I'm done with Google....

[karlac]

My issue is two fold; I have used my gmail address for years, and I hate having to send messages to everyone to change it. Many people don't make the change in their records when they receive the message with that change.

My second issue is that Google synchronizes across all of my platforms, tablet, smartphone, laptop, and any computer. That includes my calendar, contacts, etc. If there was a seamless way to do all of that other than Google......

My predicament exactly, plus I use AdSense for business/website search links. Like your friendly drug dealer, the first few hits are free.

You can synchronize across devices with Apple products/iCloud, including email @icloud.com, but that's leaping from the frying pan into the fire. The price we pay for convenience these days is privacy, for starters.

 

[txinvestigator]

My predicament exactly, plus I use AdSense for business/website search links. Like your friendly drug dealer, the first few hits are free.

You can synchronize across devices with Apple products/iCloud, including email @icloud.com, but that's leaping from the frying pan into the fire. The price we pay for convenience these days is privacy, for starters.

No Apple for me. I tried iPhone. I really wanted it to work. Wanted to like it. Just not for me.

 

[Younggun]

I've been using an iPhone for 2 years and still don't like it, but it's supplied by my job and I have unlimited use for calls, text, and data so I will keep using it.

Not sure how much the 16gigs of data I used last month would cost if I were paying the bill.

 

[A.Texas.Yankee]

So the government forces Google to release information, and we blame Google? Hmm. While I agree with wanting privacy, the government is our biggest threat, Google just uses our information to make money by offering us MORE services, which actually is a benefit to us. The government, on the other hand, uses the information against us, to control us... Two very different things.

Sent from my EVO 4G LTE using Tapatalk

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Google just uses our information to make money by offering us MORE services, which actually is a benefit to us.

Requiring me to use my real full name on youtube is of no benefit to me. And as to them turning over things to the NSA, they are one of the most powerful companies on the planet and I'm sure if they wanted they could assemble the most impressive legal team in history to fight government intrusion but instead they hand everything over seemingly with a smile on their faces. There is also alot of people in Google that started off in the NSA/DARPA. The NSF also had a large role to play in helping to create Google as it is today. Google has been in bed with our government pretty much since the beginning in 94-95.

 

[Southpaw]

Every time I used Google, my virus program lit up. The bums stuff tracking cookies in your computer from everywhere in Google!

Flash

I just recently turned off cookies in my browser and add only the sites I go regularly to the exception list.

 

[45tex]

To its credit, Google does not hide the fact that they monitor everything everybody does on the Internet. A government controller way to control them is IMHO much worse. At least we bring our demise with our eyes open.

 

[karlac]

My take is that control is control in the digital age, and both entities are all about "control", although one may appear less insidious on the surface. The government is simply parlaying Google's, and others in the tech industry, "control" of the Internet for their own purposes, with violation of privacy a by-product, fait accompli, by necessity.


The sum of these entities - global tech companies, corporations, banking and special interest groups, and a myriad of countries/UN et al - all of whom are engaged in wresting their share of control over the digital age, arguably have us facing the biggest issue regarding survival of this Constitutional Republic in two hundred plus years.

 

[txinvestigator]

Requiring me to use my real full name on youtube is of no benefit to me. And as to them turning over things to the NSA, they are one of the most powerful companies on the planet and I'm sure if they wanted they could assemble the most impressive legal team in history to fight government intrusion but instead they hand everything over seemingly with a smile on their faces. There is also alot of people in Google that started off in the NSA/DARPA. The NSF also had a large role to play in helping to create Google as it is today. Google has been in bed with our government pretty much since the beginning in 94-95.

Can you substantiate any of that?

Edit, I just went to Youtube and did not have to use my full real anything, much less my "real full name".

 

[benenglish]

So the government forces Google to release information, and we blame Google?

Pretty much, yeah. Google has put up only token resistance to government requests for information when they could have done a much better job of protecting their users. Of course, their users are not the same as their customers. Their users are, in fact, the product they sell to their customers. Bottom line? User concerns don't bother them all that much.

Recently they have begun to censor search results depending on the text of searches. They've actually accepted from Great Britain lists of search terms that they will not respond to and, instead, will return results saying "We think you're trying to break the law. Cut it out."

Now, the search terms they're not properly responding to are awful and the people doing that searching are not the types we'd like to stick up for. But that's not my point. My point is that they've established that they are willing to censor based on government requests. They are not being required to do this by statute, like the situation with Nazi-related results in France; they're willingly censoring results merely after informal requests. Once that line has been crossed, how many others will find their unpopular search habits denied or reported?

"Don't be evil" has been lost. Too bad. Thank God for startpage and a few others, many already listed in this thread.

 

[benenglish]

Can you substantiate any of that?

