Googlebook Creepy Surprise!

Just logging on here for a friendly visit to the web. Do people still call it that? I am getting pretty old skool.

I musta accidentally clicked something on that doofy windows 10 screen with the photo and the lame quote.

Next thing I know google is asking me to confirm my deets. So it shows an email address I currently use, okay. Then it has a list of a few other email addresses I've used in the past. The tab header read something like "Is your personal info updated? confirm/ update now"

I was like knock that crap off, Google! But at the bottom of the list was a handle I hadn't used in maybe 15 years or more (Was Google even around then?) It was an old AOL handle I used at a different address, different city, different desktop. I don't believe I've ever had reason to cross-reference my old emails in any way either.

I closed the window.

I also don't always use my real name or birthdate any time I'm asked to register for something. Even when I was goaded into making a facebook page I made a false page just for lulz.

Doesn't matter. Google knows. Google knows all. Google ain't no fool.

So Google knows where I was 15 years ago. As creepy as that is, I also remembered my facebook page was recently suggesting some 'people I might know.'

These were aunts and cousins who I never talk with, never befriended anywhere online, nor searched for. These people never held my surname, live in different states etc.

Just what the hell?!

I'm not super surprised, I knew Google/ Facebook was up to this nonsense. But it's certainly not to aim more relevant ads towards me.


What is their endgame? Why are they cataloging us in this way? I guess it's too late. I'm already damned, marked by the Google beast.

What the hell did you hit? Can you duplicate it?

originally posted by: schuyler
What the hell did you hit? Can you duplicate it?

Let me try. Give me a few moments.

a reply to: schuyler

Restarted, shut down, and sent my desktop to sleep about 20 times now. I was not able to reproduce the page, nor find reference to it online. Anyone on ATS can back me up? Ever seen this?

It was the windows 10 startup screen where it shows you a photo and asks for a password to sign in. I errantly clicked somewhere near the password field and a MS window popped up asking me to confirm details of my google account or something. Again, listing emails I haven't used in over a decade. I also learned you aren't able to take a screenshot of this page so I had my camera phone ready, but nothing.

I've then been trying to find others who experienced this, and also tried searching details of my Microsoft and Google accounts. None suggest any other emails are stored than the one I currently use.

I don't know what to say! But they did send me an email to verify my current email address:

Have you checked out proton mail or any other anonymous type e-mail? Stay away from any e-mail that requires a phone number to register. People would be surprised to find out how much information can be figured out from just a phone number. I got into a heated debate with a guy who was calling me a loon, because I was telling him I could find out what his credit score was just from his phone number. He let me prove it to him alright as he stood over my shoulder over the course of a hour watched me pull up all of his past history. I even found his secret "vacation" bungalow that his wife didn't know about.


Seriously, don't use google, yahoo, or outlook for e-mail. Use an email service that let's you create one with little to know information. If required use another fake e-mail as a back up e-mail. It's not 100%, but any little bit helps to throw the algorithms off. Every search done through google, yahoo, or bing is saved and added to your profile. Even if you have "Do Not Track" turned on, websites will sell your browsing history to google, yahoo, and bing, as well as to other third party entities.

Even using onion networks and vpns aren't fool proof. It's just the way it is.

originally posted by: RealityIsAbsurd
Have you checked out proton mail or any other anonymous type e-mail? Stay away from any e-mail that requires a phone number to register. People would be surprised to find out how much information can be figured out from just a phone number. I got into a heated debate with a guy who was calling me a loon, because I was telling him I could find out what his credit score was just from his phone number. He let me prove it to him alright as he stood over my shoulder over the course of a hour watched me pull up all of his past history. I even found his secret "vacation" bungalow that his wife didn't know about.


Seriously, don't use google, yahoo, or outlook for e-mail. Use an email service that let's you create one with little to know information. If required use another fake e-mail as a back up e-mail. It's not 100%, but any little bit helps to throw the algorithms off. Every search done through google, yahoo, or bing is saved and added to your profile. Even if you have "Do Not Track" turned on, websites will sell your browsing history to google, yahoo, and bing, as well as to other third party entities.

Even using onion networks and vpns aren't fool proof. It's just the way it is.

Wont matter... It can still find out what you're using.


The only way to MAYBE stop this is to:

- Use an internet company that doesn't track your IP address upon logging in...
- Use a really good VPN to hide your IP...
- Use a browser that prevents tracking from google and facebook...


And even still.... you can't hide. If you're on the internet, if you have a credit card, if you purchase goods with a debit card, if you go to the doctor.... If you have a cell phone.... If you bring said cellphone to walmart.... Doesn't matter what you do, they have your information.

