Sure, because Google is literally beating and raping us. Things that actually happened to actual slaves in the US and around the world. Calling Google slavery just minimizes the ACTUAL atrocities that were committed (and still are in many parts of the world) against actual people. Calling Google slavery is absurd.
3 Likes
I feel compelled to side with the people who are saying the slavery comparison is a bit too hyperbolic, but in a sense we had become digital slaves giving ourselves away to every single website we see, and even I had fell victim to this; Iâve committed my entire life to Google and itâs great so long the idea every letter you type in GMail is probably being used to advertise relevant services is ignored.
The general consensus, and reasonable conclusion is it doesnât matter what Google has on you, because if youâve been on this planet long enough you either donât care because youâre law-abiding, or donât care because you realize no matter how hard you try to protect your online identity, itâs a vain and fruitless effort because the harder you try, the harder the Internet becomes to use.
Unless you live a fake dual life as a digital avatar not representative of yourself, thereâs something of yourself â your real, actual self â on the Internet. Thereâs no stopping it, because even as you try to protect your online privacy, your real-world privacy is compromised with the use of credit and debit. Your money is in a bank which sells your identity to the highest bidder. Your workplace is compromised by a malicious actor who then releases a database containing your real name. Any place using your social security number for verification is ripe for picking and exposure by people who want to make dirty money with your real self.
Live long enough and youâll realize in this day and age, the only privacy you really have is your ridiculously expensive accommodation six feet beneath the ground.
Itâs not just about privacy. It is about the attempted covert, corporate curation of thoughts and and values across the mass of population. And anyone who doesnât understand that is underway, doesnât understand how Google and Facebook now operate.
6 Likes
âWe want devices to be super smart when it comes to helping us know the world around us, but you canât expect it to magically do so without volunteering some of your own information. Use your real life as an exampleâyou likely have family and friends who know a great deal about you. Sharing that personal information is part and parcel to your relationship. Itâs a similar concept with your âpersonalâ devices. Sometimes, itâs just for us to get over the concept of our devices â otherwise inanimate objects â actually becoming intimate strangers in our lives.â
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook are all using the very same sentence in theirs conditions:
âYour privacy is important to us.â
The problem is how you understand this sentence.
Personnally, I have understood that my privacy is very important for them⌠to collect.
4 Likes
For those who want chrome-like browser on PC https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
and on android https://www.bromite.org/
LOL ----------
âIâm from the government and Iâm here to help youâ
" Listen carefully as our selections have recently changed"
"âThe check is in the mailâ
âThe dog ate my homeworkâ
âYou get this round, Iâll pay the next timeâ
and nowâŚ
âYour privacy is important to usâ
If you want a better privacy-minded alternative, Vivaldiâs where itâs at IMO. Iâm not even expressing it because I have a bias toward them, theyâre just the only browser I know of presently which has tab tiling and tab stacking as interface features. Itâs a Chrome-alike, but doesnât have anything Google about it.
If you are confused about both of these concepts, as follows;
Tab tiles lets you see multiple webpages in the same viewport, which means less screwing around with windows.
Tab stacks lets you have multiple pages in the same spatial location of the browser interface. These stacks also have their own miniature tabs within the tab and and present an interactive tooltip showing thumbnails of all tabs within the stack when hovered over.
Stacks can also be tiles automatically, without holding [Ctrl] to specify multiple tabs. Itâs been a boon for me as someone who tinkrs with web pages because I can use Stylus alongside another webpage without needing to use a separate display or snap windows.
Iâm pretty sure vivaldi have their own trackers(or not even their own), while those two i posted about are just chromium browsers wich was cleared from trackers.
3 Likes
I agree mostly with stevecook172001. What most of you forget is Google and Facebook also brainwash people with get rich quick type of schemes: content marketing, paid ads, etc. Most of these marketing techniques donât work; look for research papers rather than reading just articles if you donât believe me. To make matters worse, a lot of the ads are clicked and viewed by bots and not by humans.
Google is definitely intrusive, but for the time being there is no better alternative. Sadly, weâll have to continue using Google as a search engine.
