9
Giving up Google for a day
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
Kai Ryssdal: Unless you've been completely off-line for some reason this week, you might have heard that Google turned on its new privacy settings yesterday. The changes let the company combine the information it gathers on users across all of its services -- Gmail, YouTube, search, the whole smash. We'll spare you the details, other than to say it looks to be a simpler privacy policy with perhaps less privacy. Unless, you go completely Google free.
Marketplace's Jennifer Collins logged off and lived to tell about it.
Jennifer Collins: It is March 1st. Google D-Day.
I'm in a no-Google zone for 24 hours. Today my privacy is mine. This is gonna hurt.
Collins: OK, all right. I am getting rid of my Gmail app. Google maps, right now. The Talk app because that uses Gchat. Gosh, no YouTube!
Goodbye phone.
Collins: Just arriving at work now.
I'm supposed to be caught up on everything that's happened in the last 24 hours and be smart about what'll happen in the next 24. My morning prep is a Google minefield. I get no mercy from my editor.
Betsy Streisand: When I started as a journalist, the Internet barely existed.
How'd that work? I headed for a search engine called DuckDuckGo.
Gabriel Weinberg: We actually currently don't track our users.
Gabriel Weinberg is the founder. He says, since Google announced its privacy policy his traffic has more than doubled to a million searches a day. Google gets a billion. And Weinberg says lots of websites use Google's tools to track users -- many people don't know about it.
Weinberg: I would imagine anyone using the Internet today, even if they don't go to any Google sites, still interact with Google.
There are, of course, do-not-track services -- many of which Google has found ways around. I check out one of these sites.
Collins: And what do you know, a video from YouTube pops up.
Video: Welcome to the guided tour for Do Not Track Plus.
YouTube, I can't go there. It's owned by Google. You know what, I've gotta get away from my computer.
Collins: I'm just going to sign out.
At home, it's the first of the month and my bills are due. My roommates and I keep track of everything on a Google spreadsheet.
Collins: So since I can't use Google, do you think you guys can wait a day on the rent?
Roommate: Absolutely not. You have to use Google.
That's not happening. I need to get my mind off search. Oh yeah, I've been wanting to watch this movie about an evil bank.
"The International" movie clip: They control everything.
Collins: OK. It's no Google. Day 2. March 2, I'm driving to work again.
But it's also Friday. And that means movies and parties and dancing. But I can't get into my Gmail to figure out what's happening! OK Google, you win! Just track me! OK, moment of weakness. I sought guidance from Marc Rotenberg. He's head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Collins: Is there a way to escape Google then?
Marc Rotenberg: Well, you could unplug your computer and open up a book.
And a map, and a Zagat's -- oh no, that's owned by Google -- and a dictionary. Yeah, nevermind.
I'm Jennifer Collins for Marketplace.
Oh Jennifer, why did you make it hard for yourself? There are other free web services which don't do nearly the amount of tracking that Google does.
GMail: While it doesn't make sense to have you switch your email address for just two days you can configure Hotmail to get your GMail email, allowing you to experience a new web client without giving up the addess.
Search engine: You found one, but possibly not the best alternative.
YouTube: Kind of stuck there. It is possible to live without it for a few days. I generally probably only see a YouTube video once or twice a month.
Maps: Lots of alternatives. Bing Maps, MapQuest, etc.
GChat: Messenger, Yahoo, Skype.
Being tracked: You can add the TPL mentioned at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/02/20/google-bypassing-user-priv... to prevent them from tracking you.
Spreadsheet: Excel Web App. Plus, you could host a copy of the spreadsheet on one of the roommates computers, so it wouldn't need access to the internet at large.
Come on ... there are a bazillion free e-mail services, and you don’t have to logon to use YouTube or Gooogle search, and MapQuest is better than anything Goggle offers. “Me thinks the lady doth protest too much”. If you are this dependent on a corporate entity, you have a basic character flaw (you are hopeless).
