metaphortunate: (Default)
metaphortunate son ([personal profile] metaphortunate) wrote2012-01-29 09:31 pm

more Google stuff

Either Google doesn't know a single thing about me, or it knows enough about me to know that if it told me everything it knew about me I would freak out and never touch a Google website again.

It's weird. I mean, of course Google taken as a whole knows basically every single thing about me: it has my email and my calendar, plus I'm sure my entire search history. (I've turned off Web History. Anyone who thinks that means they actually don't keep track? Yeah, don't all put up your hands at once.). What I'm looking for is confirmation that the left hand doesn't easily keep track of what the right hand is doing.

Mr. E and I have been talking recently about the difference between public and publicized, and levels of anonymity. I mean, in one sense, no account that's not free can be anonymous for me, because once you start paying for stuff it is tied to your credit card or your bank account or whatever. But I'm not a Chinese dissident, right, I don't need that level of anonymity. I just need enough anonymity that random assholes can't get my address and my parents don't find me bitching about them with a quick web search. Some companies seem to think that if they can't guarantee government dissident levels of anonymity protection there's no point in offering the lesser kind. But it's not true.
lovepeaceohana: Eggman doing the evil laugh, complete with evilly shining glasses. (Default)

[personal profile] lovepeaceohana 2012-01-30 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
Well, for the gender demographic category, Google's helpful little question bubble says something like "Based on x, we think you are interested in things that mostly ladies are into," which is different enough I guess from "we think you are a lady" - not sure if it's better or worse, though.

I think at this point I am just assuming that nothing I do on the internet is ever totally private or anonymous, and keeping my fingers crossed like mad that it's at least not as easy as it could be to track me down.