Seriously?

Much of what rushthezeppelin said is common knowledge, especially in the data security business. Feel free to, er, Google it.

I just went to Youtube and did not have to use my full real anything, much less my "real full name".

My youtube channel is mostly useless to me because while I can use Youtube under my old nick, it's requiring me to fully register with my real name before I can do new posts or submit comments. They also now require a sort of "statement of purpose" video for every channel to be highlighted on the front page of the channel. I expect my channel, which I've only used a couple of time for testing purposes, to sit orphaned until it's eventually deleted. I know it's no longer of any use to me.

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Can you substantiate any of that?

Edit, I just went to Youtube and did not have to use my full real anything, much less my "real full name".

DARPA Director Goes to Google But Probes Continue | PCWorld

I'm sure there are plenty of others down the totem pole that have gone back and forth (much like wallstreet does with the regulatory agencies).

As to the requiring full name, this was definitely the case 2 days ago, unless they have changed the policy (which is I suppose possible considering there has been an ongoing petition against the change). I tried for a good hour to figure out how to bypass it or even give it a fake name and it was a no go.

Edit: It seems it varies from video to video whether I can comment as my internet screen name or requiring my full name, how odd.

Edit again: Now its back to requiring full name on everything, Google is apparently having technical problems with this new bullcrap. I don't know if they are trying to let you comment without full name again and the system is screwy or the other way around.

 

[txinvestigator]

All I can tell you is that for me, no full name is required.

 

[benenglish]

All I can tell you is that for me, no full name is required.

For what? Just commenting? Or updating your channel? Or creating a channel? Or...?

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Well I managed to trick youtube back into letting me comment with my old name. At least they aren't failing as bad as Healthcare.gov with their IT problems but still rather annoying.

 

[winchster]

Y'all act like the internet and the associated cost of providing the services is free. It isn't. Everyone knows we and our information are the product being sold so what's the problem? Relative anonymity is not that hard to create. The very idea of real privacy on the Web is, and always has been, a joke. Google is not to blame for our increasing appetite for connectivity, and anyone playing the game should know that all the information is out there. Always has been, the Web just provides a much easier method of discovery.

 

[benenglish]

...anyone playing the game should know that all the information is out there. Always has been, the Web just provides a much easier method of discovery.

No.

Back when all nodes were trusted, when running an open mail relay was considered polite, there was not only no reason to believe that the internet was a potential threat to privacy, there was an implicit trust that information would be served anonymously and logs were to be kept only for diagnostics.

Then came the Web and us denizens of usenet (and Archie and Veronica and Gopher and ClariNet, et al) were plunged into the endless September. The government took even longer to catch up. Those of us who grew up when cracking (we called it hacking, though we must be more nuanced these days) doj.gov (and countless *.mil domains) was considered good fun also grew up in an era when the social norm of the internet meant no one would ever use information for evil purposes...which specifically included marketing.

In the post-Web era, we've seen our trustworthy playground paved over with a strip mall selling trinkets and surveillance. In the beginning, "we and our information" were NOT the product being sold. Nothing was being sold. The death of all that voluntary cooperation still gives me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I think I'll insert a copy of TAILS and boot into TOR. At least when I hang out with the criminals, I can accept their lack of manners. I asked for it. The rest of the internet? None of us who've been around long enough asked for it to change from what it once was and we'll never stop being bitter about that.

 

[benenglish]

...they are willing to censor based on government requests. ... Once that line has been crossed, how many others will find their unpopular search habits denied or reported?

I hate to reply to myself, but...

The question of "how many others" is still unanswered but the question of "who's next" popped up right on cue: Ministers will order ISPs to block terrorist and extremist websites | UK news | The Guardian

• First they went after the pornographers but I wasn't a pornographer.
• Then they went after the Islamists but I wasn't a Muslim.

I wonder how many lines I'll be able to add to that list in the coming year?

PS and FYI - Yes, I know the worst of this is happening in Britain. But how much is happening in the U.S. that we just don't know about? Less than I suspect, I hope. More than I imagine, I fear.

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Thank you Ben. Not everything on the internet used to be about profit. There used to be a huge open source community (still is to some extent) that wanted the betterment of human kind and the destruction of consumerism (totally different from free market where not EVERYTHING is about profit). Then the dot com boom happened and it all changed. I miss the good ol days, now all that is left, is a wee bit of file sharing, Anonymous and 4chan ><

 

[benenglish]

... now all that is left, is a wee bit of file sharing, Anonymous and 4chan ><

Find your way to Tor and Freenet. There's even an NNTP server running over TOR these days. Once your Frost boards have populated you'll find those old countercultural sensibilities still exist.

They're just buried a lot deeper these days.