazon or Apple, is selling your personal information to anyone
for any reason, all they're doing is providing a platform that lets
advertisers specify broad categories of people to show ads to. What's the
problem with that? Ads will be slightly more relevant to my interests? So
what?

To be clear, I completely understand why people don't want Google collecting
their data in the first place, and that's a perfectly legitimate concern, I'm
saying that once the data is collected, what difference does it make if that
data is used to refine which adverts you see?

~~~
PunchTornado
because it is very annoying to see everywhere on your computer ads for pillows
for a month only because you've searched for pillows on google shopping. and
i'm not talking only about browser, but every app that has ads, like skype.

I was going crazy. never search on google shopping again on chrome.

~~~
noxToken
This isn't meant to be snarky, but what ads _do_ you want to see? If you don't
care for ads in the first place, does it even matter what is advertised? NSFW
and personal material withstanding of course.

Edit: To better explain, I also don't care for ads. Thus, I don't care if all
my ads are from products that launched 5 years ago. Or for a new Hotmail
account. Or a new PalmPilot. I would eventually notice, but I'd just shrug and
continue browsing.

------
jalami
There's Chromium Inox[0] which is just a patchset on top of the Chromium build
to remove much of the mothership home-calling. Inox seems to be much closer to
Chromium than many of the other Chrome-privacy spinoffs. Contrary to popular
belief, Chromium still has a lot of Google in it.

I always feel like artificially patching a project that doesn't care about
your concerns natively to be plugging holes in a sponge boat, but I realize
sometimes you need to use that boat because reasons.

I installed it from the AUR and it seems to work pretty well for the testing I
do in it anyway. I don't daily driver it or Chrome.

[0] [https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset](https://github.com/gcarq/inox-
patchset)

~~~
__b__
"a project that doesn't care about your concerns..."

Unless the concerns are always "more features"... forever. Any new features
will do, so long as the project keeps growing. The more changes and updates
the better.

I could put Microsoft Windows in this category along with hundreds of other
projects. Chrome is deceptive because it has some useful features... but
ultimately this browser is the tool of advertisers. Because they are the only
hand that feeds the Google.

These folks are not aligned with my concerns. They cannot be. It is a conflict
if interest. Will Chrome use my DNS server instead of Google's? Why should it?
It's not my browser to control.

At one point the Googlers put a resolver into Chromium. I think they removed
it but just the idea they considered this was enough to scare me away
permanently.

I enjoyed the spongeboat analogy. One can use a patched alternative. One can
write extension after extension to modify default behaviour. At some point it
becomes a losing battle and a waste of time. The browser is designed and
maintained by an advertising company.

Avoiding mothership home-calling is a wonderful way to navigate a world with
too many software choices. It makes choosing software much easier. Because not
many projects today consider home-calling a legitimate concern.

When you do find a project that fits your values, that you know will not
change to suit advertisers, it can be a software you can stick with as things
and times change. At least this has been my experience.

------
zimbatm
If you have the time, try Firefox Developer Edition[1]. It's one of the first
edition of Firefox to have the per-tab sand-boxing enabled (called
Electrolysis).

Some plugins can interfere with Electrolysis. To check if it's enabled go to
about:support and look at the "Multiprocess Windows" entry, it should be 1/1
or higher.

[https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/developer/)

~~~
lagadu
Be warned, e10s is still very green and it's easy to run into bugs. If all
your tabs turn black for no apparent reason disable it.

------
dangrossman
I saw this screen this week. I recently reinstalled Windows and Chrome, that
might have been when. It was asking me to opt in, not opt out, before sharing
this data.

------
lensi
Why is it that most developers use Chrome when we have Firefox? If the
devtools are better, use Chrome for that and use Firefox for browsing.

~~~
CalRobert
I don't know, but it's pretty annoying that more and more often I encounter
sites that run well in Chrome but poorly in FF. We should know better than
this; we've been here before with IE.

------
wangweij
While I am able to switch to another browser (I already did a long time ago),
I don't believe I can avoid visiting sites "that show ads from Google". How
much can Google collect from those sites?

~~~
forgotpwtomain
I highly recommend:

[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock)

[https://github.com/gorhill/umatrix](https://github.com/gorhill/umatrix)

~~~
bad_user
There's also Privacy Badger by EFF:
[https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

------
HappyFunGuy
Am I correct in assuming that chrome is now a keylogger in regards to your url
bar, and perhaps clipboard?

~~~
frognition
Ive always assumed that each urn visited in chrome is reported back to google.
The data is crazy valuable in a lot of ways.

~~~
HappyFunGuy
What good browser is free of this horror?

~~~
JJJollyjim
Firefox prompts you before even turning on search prediction, and it asks you
about telemetry at first startup.

~~~
reitanqild
For people like me Firefox offer the best of both worlds:

* No google keylogger in the main url bar (but local autocomplete based on previous history, bookmarks etc)

* access to autocomplete in search field next to url bar (I think removing this was one of the simplifications in the original Chrome.)

Ctrl-L: go to url bar

Ctrl-K: go to search field

------
0xmohit
Welcome to the world of context-sensitive search.

Not that it's new, but it appears that the _context_ has now been expanded to
include the entire browsing history, just not the session.

[One should really consider using Firefox, and DuckDuckGo for search.]

~~~
pas
Why?

The benefits could outweigh the cost (of increasing the likelihood of someone
subverting Google into a brutally efficient totalitarian surveillance system).

