Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Privacy lost


Have you ever really read what you're agreeing to when you click 'Accept' on software installations or user agreements?  Business Insider has the skinny.

Are you giving away any real rights when you accept the terms and conditions given to you when you use services like Google and Facebook?

. . .

Most people don't read the many user agreements they accept all the time. There's just not enough time.

That's why nearly 7,500 gamers didn't notice that they sold their soul when they bought games online from UK video gamer retailer GameStation.




On a more serious note, let's look at Google's privacy policies (which you agree to just by using the site).  Its original privacy policy back in 2000 stated that they tracked computers, not people.  But people use Google for more than search. Millions use it for storing photos, sending and receiving email, and as a social network. Since 2012 they've organized all of that data into massive files about individual users.  It turns out that this information contains a whole lot about you.

In 2006, AOL released a portion of its user data organized in a similar fashion so that people could research it.  It was "anonymized" so that it wouldn't point to specific people. Or so AOL thought.  In less than four hours, Internet sleuths were able to figure out the identity of one of AOL's "anonymous" users.

. . .

A law student in Amsterdam was able to get a copy of all of the data Facebook had on him. After three years of use, it came out to over 1200 pages of information.  It revealed that "deleted" messages are just hidden from your own view. Facebook still has all of them backed up.  Facebook's policies are so non-private that The Onion created a satirical video in which the CIA called Facebook its most effective program.

There's more at the link.  I'd say it's essential reading for anyone interested in their online privacy and/or security.

Peter

2 comments:

Rolf said...

One of many reasons I do not have a FB (other other social media) account. All the search engines profile some things, but Google is one of the worst - I'd recommend using something else, or do it via a secure anonymizer.

CarlS said...

I closed my Google accounts a long time ago. I never used them for anything sensitive, and I don’t store anything online. If I need to “have it anywhere”, I carry it on a flash drive in my pocket. Didja know, it’s amazing how, if you read Google’s own tutorial (https://support.google.com/websearch/?hl=en#topic=3180167) on how to search its’ “deep” web, you can find just about anything.