What Google Knows About YOU! Its Scarier Than I thought!

Let’s run through a little thought experiment.



Imagine there’s a list somewhere that contains every single webpage you have visited in the last five years. It also has everything you have ever searched for, every address you looked up on Google GOOG +1.86% Maps, every email you sent, every chat message, every YouTube video you watched.



Each entry is time-stamped, so it’s clear exactly, down to the minute, when all of this was done.



Now imagine that list is all searchable. And imagine it’s on a clean, easy-to-use website. With all that imagined, can you think of a way a hacker, with access to this, could use it against you?



And once you’ve imagined all that, go over to google.com/dashboard, and see it all become reality.



For a piece complementing today’s story on Google and privacy by the WSJ’s Amir Efrati, I took a deep dive into Google Dashboard, a kind of Grand Central Terminus for all the information the company has stored on you. It’s a truly amazing amount, especially if, like me, you have been a heavy Gmail user since its launch in 2004.



As long as you are logged into Gmail, or any other Google account, the company isn’t just keeping track of how you use its own service - it’s noting every site you visit on the web.

www.bibliotecapleyades.net...
Ok Seriously I had NO idea about google dashboard, and it scared the crap out of me...

It had info in there from as far back as 2009, and stuff that I actually forgot that I even looked at.

Google Dashboard

Here are a few other search engines out there that can stop this, as I am canceling my stuff right now!

DuckDuckGo

StartPage

I dont even have to add anything else, go to the dashboard and it will all be seen for yourself.

Peace, NRE.

This is why I:

1. Don't have an android phone
2. Don't use my gmail for anything other than stuff that will send me spam
3. Don't log in to google when I browse the web
4. Refuse to link my youtube account under my real name
5. Don't log into youtube unless I am uploading a video
6. Don't use the play store for anything, at all
7. Don't use google wallet (never have)
8. Don't allow google to store my passwords (never have)
9. Have location services turned off
10. Don't use google docs

I realize though that the majority of the zombified masses aren't tech-savy at all, and for them these features are "totally awesome!" and "save me so much time!".

That's the thing, all of these data collection points are sold to everyone as convenience tools. People don't bother to check their settings, understand where their data is going or how it is used.

If you are creeped out by Google, don't give them anything to be creeped out about.

These days most people are doing google's job for them by posting their entire lives on facebook and twitter. Not to mention all the 'likes'. People are giving their own privacy away without a second thought, including pictures. With surveillance cameras having 'shopping face and eye movement recognition' privacy is gone, forever, and not coming back, google is the least of our worries. The only hope we have is in the sheer amount of data, however TPTB are working on computer programs designed to handle all that, probably google is helping with that.

Originally posted by MystikMushroom
This is why I:

1. Don't have an android phone
2. Don't use my gmail for anything other than stuff that will send me spam
3. Don't log in to google when I browse the web
4. Refuse to link my youtube account under my real name
5. Don't log into youtube unless I am uploading a video
6. Don't use the play store for anything, at all
7. Don't use google wallet (never have)
8. Don't allow google to store my passwords (never have)
9. Have location services turned off
10. Don't use google docs

I realize though that the majority of the zombified masses aren't tech-savy at all, and for them these features are "totally awesome!" and "save me so much time!".

That's the thing, all of these data collection points are sold to everyone as convenience tools. People don't bother to check their settings, understand where their data is going or how it is used.

If you are creeped out by Google, don't give them anything to be creeped out about.

1. Don't have an android phone- CHECK
2. Don't use my gmail for anything other than stuff that will send me spam-CHECK
3. Don't log in to google when I browse the web-CHECK
4. Refuse to link my youtube account under my real name-CHECK BTW for those that dont know if this happens and a screen comes up asking for you to change the name on your YT account, just reopen the page and it goes away, since I have been doing that it has started interrupting my videos, so I rarely go on it anymore.
5. Don't log into youtube unless I am uploading a video-CHECK
6. Don't use the play store for anything, at all-CHECK
7. Don't use google wallet (never have)-CHECK
8. Don't allow google to store my passwords (never have)-CHECK
9. Have location services turned off-CHECK
10. Don't use google docs -CHECK

I do all of the same things, but when I did log in to check it out it had things that I looked up almost 4 years ago, and even though I opened it in FF it still showed that I logged in from my FF account, which is just as disturbing.

Peace, NRE.

reply to post by Iamschist


Nah, they already got that.