------
xbmcuser
Wait they were not doing it already

------
Brainix
Dear 2016,

You haven't figured it out yet, but we consider advertising unethical.

Yours, 2066

~~~
themartorana
I can't imagine this will be true. What's wrong with advertising? It's how I
know about things!

The depths to which advertisers go to with _tracking_ feels rather unethical
at times, however.

~~~
dingaling
> What's wrong with advertising?

It is psychological warfare, conducted by corporations instead of States. But
the objective is the same; trick you into changing your behavior to benefit
them.

~~~
abenga
I don't know ... thinking selfishly, I'm employed and paid by a a corporation
that uses advertises to increase revenues from their products/services. As are
almost everyone else here. Even the "altruistic" non-profits and whatever are
largely funded by the very same corporations. Will there ever be a time when
economic activity is largely carried out by people and organizations that do
not seek profit? If advertising increases said economic activity, isn't it a
good?

~~~
frankquist
If corruption increases said economic activity, is it a good? If destruction
of the environment increases certain economic activity, is it a good? I'm not
saying these things are similar to advertising, but the reasoning is flawed.
That in the current setup of our economic system something makes economic
sense, does not necessarily make it a good thing.

------
yefim
Does this apply to Chromium? Because if not, I'm definitely switching.

~~~
beefsack
Chromium is mostly unencumbered by Google bloatware, honestly it's the version
most people should be using.

~~~
awqrre
"Features that communicate with Google made available through the compilation
of code in Chromium are subject to the Google Privacy Policy."

from [https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-
privacy](https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy)

~~~
mthoms
Any idea what specifically they are referring to?

There is at least _some_ "communication with Google" that could be considered
innocuous. For example - accessing their Safe Browsing API (also used by
Safari and Firefox).

~~~
witty_username
Probably signing in with your Google Account on Chromium.

------
_stuart
You can tell Google not to save your chrome browsing info at
myactivity.google.com in the Activity Controls tab.

------
incrediblygood
I recommend Opera. Same rendering engine as Chrome, but faster and with built-
in ad blocking.

~~~
detaro
And is in the process of being sold to a chinese consortium. So probably not a
better option for long :/

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/1-2bn-opera-takeover-gets-go-
ah...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/1-2bn-opera-takeover-gets-go-ahead-from-
shareholders/)

~~~
sixothree
Say it ain't so Opera...

------
bestnameever
I don't think this is just Chrome. They will likely also track you through
other browsers as long as you are signed into your account. Many sites have
your browser reach out to Google through things like adsense advertisements
and google-analytics.

------
_Understated_
I thought Chrome allocated a unique identifier to each browser install anyway
meaning that changing this setting still allows them to track you regardless.

Edit: Turns out that the Unique Id is an install-only thing and is gone after
the first update [1] (look at "Identifiers in Chrome" section) but it appears
they can conduct "Field Trials" without your knowledge (certainly appears to
be without your knowledge from what I can see)

Edit 2: removed pointless text

[1] -
[https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/](https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/)

------
oolongCat
Whenever I see these things I wonder, are there any plugins or any automated
tools that would help fuzz search results.

So for example, send search requests to google randomly for items like
"ducks", "fishing ponds", "banana leaves" etc, totally unrelated nonsense that
will skew these tracking giants provided enough people install and run these
tools.

~~~
Sylos
I know of [http://ruinmysearchhistory.com/](http://ruinmysearchhistory.com/).

That however searches more for things like "how to appear funny", "why are my
thumbs uneven", "am i lack toast and tolerant" or also "your youre
difference".

~~~
mthoms
Friendly _warning_ to others: Do not blindly click on the link above without
first reading what it does. Relevant thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11880008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11880008)
TL;DR It may put some undesirable things in your search history and/or
temporarily block you from Google.

~~~
SquareWheel
Lordy, thanks for the warning. That's incredibly irresponsible of them.

------
yaur
OTOH when I got the opt in page I took the opportunity to opt out of
everything.

------
therealmarv
I think a Chrome sync passphrase will protect you against that. Because
(theoretically and I hope also practically) only you know your passphrase
Google will not be able to analyze your history etc.

------
andrewvijay
Time for another opensource browser but this time which does not drink all the
ram. Probably with the same dev tools.

------
malmsteen
Ad ? What's that ? Oh that thing before "block".

I head about that.. it's a TV stuff no ?

------
KaneEdger
Brave and Vivaldi. They do not get that Google crap :D

------
wfunction
I can't actually find this screen anywhere.

~~~
ian0
An opt-in message is being displayed to some Gmail users. Not sure if this is
related, but if you try and open a new google account there is a small section
on sharing of information between services, though it doesn't specifically
mention chrome.

------
dreidohlen
Incognito mode?

------
Havoc
Google is straying from its Don't Be Evil path...

~~~
ionised
That ship sailed the moment they had to actually state it as a goal.

------
metaos
Vivaldi is an excellent replacement

~~~
frik
Vivaldi feels like the old Opera 12, so great. But it's partly closed
software, especially the nice HTML5 based UI. I am waiting until they release
everything under open source license.

~~~
KaneEdger
I would say they have the right to protect their UI creation. Vivaldi UI was
created by Vivaldi guys.

Open Source is just an excuse to be able to fork others work and damage the
source project with this.

------
koolba
Where's the man bites dog?