Face it... Big brother already has enough information on you to find all previous and future information on you. The only way you could possibly get away from this is if you grew up in the country and lived there, away from any town or city since birth... without a birth certificate and a school education or identification and have ever only received and used cash.

I had an experience similar to this once with an app I installed on my smartphone. It basically auto-added a list of email contacts of everyone I'd communicated with like 10 years prior from an email address that (should have) had no connection whatsoever to myself at the time I installed the app... This was from back when we were still using flip phones.
The only thing I could think of was that my ISP had somehow accessed and stored a list of everyone I'd communicated with by email, and then kept that list available for the next 10 years to be openly accessed by whatever requested it, in this case a random smartphone app.

Everything you do online is being recorded, and it's been that way for a long time.

a reply to: StallionDuck

I guess that makes sense. Every online purchase you make leaves a web trail. Doesn't matter who the provider is or how long ago it was.

I'm not sure if that makes it less creepy or more creepy...I'm sure the reality of it is far creepier than I could imagine

originally posted by: NarcolepticBuddha
a reply to: StallionDuck

I guess that makes sense. Every online purchase you make leaves a web trail. Doesn't matter who the provider is or how long ago it was.

I'm not sure if that makes it less creepy or more creepy...I'm sure the reality of it is far creepier than I could imagine

Not just a web trail. There is a couple of companies out there that get your information from your credit and debit card. They share that with Facebook and possibly google and who knows who else. Every time you use your credit card, they get that information, thanks to Visa and Mastercard. Then Facebook gets it and tailors it's ads towards what you purchased.

Imagine a huge database (or many of them) that hold all of every bit of information that's ever been digital or digitized about who and you, stored and accessible to anyone else with an internet connection, be it wireless or wired...

The only thing that can make it worse are the leaps and bounds (doubles every year) that tech and AI are making that will hold, spread and use that data for whatever needs, means or want of every company or nefarious person out there.... Including AI. Who says that AI will always be morally good?

It's really scary if you think about it. Imagine 5 years from now.... Don't need to imagine 50 years ahead... 5 years is plenty.


Keep your eye on 5G


it's really crazy. Hate to sound all dramatic but it really is crazy how things are turning out in the information stealing world.

a reply to: StallionDuck

Right that's what I'm saying. No way this is just for gearing advertising and junk mail.

As I mentioned, Facebook even knows who my distant family is. What's the deal?

Maybe AI is getting ready to put humanity on trial for judgement day.

It's too late to worry about it, It's happened (and happening), so I wouldn't get stressed.

originally posted by: Assemble
It's too late to worry about it, It's happened (and happening), so I wouldn't get stressed.

Yea, just bend over, grin and bear it

Something related, my chromebook updated a few weeks ago and now my old username and password have been replaced with having to log on to this device with my google account and password. Have tried to get back to my old login and password but it's a no go. I quit an Apple Ipad for this thing and when this goes down, I'm going to buy something with Linux os.

Edit: I don't use this thing or my phone to visit any of my financial sites. Only my desktop.

a reply to: StallionDuck


Yeah basically. Overall, when it comes to personal information we're screwed. There really is no easy way to get around it short of faking death and paying for everything in cash. I can't say I know anyone who has actually done it, but it's not the vacation everyone thinks it is.


We're owned not just by the government, but by corporations, the actual masters of the human race. The leaders of corporations don't even really have to worry about who votes for who. They just use the money that people work their butts off for to pay for overpriced items to pad government official's pockets to change the laws in their favor.


C.R.E.A.M. Dolla dolla bills y'all.

I think their end game is to know a lot about everyone for targeted advertising. Then, they can make money off of advertisements and still offer a free search engine and free Facebook and other free stuff.

a reply to: darkbake


Or just have an active running database on everybody. In that way in the case that someone becomes a popular candidate against TPTB they can pull up every single thing that person has searched for, every page they have visited, every thing they've bought. You name it. Instant dirt for a smear campaign or imprisonment.

I try to avoid Google like the plague, never use their search engine but I do have to use them for my YouTube account although I don't use my VPN when I log into it. I use DuckDuckGo to do any searches, use Ghostery to block trackers etc., use a double-vpn with TOR. I have even redirected my DNS server from the one my Internet provider uses, to one that doesn't keep logs and my VPN service doesn't keep logs as part of its policy, due to it being registered in a territory that does not require logs to be kept.

I have AVG to help protect me online, I use Facebook Purity to get rid of annoying requests, prompts and adverts and I use Privazeer to clean my computer, along with CC Cleaner. Also, one tip is to never use the Internet whilst you are logged on as Administrator on your laptop as this allows hackers access to all your info. Always use a guest account that requires a password to load software or make changes etc.