Code Name- Stellar Wind


Peace, NRE.

reply to post by NoRegretsEver


You can turn off the feature that remembers your past search history.

This Google page will guide you through how to do it.

You can even delete your entire past google web history if you want, or edit out certain items.

There really is no excuse for people to complain when the tools to keep what little privacy they have left are available, you just can't become complacent. I'm constantly checking various privacy settings on any and all accounts I have.

reply to post by MystikMushroom


I have used that option, and if it would have worked the way that it should have, there would have been nothing in the dashboard. The dashboard is something entirelydifferent.

Peace, NRE.

reply to post by MystikMushroom


In my experience deleting one's history is not effective, it is deleted from your browser, not google and or youtube now. I make it a habit of deleting my history, but youtube will still offer me videos based on ones I watched in the past, and yes I delete my youtube history on the youtube site. Google will also limit/offer me search results based on anything I have been viewing in real time, this information is also stored somewhere I cannot delete it.

the simple fact is no matter what anyone does on internet now then somewhere everything you do is being monitored and recorded,thats just the way it is

Plus, I have Wi-Fi internet and it knows where I am. I don't have to log into anything -- my IP is enough.

What site, connected to Facebook, encouraged you to use Google Maps to show where you live? Is that still available? Once you've done it, it's hard to get RID of it.

"Hey potential stalker, c'mon over!"

Google is in so many markets -- that they are a serious threat to your privacy. Just recently, it came out that they were tracking the phone location even with wi-fi turned off:

www.theblaze.com...

The Wi-Fi scan-only mode, while somewhat obscure, is a new feature that could help conserve your battery. The feature, when enabled, lets Google’s location service and other apps scan for networks, even when Wi-Fi is off. This means you can improve your location accuracy without the continuous drain. That said, there is a way to turn it really off. Amadeo wrote under the “advanced” menu is the option to turn off the “Scanning always available feature.” This will “make ‘off for Wi-Fi really be ‘off,’” he said.

I went into two different android phones and the "advanced" menu indeed had enabled scanning. Do you believe such mega corporations will ever be trustworthy?

The paranoia of it all. Regardless someone knows what you're doing whether its gmail or she-mail. You're being monitor like it or not

reply to post by sylent6


So we're being monitored, spied on... who cares. Right?

reply to post by VegaLyrah


Exactly. Its a new era. We have to deal with it until some big meteor comes and wipe us out.

I guess you can call me a sheep because the least of this stuff is scary to me even with how they can track me and record my information. I'm pretty much unimportant and not in their personal radar. If I was famous, or had a lot of money I'd probably be scared for my families sake, but I am neither of those. I'm basically a nobody. Plus they probably have a lot of information on me and some of us anyway. Deleting your history won't do much anyways. Even if you go as far as wiping your computer. The information is probably being harvested each time we connect to the internet.

the moment one enters the web, their lives are now compromised.
Why this is always so surprising to how "they" have the ability to
know your history is kinda humorous. I think it is kinda basic, either except
the fact that you run the risk of being categorized, documented, or filed.
Or,. go off grid.

reply to post by Lil Drummerboy


Only g*d knows how much information they collect on us here at ATS. Here is ground zero.

Originally posted by sylent6
reply to post by VegaLyrah

 

Exactly. Its a new era. We have to deal with it until some big meteor comes and wipe us out.

please dont tease
after ET man and the fail of Eleinin.. ive no humor left

reply to post by Lil Drummerboy


In the beginning, it was not this way. It has evolved into this massive spy machine. At first it was comprimised to catch hackers, then pedofiles, then terrorists. Now business and NSA have taken it far beyond anything I ever imagined. I am a nobody and why or to what purpose information about me would be stored boggles the mind. Money is of course a driving factor and now paranoia on the part of the american government of it's own people. Power, corrupted absolutely.

Don't ask me to get used to it, perhaps there is hope that information is also being stored about them, information we might use some day in ways they do not expect.....

If you wipe your computer, the information is still there... on the good ol' WWW. Wipe it to spec... wipe it with alcohol, wipe with hydrochloric acid... still on record. Even us "nobodies" are still being monitored. It is something we will have to live with from here on out, but it still bothers me.

Anyone prior GLP contributors? Remember the block? Now I'm a-okay. It seems weird.

And as for my creepy house cat friend, I wouldn't be sore if God deems it so, and it happens. Things, now that were are even more interconnected, seem to be even more out of control. Perhaps that's only my perception because we're able to see what's happening on a global scale. Our news sources are in our own hands.