1 Like
Best check your history. Google is/was not much different than any other real SE. Except Google had much more marketing and brainwashing skills hired to convince everyone to âGoogle Itâ, to learn to accept Stalkware as part of the deal to âGoogle itâ, and went from being a SE to a giant catalogue of *Googies profiles and privacy for sale.
Google then took over control of what and how a web page should be and then began itâs website popularity contest and those with the money, can be more popular than others.
Google has been caught, fined (cost of doing business for them), and ordered to stop scanning and profiling people based on their G-mail content, but only in the EU, itâs still OK to read your G-mail in North America, South America and Africa. Just that the EU governments respect citizens right to privacy. The others donât.
Google has been caught fudging searches in favour of political parties, current event controls, and peopleâs profiles gathered via Google Fonts, and Google Analytics - both Stalkers.
There is a lot more, but if you donât believe me, donât âGoogle Itâ search for it instead.
IMHO and in my experience in the privacy arena, Google is nothing more than a Stalker - profiling you and selling you to the highest bidders. Just as kidnapped victims often times develop a fondness relationship with their kidnappers, so Googies develop the same with Google. A victim is still a victim.
- Googie - a follower of Google.
1 Like
My history is perfectly accurate on this. I was alive and using computers on a daily basis in the late '90s. I switched to Google because somebody recommended it to me. Iâd never heard of it before, never seen a commercial or an advert for it. It was amazing. After that it made no sense to use any other search engine. Thatâs a fact, one that its main rival (Yahoo) was forced to admit to when it contracted out its searches to Google. Googleâs technology was years ahead of the competition.
Since then Googleâs interests have grown. You can debate their privacy settings all you want, but please lets not corrupt history to suite your own agenda on this.
Personally I have no problem with their privacy settings. If you donât want your Gmail account scanned, then donât use Gmail.
I think Iâm done with this thread, the replies are getting more silly.
Iâm sorry you have been assimilated and I can only assume that resistance was futile. Say hello to the collective me 
They tried it on me, I resisted and escaped and donât need Googies telling me what to think, say , and do. I am still free⌠something Google is working on. Mark my words youngâun
For posterity sake, Google is NOT a SE. IMO, itâs a advertising tool to show you what they want you to see. Yahoo came AFTER Altavista, which was after Mozaic, which was after Gopher, which came after Archie - the first search engine. Search it out yourself. Sorry, Googies wonât understand plain English so Iâll rephrase by saying Google it!
My response to the Topic question doesnât make me wrong. Opinions are never wrong - except in 1945 Germany, the U.S., and some Forums.
Sorry you canât handle the heat - bye.
2 Likes
Google (and Amazon, too) supply salted code to web developers everywhere. Most web sites use some Google (and/or Amazon) web site provisioning utilities & supplies. Codesmiths using Googleâs version of json or jquery should get them from json.org & jquery.org, instead. Of course, thereâs also Googleâs various tools & frameworks such as GWT (Google Web Toolkit).
Everything supplied by Google (and Amazon) do, to the best of my knowledge, include trackers that route all the host siteâs traffic through Google (and Amazon) servers so they can be examined (though Codesmiths will tell you that itâs just telemetry).
1 Like
What Google doesnât know, your local government most likely does already if you do business with a bank or government institution.
Iâve already written about this in-depth so I wonât do it again, but the short of it is most governments donât care because they have you by the genitals already if you do anything within the nation, state or province you live in.
Meanwhile the European Union fines Google for making Chrome and Google search default yet they donât lay out Microsoft for;
- Excessive CTAs to use Microsoft Edge
- Forcing Bing search in the start menu
- Forcing Cortana as a digital assistant in the start menu
- Providing no option to change either
- Forcing use of explorer as shell to run âModernâ apps (like calculator!)
- Updating the operating system without consent
- Restarting the PC without explicit consent
- Adding a paywall to enable consent of updates and if the system reboots
- Using the start menu as an advertising platform
And the list goes on. Yet EU tells Google to break it up, Google will charge a fee for OEMs to install their suite of utilities and the user gets to pay even more for a smartphone because most users wonât even know what to do if they donât have Googleâs Play store to install their applications from. GG EU.
But no seriously, if youâre using Windows 10, youâre also putting yourself into Microsoftâs machine if you use it as they intended. And they want you to use their utilities baked in for mail, calendar, messaging, phone calls and other tasks that Microsoft shouldnât even be tracking. And guess what? Most people in North America use Microsoft Windows, with no motivation to know anything better.