Although Google's new privacy policy raises concern among people I would like to remind you that Google does give you a lot of control over what information they have on you. First of all I would recommend checking Google Dashboard https://www.google.com/dashboard/ to see exactly what information they know about you and gives you the ability to delete information you don't want them to have. Next, if you want to limit the tracking Google has on you, you can use their Opt-Out Plugin http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/plugin/ or you can uses someone else if you want. Keep in mind that a lot of Google's services can be used without logging in such as Search, Maps and YouTube.
If you have come to the decision that you want to leave Google, keep in mind that you do not have to leave behind your photos, emails, documents or other items you may have stored with them. Google has setup the Data Liberation Front http://www.dataliberation.org/ which allows you to easily download almost everything you have stored with them.
The last thing I would like to say is that nearly every other competing service tracks you in someway or another, think about Bing (Microsoft), Yahoo, Apple, Facebook... if you really don't want to be tracked, get off the Internet.
Sorry, but if Google has become your master, you might think about what your life has become. I'm glad I never attached Google's leash to my collar...no Google anything and I manage to function just fine. No smart phones for tracking my every move (and that of my friends), no substituting a corporate billboard for a verb, no giving my documents away to be stored for their purposes to harvest for information later. Nope, it is an easy choice for me, especially when I hear stories like this one. I hope I'm dead before Google buys the rest of the government not already owned by corporations and imposes a law that requires us to have their implants in our shrinking little brains.
It's March 3rd and I just noticed this wonderful article. My March 1st was undoubtedly not google free as I was not trying but.
I organize my bills on a 2 foot white board on the wall the same way one would use a checkbook ledger. no google there
I pay my bills at individual websites or from my banks bill pay page. Google is no more than a carnival barker that knows no more than a real carnival barker would watching me walk by. (i.e. what town im in, my brand of shoes (OS/Browser), the writing on my T shirt(CPU/NIC ID or IP address) they still can't see my tatoos(I could use a different computer(change my shirt)
I don't know if google owns dictionary.com but I didn't go there this week
I only succumbed to the google phone experience because as of the 2nd I purchased a droid (much is my woah) and passed on my LG Chocolate touch to a friend.(excellant phone btw) as far as the droid goes I could just turn off all background data, uncheck use google services in settings and leave it off unless I want to make a call.
However I do use youtube often enough to find the names and artists of songs I am looking for. I could just try lyrics.com but youtube is easier.
I also have google plus but only because william shatner is a hoot and the dalai lama has good advice.
I think if google vanished tomorrow we would all be ok if inconvenienced, the challenge is in avoiding them altogether if you wish to. despite the difficulty though, the simplest way is to just use a public library computer and never click any ads.(except on my site :P)
I almost forgot, it isn't that expensive to buy a GPS device for your USB that comes with a copy of Microsoft streets and maps.
I think Google figures most people will just resign themselves to being tracked and -- ya know what? -- they're laughing all the way to the bank.
I'm one of the few, apparently, who totally bailed on Google and, in the process, I lost five years' worth of emails, several great photos in my Picasa file and god-only-knows how many docs.
Still, trying to live with Mapquest, buying a new domain name so I can have my own private POP-mail account and getting a subscription to Dropbox for my documents is probably good for me... and maybe to the non-Google national economy.
Your analogy is a good one to demonstrate why Google's updated privacy policy is no big deal.
Imagine your library is a branch in a larger library system. Since I'm from the Chicago area, we'll say it's the Chicago Public Library system. You go to the Lincoln Park branch and check out some books. It's reasonable that you'd expect that the Baltimore Public Library system does not know what books you've checked out, but would you be upset to find out that the Logan Square branch of the Chicago Public Library has that info? Of course not, because you understand that both the Logan Square and Lincoln Park branches are part of the Chicago Public Library system.
Likewise, Youtube, GMail, and Google Maps (among others) are all part of the Google system. It's common sense that a company would use information from one service to improve another, giving you more relevant ads as well as a better experience and recommendations. At the same time, Google's updated privacy policy does not expose your data to any new people or any new corporations. Your data is just as safe now as it was before the update took effect.
Finally, it's worth noting that Google is *far* more open about this stuff than most companies and websites on the web. They should be commended for that.
