@doctorow, this “leak” is from 5 months ago. The latest “Scroogle campaign” should be about “wearables”.
1 Like
What is called ‘canned air’, as used for blowing out machine workings, is typically a can of compressed fluorocarbon gas.
2 Likes
Did you see the blind “Bing/Google” comparison test (like the Pepsi challenge) that Microsoft are running? I have to use a windows 7 machine at work and Bing redirected me to the ‘blind taste test’. http://www.bingiton.com Result? I prefer Google results over Bing results in 5/5 trials… Ah, Microsoft. We had fun back in the day. But that was the 90’s.
3 Likes
I woke from a dream this morning. In this dream I was watching TV and there was an ad for a credit card company. At the end of the ad they showed a picture of the card and my name was filled in on the card. The overlying impression I had was, “How in the hell did they do that?” I did assume that other people in other homes also saw their own names in the ad. That is fiction, but it was my real dream.
The only problem I have with the video is that it portrays Google as taking money directly from me and that is simply not true. There is an amount of money that I am going to spend. I see ads. Maybe that ad is going to help sway me to buy Brand X instead of Brand Y, but I was going to spend that money on a particular kind of thing anyway. Google simply helps direct my awareness to Brand X.
My thing is I don’t like ads and to the best of my ability I pay money to avoid them. I don’t, as a rule, use Google products and services because they are particularly invasive in showing me more ads than if I don’t use them. I particularly don’t use their search because it gives me false results, first showing me ad supported results, second “vanity” results of where I’ve already been related to the topic, and lastly I’m not sure what is going on but I assume these are “true” results. I most object to the second because I am not looking to go where I’ve been and most often I am looking for something I’ve not already looked at. If I want to see if people can find my blog by searching on my name, I do not want to be humored and have my blog come up first, I want to see the results other people would get if they typed in the same search criteria. Google does NOT provide that, they try to humor me instead. I find that unacceptable.
I don’t like Microsoft for different reasons. The look and feel of Windows is abhorrent to me. Just resizing a Window and moving it is a horribly rendered and executed experience where in comparison. I was just checking it out last night. Ghastly, and on a high-end machine.
2 Likes
Not really. I have Hands Off network monitoring installed on my Mac. It tells me when any outbound network activity is taking place on my Mac. I used to have Google Chrome installed on my Mac, but have since uninstalled it as I prefer Safari. Between Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, Chrome was the only browser that tried to phone home repeatedly during a web surfing session. Further, it tried to phone home even when I was not using it. Safari and Firefox generally phoned home like once a week to look for updates. It was not uncommon for Google to try and phone home five times in an hour.
Here is the real kicker. Since, uninstalling Chrome, Google still had tools installed on my Mac and tried to call home repeatedly.
I have Microsoft Office installed on Mac and use Bing over Google search 90 percent of the time, and Microsoft maybe once a week tries to call home.
1 Like
Microsoft was in the wrong there, but this hardly is the same issue. There is no good reason that benefits me the user that should allow Google to be calling home every ten minutes to report a users network activity.
Not sure why you think that. Cell phones companies sell your user data to the government all the time, and they are not telling you. They also sometimes share it with third parties for marketing purposes.
I do not believe Google sells your data to anyone, however, as the data is to valuable. Instead, it uses your data to increase the price it charges for advertising. Google should certainly tell people it is monitoring your web surfing behaviour and other activities even when you are not online.
1 Like
My point is the path was the same but wasn’t successful. Microsoft wanted to be in the same position Google is now but it tried to do so without giving their customers a choice. Google has in a way stepped into this territory of the “You have no choice” field with it’s integration of Youtube and Google+. I believe the sole difference is Google offers a service, not goods. The goal is the same though. Tear customers away from using a competitor’s service and use theirs.
No they don’t. The government forces them to give up data under a gag order, and the cell phone companies are allowed to charge the cost of retrieving the data. My employer can’t get my cell phone records from my personal phone.
