FYI: The NYT placed the following cookies on my computer: google.com, gstatic.com, nyt.com, nytimes.com
This is less than most sites but the NYT clearly has some sort of marketing agreement with Google.
1
Of course the New York Times website is no different. Your organization has my payment information and address. I will not give you more, but it would be interesting to see what information you collect about me -- including what kind of comments I add to your stories.
When will the onus of privacy not fall completely on the individual? Can't corporations honor the concerns raised -- particularly concerns raised on their own platforms beneath the false banner of transparency?
1
Not a single mention of the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) or other similar legislation on the horizon in other states?
I get that these laws don’t solve the full issue, but this really seems like another generic article/anecdote about lack of privacy with no legitimate analysis as to where we could be headed
6
My wife uses my Facebook account, after reading this article, I am glad she is.
Get an ad-blocker for heaven's sake. If I am being Google-stalked by ads, I at least never see them.
9
"...sometimes each of the contradictory beliefs in a paradox is perfectly well founded."
"Perfectly" is hyperbole. But yes--P and Not-P might well supported--thus a dilemma, at least, if not contradictory beliefs. These BTW are not to be confused with "Believing P and Not-believing P"--which is impossible.
It applies to contradictory desires too: Wanting P and Wanting-not P. Not to be confused with Wanting P and Not-wanting P (see Plato, "Republic"). Thus appetites conflict with ambitions and aspirations.
The contradictory belief paradox can be resolved in two ways: (a) pick only one or (b) backoff belief--switch to mere suspicion instead. Having two suspects--worthy of investigation--is hardly a paradox. Nor are contradictory temptations. But convicting two (unrelated) suspects--is gross injustice.
A serious lacuna in this essay, however, is the meaning of "privacy". Let alone "right to privacy"
Private many contrasts with Public. But "public" has a few variations, often matters of degree. Here are a few.
(a) Many vs Few or One. Observable/knowable by many (public knowledge) vs States of consciousness.
(b) Government vs "private sector" or Special Interest Organization = NGO
(c) Business vs personal, familial matters.
(d) Open Ownership (publicly traded shares) vs Closed ownership (Individual or family).
"Right to privacy" means individual control/limitation on biographical info. This too is obviously limited. Yet cookies ARE like peeping Toms--see Lady Godiva!
1
About two years ago the former director of the FDA, Rob Califf MD gave a talk (Oct 2017) at the Research Triangle Institute about what he was going toe be doing next. He said he was going to have a position in google where he would be in charge of doing "research" on the medical implications of google search requests. He cited google data that there were a lot of ill people searching on google that were thought to be "depressed".
I was taken aback by this and contracted him by email. He responded through his administrative assistant (Isaac). I sent the assistant multiple messages about the ? appropriateness of what he was doing and pointed out a article that outlined what patients were generally interested in finding out about their health:
* using financial resources to manage chronic disease,
* acquiring health- and disease-related education from
health professionals,
* making use of a variety of ongoing social supports,
* responding in psychologically and emotionally positive ways to variations in health status,
* continuing engagement with the health system, and
* actively participating in sustained disease monitoring
and management.
I tried to point out that patients could be depressed by the obscene cost of care and that he should do research on how to assist patients find cost effective health care via working with their. PRIMARY CARE physicians
I never received a reply to my multiple messages.
Isaac did respond that he was passing on my comments.
3
You've heard of Godwin's law -- that any internet political debate inevitably ends up mentioning Nazism. I modestly propose Packer's law -- that any internet privacy debate inevitably zeros in on the social media. As this op-ed demonstrates, and for good reason.
In the internet's early years I could pick my audience, through topic-specific forums. If I wanted to talk about politics, I posted to a political forum. For classical music, I posted to a music forum. Neither audience knew what I said about the other topic. And before the era of "likes" and other trackable signals, nobody but my chosen audiences even knew that I existed.
With social media -- the only internet that most people know about -- you have to, in effect, solicit an audience for *you* -- all of you -- by acquiring followers. This makes you trackable from the outset. What a dumb idea.
1
Not of all us "want badly to be known and seen," and don't use Instagram and Twitter.
Just saying.
