topically related, it's actually news from Mozilla:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142106/Mozilla_exec_suggests_Firefox_users_move_to_Bing_cites_Google_privacy_stance?source=rss_news
from the horse's mouth, as it were.
So, how bout that DNS.
Um, yeah. Them there micro$loth folks is WAAAAYYYY more privacy oriented than them google
rascals.
Well, we still have hope that bing logs are stored in windows servers
making them more
difficult to access or even retain after the seasonal color of the
screen of death.
The article is not worse than some messages being circulated on other
lists citing
privacy concerns because of Chrome dns-prefetch where evil Google will not only
know where you go or what you are looking for, they will also know
your intentions
when with your mouse you hover over a link (according to Roskind there may be
some cases where chrome sends a query when you do so).
Ohhh well ...
Cheers
Jorge
Scott Weeks wrote:
Microsoft just wants your cash, but Google wants your personal information so they can sell it over and over again. The entire Google business model is at odds with notions of personal privacy, so it's not even a question of the occasional excess on their part. Schmidt did what Michael Kinsey calls a gaffe: when a politician accidentally tells the truth.
At least Google seems to be honest about it.
What does Bing say they keep about you when you search, not logged into
your Passport account? IP + searches, date and time? And what do they
actually do? What about Yahoo, now that they will use Bing? Or even
AltaVista? How do we know the difference between the reality of what they
do versus their Privacy Policy?
If you aren't breaking the law, the government won't be looking for your
data, and won't ask Google/Yahoo/Bing/AltaVista or other search companies
for your data.
If you ARE breaking the law, and you live in the US, you gotta be careful
about what you do on the Internet, 'cause it all gets logged differently
in different places.
I find it REALLY HARD TO BELIEVE that NO OTHER SEARCH ENGINE COMPANY is
retaining search data with IP address and maybe even account ID for a
period of time. Not even Netflix, who thought they scrubbed the Netflix
Prize Dataset, was able to rid the data of your personal information.
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/netflix-faq.html
We're living in a world where every web request writes to a log file.
Those log files live for days, weeks, years, even decades, and depend on
the admins running the site, not the Privacy Policy. If you've ever
visited my site, I've kept those logs for 10 years. Your IP, your
browser, all that crap. This is the internet. You are logged at almost
every action you take, somewhere. It's easy to archive those logs, and
hard to cull them of "personally identifiable information." Because disk
is cheap, we tend to horde data, not delete it.
I'd like to see an independent source compare Mozilla's Privacy Policy to
their actual practices, and see if they are truly leaders in personal
privacy or just being hypocritical.
And even if they do keep to their Privacy Policy, they provide a useful
service, and I'm not breaking the law (that I know of). They can have my
IP, what I search, what AddOns I've added, my crash signatures. At least
I know what they have and that they will follow US Law and give it to
authorities when properly requested.
You don't get to have Privacy on the Internet. It's a fallacy. You have
to work really hard to truly have privacy on the 'net. And lie a lot.
Beckman
Peter Beckman wrote:
It's better than the "maybe you shouldn't be doing things you don't want people to know about" statement. That right there gives me some insight on where Google wants to go in the future with privacy.
At least Google seems to be honest about it.
What does Bing say they keep about you when you search, not logged into
your Passport account? IP + searches, date and time? And what do they
actually do? What about Yahoo, now that they will use Bing? Or even
AltaVista? How do we know the difference between the reality of what they
do versus their Privacy Policy?
"We want your money" versus "we want your life".
If you aren't breaking the law, the government won't be looking for your
data, and won't ask Google/Yahoo/Bing/AltaVista or other search companies
for your data.If you ARE breaking the law, and you live in the US, you gotta be careful
about what you do on the Internet, 'cause it all gets logged differently
in different places.
We are all likely breaking some law on a daily basis.
I find it REALLY HARD TO BELIEVE that NO OTHER SEARCH ENGINE COMPANY is
retaining search data with IP address and maybe even account ID for a
period of time. Not even Netflix, who thought they scrubbed the Netflix
Prize Dataset, was able to rid the data of your personal information."How to Break Anonymity of the Netflix Prize Dataset" - FAQ
We're living in a world where every web request writes to a log file.
Those log files live for days, weeks, years, even decades, and depend on
the admins running the site, not the Privacy Policy. If you've ever
visited my site, I've kept those logs for 10 years. Your IP, your
browser, all that crap. This is the internet. You are logged at almost
every action you take, somewhere. It's easy to archive those logs, and
hard to cull them of "personally identifiable information." Because disk
is cheap, we tend to horde data, not delete it.I'd like to see an independent source compare Mozilla's Privacy Policy to
their actual practices, and see if they are truly leaders in personal
privacy or just being hypocritical.And even if they do keep to their Privacy Policy, they provide a useful
service, and I'm not breaking the law (that I know of). They can have my
IP, what I search, what AddOns I've added, my crash signatures. At least
I know what they have and that they will follow US Law and give it to
authorities when properly requested.You don't get to have Privacy on the Internet. It's a fallacy. You have
to work really hard to truly have privacy on the 'net. And lie a lot.
Here's a pretty common line that Microsoft has that Google completely omits (or that I can't find):
"We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties."
~Seth
"We want your money" versus "we want your life".
I don't pay any of those search engines -- they make money off of
advertising. Huh, just like Google.
And to think that none of the search engines are taking that data and
trying to build better products or services is naive.
We are all likely breaking some law on a daily basis.
Now this I agree with. There are so many laws, so many unenforced, that
it is hard to know all of them, and to know which ones (in which state,
city, local, or country!) you are breaking.