I don’t think we disagree. Yes, Google uses your data to charge more for your advertising by slapping you into bins that are more likely to click something. They do tell you this. This is not a secret only you know. Anyone who doesn’t understand that Google makes money off of advertising to you at this point is an idiot. If it offends you that Google makes money off of trying to show you things you might want, then, um, stop using gmail? I personally would prefer targeted advertising that has shit I want over penis pills and mortgage offers, but hey, different folks.
Like I said, the harm comes when that data passes to someone that can use it to inflict retribution on you. Your employer and the government are the two entities that are most dangerous to have unfettered access to your data. Google doesn’t sell your data to your employer. It will be really obvious when they do because in order to sell a product, you have to advertise that you have it. There is nothing a company like Google can do about the government. The government can use legal mechanism to demand the data, or as the NAS did with Google, they can flat out steal the data without having to ask.
1 Like
Microsoft’s ad reminds me of Putin’s letter to the U.S. championing freedom and rights and all the things Mr. P doesn’t actually believe in. I’m glad the criticism was made in a loud voice, but I’m not mistaking my enemy’s enemy for a friend. As a systems programmer and a captive consumer I was up against Microsoft for thirty years, and nothing will assuage my wrath but to see Bill Gates in rags, on his knees, shaking a tin cup with 38 cents in it. And as for Putin, FREE PUSSY RIOT NOW!
At one point, the video shows Google somehow sucking dollars out of the pocket of the innocent user. What real-life process does this model? Is there some way that my incessant searching for cat pictures is making me money? Money that Google is somehow vacuuming out of my pocket without my being aware of it? I guess there must be. I mean, this is Microsoft. They’re pretty smart. They probably understand how the internet really works. Well, that’s it, then. I’m not gonna surf one more website until somebody pays me what my surfing is worth! No siree, Bob. When I want a recipe for vegetarian chili, Google is going to have to pay me to look at their search results.
2 Likes
Note that on your Google profile page they offer to find all pictures of you on the web. That means they are using facial recognition software, and that from there they are constructing a social network map of you and other people without you even being aware of it.
Yeah Google, only kinect is allowed to see you naked through your clothes in the privacy of your own living room or bedroom. stop creeping in on our creepiness. -Microsoft
When it comes to browsers I guess Microsoft has a point, IE only half works in one place, and is just as crappy at tracking you as it is at working as a browser. You know Microsoft would be all over this is they were capable.
2 Likes
Where is this?
Please let me know if you figure that out? I’m probably owed $100,000 in back pay.
It’s on the account set up page - there is a checkbox near the space for the profile photo.
Are you talking about this? https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2370300
It appears to be limited to other Google+ pictures. It is off by default and you can choose whether or not tags are automatically accepted (the default is “your circles”). Facebook has something similar for photos posted to its site, but it is on by default.
My employer traded Gmail for MS Outlook some months ago. I wonder
- why on earth call out devils by Beelzebub?
- what about company secrets let alone data privacy?
But most of all I wonder if there isn’t any other alternative for MS haters than just android and gmail…my hate for MS is older, so I stick to that one, but I’m longing for better days…
Admittedly, I rather use Bing than Google - but I’m adressing Startpage for most of my websearches __
So is Facebook, and Twitter and literally EVERY “free” software company, or website based company. How else do you think they make money on a “free” product?
Google Chrome does have a setting built in however to enable Do Not Track, so advertisers cannot track your information.
Or you can be smart and enable DNT as well as use adblock, problem solved. However authorized sources will still track you via cookies. Those authorized sources include Google, Microsoft, Facebook and many many more websites that you willingly and knowingly sign into. They leave cookies on your computer designed to track your activity.
Read the Privacy Policies, and the other legal documents. Its all outlined there, albeit in cloudy legal text. If you do not agree with these policies set your browser to auto-delete cookies on quit, or set your computer to regularly clear cookies itself. Or, stay with me now, stop using these services and let them know its their policies that have caused it.
YOU must be proactive to stop this tracking. Otherwise you are willingly letting it happen in the eyes of the law.
Yeah, I hate using Microsoft products, but Google has become scary to the point where I now have left Chrome and Google for Firefox and DuckDuckGo.