But weâre not talking about how Microsoft is evil because that topic has been discussed ad nauseum. The dead horse can have another beating if it means we can bring some perspective doing it.
3 Likes
Microsoft is evil for the same reason Google are. The reason is because they became big enough to be useful in the service of empire. If you get big enough you get swallowed up or you get destroyed.
4 Likes
I agree with almost everything you stated. Since Google is the topic of this post, I would add that Google and most other SEs, along with Microsoft Windows have taken over the Information Highway and loaded it up with billboards - so many that we can no longer view out the Windows what we want to see, only what they want us to buy, based on what we wanted to but didnât get to see.
I said it at the very start âWhy would Microsoft give away their OS? Itâs like Ford giving away carsâŚâ. âPssst - wanna a free Windows 10 little boyâ.
As for âMost people in North AmericaâŚâ - you nailed it. But those âmost peopleâ firmly believe that they need these âStalkersâ and people are being assimilated at a very early age now into accepting Stalking as a way of life - that itâs normal and sadly, actually feel itâs a corporate right to do so.
Many have no choice but to accede to Google and Microsoft âTerms of Use (or go elsewhere), Privacy Policy (there ainât none), and AUP (knuckle under and become assimilated)â
Ponder this - have you ridden a school bus lately? Not-so-long ago, the chatter was deafening. Kids were communicating verbally. Now itâs only the soft sound of tiny fingers tapping out texts and playing apps.
Twenty years ago, if we searched out a university, we were met with links to actual studies, case history, studies in progress, protein folding opportunities, peer paper reviews, and some profs papers. Now, itâs how much it costs to take a course in Windows 10 and SEOing.
Who gave Google, and Microsoft, the authority to bend and shape the Internet into a Stalker-tool? We did. We sat back, complained in forums, and really, did nothing to stop them⌠because like heroin - we need it.
IMO Google created itâs search engine then optimized it with popularity rules - that is, if you follow the rules, your site selling homemade mittens for puppies could be at the top of the search. Then every mitten-maker fights to beat the other to the top, until some start to pay. Brilliant idea. And the price of mittens keeps going up. New rule - have a Facebook account and get higher rankings. Add Twitter, LinedIn, and all the other apps whose service is a side effect of the stalking device it really was made for just to improve ones popularity site-status.
In five years from now tiox, what do feel will be the alternative to our 2018âs version of 1984? Will there even be alternatives?
I already read your âŚâslavery comparison is a bit too hyperbolicâŚâ response and just opened it again to re-view it. I get your point, but if you were with REAL search engines âback-in-the-dayâ, before the Internet was Googlized, youâd have something to make a better comparison - no?
You also stated âŚâyou either donât care because youâre law-abiding, or donât care because you realize no matter how hard you try to protect your online identity, itâs a vainâ. This âif you have nothing to hide, why worry about privacyâ_ attitude is what the man in the dark trench coat hiding in the alleyway says. Itâs double-reversing propaganda. No offence is directed at you, itâs directed that the corporations that use gobbledygook to assimilate the masses.
I like what they said in the movie âAnonâ that goes âItâs not that I have something to hide. I have nothing I want you to see.â and especially the line that states âYou invade my privacy, itâs nothing. I try to get it back, itâs a crime.â
I jumped into Linux to take back my rights to privacy. I asked Microsofts Bingtrumpers how I could request deletion of the profile Bing has of me. I got back a wall of text explaining what Bing does (sale pitch) and I was told to âread the Terms of Use or try using Startpage insteadâ. The typical generic no answer response.
I blame all the Apathacans.
Just sayin sâall
i.
2 Likes
WOW! YCombinator says "Itâs just that Google is so good that it knows what I am thinking before I am completely done with formulating the thought. " Damned scary to know that there are people that would even appreciate a machine that thinks for them! Then, why did I bother to state my opinion since Google has probably already thought it for me!
Neither Google nor Bing are real search engines any more. Search engine results are just the cheese on a better trap.
I agree, Bing is very much a messy result-oriented SE. Good or bad results are expensive - IF one values their right to privacy.
My opinion, sâall.
i.