You have the choice to be more private -- pay cash for everything, wear a
hood or a mask to avoid being caught on camera, no EZpass, no bank
account, no credit card, no cell phone, no phone at all, no Internet
access. But that's kinda difficult to do, given that most of us have jobs
and income based solely on this medium.
The ease of logging and the human justifcation of hording that data pretty
much prevents you from having a private life. Trust me, what you search
on Google is much less valuable than your cell phone records, credit card
statements and EZpass records. Your search records are just icing on the
cake to the proscecutor.
Here's a pretty common line that Microsoft has that Google completely omits (or that I can't find):
"We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties."
Have you opted out of your credit card company from doing so? Do you feel
as comfortable with your Credit Card company as you do with Google? Do
you feel MORE comfortable with Microsoft managing your Credit Card?
C'mon. Your personal information is so easily gotten right now it's silly
for anyone to think that knowing Microsoft won't sell their customer lists
will somehow protect you.
Beckman
Peter Beckman wrote:
<Snip>
Here's a pretty common line that Microsoft has that Google completely omits
(or that I can't find):"We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties."
~Seth
You aren't Bing's customer, you are a user. The line you quote, even
if they follow it, would not prohibit them from selling any and all
information they get from your searches.
*yahoo* is Bing's customer.
If you aren't breaking the law, the government won't be looking for your
data, and won't ask Google/Yahoo/Bing/AltaVista or other search companies
for your data.
That's an extremely naive view of how governments operate. To put it
mildly.
Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no
If you aren't breaking the law, the government won't be looking for your
data, and won't ask Google/Yahoo/Bing/AltaVista or other search companies
for your data.
Welcome to China, host country of IETF 79, the first IETF meeting that
will break the
record of VPN tunnels ...
Also, what law ? what government ?
Ask Yahoo about what happened in France about some collectible items,
ask Dow Jones
for distributing news in Australia that some guy didn't like, ask
Google about providing
search results that famous people don't want to see everywhere.
On the other hand, name it Google, Yahoo, Bing, or whatever, their biz
model is to make
money based on information they collect about you (even in an abstract
form) or that
put through your throat as advertisement, but keep in mind that most
of the time there
is only one source for such information: You 
If you don't like it, get isolated, (I was going to say move to Mars
but it won't work since
it's already on Google's master plan and Vint's interplanetary network
vision) move
to Wassila and enjoy fishing alone.
My .02
Jorge
That may be. But the government has a lot better data than "what did
Peter Beckman search for online in the last 12 years?" Could it help them
build a case against me? Sure. Should I be more careful about using
search engines? Probably.
I know there is TORbutton (easily turn on and off TOR) and tor-proxy.net
plugins for Firefox, but is there a plugin that will use a user-defined
proxy for certain user-defined sites/URLs (such as Google, Bing, etc) and
allow one to surf directly on all other URLs? Or even a NoScript
(whitelist) type deal that sends everything via a proxy except for those
sites you decide to trust? That'd be handy to avoid this privacy stuff.
Getting offtopic.
You simply need to assume that every company who you reveal even small
pieces of your identity or online persona will sell, reveal, badly secure
or misuse the information you provide. I think this assumption is
realistic, and that you need to be aware of it. Google is simply telling
you what all the other companies already do -- archive their data, which
you generated, and which can be used to identify you and against you in a
court of law.
I'm shocked that really smart people like Asa Dotzler are shocked by what
Eric Schmidt said, what I assumed was simply common knowledge - that there
is no real privacy on the internet.
Beckman
Here's a pretty common line that Microsoft has that Google completely omits
(or that I can't find):"We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties."
LRMAO
Or they just acquire the third party to keep it in house ...
Peter Beckman wrote:
I'm shocked that really smart people like Asa Dotzler are shocked by what
Eric Schmidt said, what I assumed was simply common knowledge - that there
is no real privacy on the internet.
"On the Sprint 3G network... If [the handset uses] the [WAP] Media Access Gateway, we have the URL history for 24 months ... We don't store it because law enforcement asks us to store it, we store it because when we launched 3G in 2001 or so, we thought we were going to bill by the megabyte ... but ultimately, that's why we store the data ... It's because marketing wants to rifle through the data."
Jorge Amodio wrote:
LRMAO
Coming from a gmail user...
~Seth
LRMAO
Coming from a gmail user...
Yes, and very satisfied with their service (not happy with the line
wraps though and plain text formatting), very convenient to receive
messages from e-mail lists and a more efficient way to deal with spam
and other nuisances.
I've to admit that actually MSFT online privacy notice (which it is
not clear if it's equal to their privacy "policy") includes the
statement you mentioned in your message, but you forgot to include the
rest ...
(short version, if you want all the yada yada you need to click on
"Additional Details")
Personal Information
- When you register for certain Microsoft services, we will ask you to
provide personal information.
- The information we collect may be combined with information obtained
from other Microsoft services and other companies.
- We use cookies and other technologies to keep track of your
interactions with our sites and services to offer a personalized
experience.
Uses of Information
-We use the information we collect to provide the services you
request. Our services may include the display of personalized content
and advertising.
- We use your information to inform you of other products or services
offered by Microsoft and its affiliates, and to send you relevant
survey invitations related to Microsoft services.
- We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties.
In order to help provide our services, we occasionally provide
information to other companies that work on our behalf.
And then there is another section that is related to "Your Choices",
but nowhere (and I'm not
saying that others provide this option either) says you opt to keep
all the information
Microsoft collects about you private and not shared with affiliates
(very vague term) or other
companies working on their behalf (ie the telemarketers bothering you
at home in the middle of your favorite football game to sell something
you don't need).
Every single provider that collects information about you tries to
find the way to monetize it and make some extra bucks.
Cheers
Jorge