Hacked/stolen: anything I wouldn't want in the hands of criminals goes through ssl. If they've broken that, Google tracking me is the least of my worries.
Sold: I'm comfortable with advertisers being able to target me. If they've narrowed down their target market by videos viewed on motherless, I'd be damned curious to see the ads.
Subpoenaed/NSL'd: were I to engage in any activities that would give me trouble in the event of LE attention, I'd be doing it through TOR from a coffeeshop, on a throwaway netbook running Truecrypt with the juicy stuff in a hidden volume. That's not to suggest that only criminals need fear the security/justice apparatus, but if I were doing anything that could draw unwanted attention I'd take precautions.
Back when I was raiding with anon, before it had anything to do with political motivations, I was paranoid about how easily I could be doxed and took extreme measures to ensure I was unfindable. Now, I'm pretty open about most of my online activities. If knowing my interests lets Google provide better services, then they have my blessing. Should I decide to engage in activities that would run me afoul of powerful organizations, I'll take precautions.
You won't find many stronger proponents than I of the need for anonymous communication, but I don't extend that to all communication. I'm cool with getting fed ads in order to support the services I like, and if data collection means fewer ads or better services, them I'm on board.
Your arguments are reasonable, and I'm all for more relevant search results, but I would like to add a few points:
Hacked/stolen: anything I wouldn't want in the hands of criminals goes through ssl. If they've broken that, Google tracking me is the least of my worries.
It's most likely that the information would be hacked or stolen at the point it's aggregated and stored by Google or its designated service provider, not out of the actual data stream. Intrusions have happened at Google in the past, either through Chinese hackers or rogue employees.
Sold: I'm comfortable with advertisers being able to target me. If they've narrowed down their target market by videos viewed on motherless, I'd be damned curious to see the ads.
Advertisers are far from the only ones who might buy your data. Health insurance companies, credit reporting agencies, employers, and private investigators are a few I can think of on the spot. Your search and browsing history would be very valuable to all of them. Did you search for symptoms of a disease before applying for health insurance? Rejected! Do you tend to play online games that turn real money into in-game items? Increased credit risk! Did you do an image search for seedy Japanese artwork ten years ago? You can bet that'll come up in the custody hearing.
Subpoenaed/NSL'd: were I to engage in any activities that would give me trouble in the event of LE attention, I'd be doing it through TOR from a coffeeshop, on a throwaway netbook running Truecrypt with the juicy stuff in a hidden volume. That's not to suggest that only criminals need fear the security/justice apparatus, but if I were doing anything that could draw unwanted attention I'd take precautions.
There's still the remote possibility of things that are currently legal being made illegal later on, and past search and ad behavior being used to target investigations of said once-legal activity. Target already knows you're pregnant before your family does. Who knows what kind of possibly precrime-predictive patterns will be found by present and future datamining algorithms that span multiple humanity-wide datasets?
Hacked/stolen: anything I wouldn't want in the hands of criminals goes through ssl. If they've broken that, Google tracking me is the least of my worries.
Sold: I'm comfortable with advertisers being able to target me. If they've narrowed down their target market by videos viewed on motherless, I'd be damned curious to see the ads.
Subpoenaed/NSL'd: were I to engage in any activities that would give me trouble in the event of LE attention, I'd be doing it through TOR from a coffeeshop, on a throwaway netbook running Truecrypt with the juicy stuff in a hidden volume. That's not to suggest that only criminals need fear the security/justice apparatus, but if I were doing anything that could draw unwanted attention I'd take precautions.
Back when I was raiding with anon, before it had anything to do with political motivations, I was paranoid about how easily I could be doxed and took extreme measures to ensure I was unfindable. Now, I'm pretty open about most of my online activities. If knowing my interests lets Google provide better services, then they have my blessing. Should I decide to engage in activities that would run me afoul of powerful organizations, I'll take precautions.
You won't find many stronger proponents than I of the need for anonymous communication, but I don't extend that to all communication. I'm cool with getting fed ads in order to support the services I like, and if data collection means fewer ads or better services, them I'm on board.
reply