We probably don’t know half of all the stuff Google and Facebook know of us. And we probably even don’t want to know how much they know, because it would scare the **** out of us all.
This infograpghic at AllFacebook takes a look at who is worse, Google+ or Facebook. (more…)
We have talked before about Eric Schmidt and his famous quotes. Some think he was crazy for saying them, others believe that if you listen carefully you can get a lot of information out of them.
The Consumer Watchdog in the US is not a big fan of Google and the way they handle privacy. They ‘hit’ on Google once in a while, like in their latest video below. You might agree or disagree, but one thing is for sure: it is very nicely made.
Google knows more and more about us. It knows our moves, it knows where we’ve been and what we like best. That can be very handy. But it can also be very scary. What if Google would be a person? And that person would know everything about us. Do you think we would like that?
Google has got many different faces. There are all the great services they offer, for free, on the one hand. And on the other hand there is the (indirect) price you pay for the services: information. The information-part is what rises questions about privacy-issues. The question is how much we really care about our privacy, but that’s for another time. For now, look at the video below and see how a feeling about Google can be expressed. But are they right or wrong…?
Back when Google launched GMail and people for the first time saw ads in them everybody was stunned. It was actually the first time that Google got ‘privacy matters’ thrown at them. From that point on the ‘do no evil’ statement was looked at in a different way than before that. Google and Privacy since then never really ‘became friends’.
In this video the ad-functionality within GMail is mocked. In a kind-of-funny way. With the (so it seems) intention to get people away from Gmail onto Office 365. The video seems to be in favor of Microsoft. But if the company is really behind this video? I doubt it…
e all love numbers and we all love to know who is most popular, or at least, who has the most followers, so when the people from Twittercounter built Socialstatistics to measure who has the most followers on Google+ we all dove on it. And we saw that, oh irony, Mark Zuckerberg was the most followed user on Google+.
Well, not anymore. If you go to Socialstatistics now you will see the face you will see on top of many lists of social tools: Robert Scoble. Did he pass Zuckerberg in popularity? Did Zuckerberg leave Google+? No, he didn’t, Zuckerberg isn’t there anymore because he decided to change his privacy settings. His numbers now cannot be read anymore. His profile is still there. (more…)
The left hand navigation of your Google Profile account when you are editing it has something special to it. Not that you can make your profile as nice as possible, but if you look well, most of the items are related to privacy.
After “Account overview” there is the “Profile and privacy” tab, which lets you change all sorts of privacy settings. In the sidebar you’ll also find ‘connected accounts’ which enables you to look and edit accounts connected to your name. And finally there is the “Data liberation” tab. This option to get all your data out of Google has never been that visible before. Is Google taking privacy more seriously? (more…)
A very interesting find by one of our regular readers Brandon Moreau, who before did two guestposts for us. It seems as if Google has, without telling anybody, turned off the possibility to turn off your search history personalization for those who are not logged in.
As you may know Google tracks you. Based on your web- and or search history (depending on the level of personalization you allow Google to go) Google serves you personalized results. This means that you will most probably see different results, or a different order of results, than your next door neighbor or even the colleague sitting next to you. Since late 2009 Google decided to turn this on for everybody, including those who are not logged in to any Google account (SEL reported on it here). Something every SEO has to keep in mind.
You have however always been able to turn this feature off. You can still do this when you are logged in, but when you are not logged in this possibility is now gone. (more…)
Aren’t they lovely, the new Google Profiles? And you can put so much information in it. Information which everybody can see. And download… We’ve discussed the privacy matters around the profiles before and I will be talking about the presentation I did at SMX about the profiles soon too. But there is a lot more to the Google Profiles. A Dutch researcher was able to download, export and import 35 million Google Profiles, with data.
The researcher Matthijs Koot, working for the University of Amsterdam, is writing a research paper about anonymity and privacy. For that research he decided to look at the Google Profiles. He noted that a lot of the information can be downloaded pretty easy. (more…)
The BBC is today reporting that UK websites have been given one year to comply with EU Cookie Laws by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). So what does this mean for UK business websites? Put simply it means that no business website will be charged for not complying with the EU Guideline until the UK agrees on a workable solution.
In fact, it seems that the UK that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is currently working with browser manufacturers to offer the cookie blocking/acceptance feature into their technologies – indeed they have said that is the only option they are currently considering. (more…)
Now, I’m all for privacy and being open and making people understand of the consequences when it comes to the use of some services, especially Facebook and in some cases Google. But in this case I think there is somebody being a bit to eager.
In the Netherlands, the Local Affairs Office decided to warn Dutch municipalities for the use of Google Maps because of privacy issues. This warning was based on a 68 page counting research which showed that many municipalities use Google Maps on there websites but don’t have any idea about the privacy consequences of that usage. The most remarkable result of the report however is that they advice the municipalities to use not another free service, but the paid Google Maps service, which costs 7000 euros a year or develop a tool for 550.000 euros. Talk about useless spending of public money… (more…)
A few days ago Google released a piece of research celebrating the success of AdWords Remarketing, the retargeting functionality of the Google AdWords advertising program. They included some success numbers from different advertisers, showing increases in conversions, cuts in costs-per-conversion and higher click-through-rates at lower costs per click. Other impressive numbers Google released include the reach of 84% of the people on remarketing lists accounting for advertising impressions to over 500 million Internet users worldwide. It’s fair to say retargeting is a blessing according to Google.
However where Google is happy about Remarketing some users are not. A search in Google Realtime for “google ads following me” shows a lot of users complaining about being chased around the web by Adwords ads. It’s a sound a hear a lot around the web. (more…)
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