15
Our employee insurance plan tried to start a "voluntary" fitness program where they supply the fit bit clone technology and then they track your every move and set goals for you, all so that they can give you a $500 reduction in the deductible. Well everyone saw that for what it was - a $500 increase in the deductible for everyone else. "Why don't they just get it over with and plant a chip in my ass!" I yelled to a colleague. Screw that. There was so much opposition they backed off before the thing got going. They'll be back though, they always are.
10
Just try to be private and that will put you into a group they find even more interesting (and they will try to track you even more.)
We do need some boundaries as to acceptable use of the data that is collected and companies should be required to purge older data about us.
5
I couldn't begin to guess what the percentage is between the innocent to the impure, like ourselves, at this point; there's got to be a number of people who have no online life whatsoever. I'd like to see a comparison of how those people get through their week without the use of cheap technology.
As for myself, I'm slowly drifting back to becoming a jaded innocent bystander. G.... maps is my one true vice.
4
Yesterday at the local grocery store I was asked to present ID to purchase a six-pack of IPA. I am 60 years old. Rather than simply reading the info on my license, the checker said she had to scan it - "It's a new thing we have to do" - and it happened so quickly I did not have time to object. The liquor store does not ask me for ID, nor have I seen them scan anyone's driver's license.
Is this normal? What information is gathered and stored? Who curates that information? For what purpose?
14
Am I the only one that really doesn’t care if they know what I purchase; or what I’m looking for? I actually like the idea that the on-line NYTimes knows I’m looking for a particular item and start sticking similar items in advertising spots that otherwise would contain a product I’m not interested in. My local grocery store knows what I purchase because I must use my ‘loyalty’ card to get a discount. And from that, they send me cut-rate or free coupons for products I normally buy there, just to keep me as a customer. (And phone me if there’s a recall on a product). Marketing and safety at its best.
Someone out there knows what I purchase with my credit card and where and if it was on sale. And I get 1% back for using their card. They know what kind of car I drive (and where to send the recall notice). They know what pills I take and my medical condition. They know what kind of phone I have and who I call, and that I drive the speed limit. So what? They know where I travel and where I stay. So what? This is all marketing. It benefits them and me.
I understand that Google keeps track of people questioning similar medical complaints and can notify CDC if an area of the country is experiencing similar problems. Perhaps they’ll stop a plague someday or notice growing cancer clusters and discover it’s cause sooner.
We’re all part of a large family and even I occasionally look over my backyard fence, just to check the welfare of my neighbor.
29
@Jerry Sturdivant Jerry, it's all good now. But it isn't difficult to imagine our breadcrumb trails being used for purposes not in our interests. You mention your medical condition and the pills you take. What if your condition were a mental illness? What if your employer was allowed access to this information and decided that employing you wasn't optimal, because some algorithm pointed out that "on average depressed persons are 1.2% less productive than non-depressed people". This seems to be were we're headed if we aren't there already.
30
@Jeff:
Well, Jeff, I don’t know what those – Not in our interest – might be. But I do see where the government or a, high security, employer would want to know anything nefarious about those they hire. Like the mental condition you mentioned. Wouldn’t you want to know that the pilot of your 747, the police officer on your beat or your kids schoolteacher isn’t a mental case? Let’s not leave ourselves open to dangers because of an ill perceived slippery slope that isn’t there.
3
@Jeff
You may like Amazon's keeping track of your choices, perhaps making shopping easier for you. And have you noticed that when you buy something several times, the prices increases? -- And have you noticed that many brick and mortar stores are going out of business?
What you you think prices will be like when we have no where else to shop but Amazon?
And how fast and expensive will delivery be then?
27
In 1982, when I started as a research scientist at AT&T's Bell Labs, I was required to sign a document that said under no circumstance would I ever disclose information about a telephone call. It was deeply embedded in corporate culture that telephone calls were totally confidential and private. And that view was driven and reinforced by the law.
We need to institute similar restrictions regarding internet communication. Facebook wouldn't be allowed to monetize the contents of posts between friends. Google wouldn't be allowed mine the information in emails (or the email address list) to target ads.
Yes, this would be horribly disruptive to the current business models. But we shouldn't be scared of the cost. Big companies are getting a few dollars a month per user. Not serving us ads would save money. Trying to directly earn money from communication would encourage better, more secure and reliable networks.
We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to modernize what worked in the past.
48
I’m extremely worried about my online privacy, for all the usual reasons. Why do I still do EVERYTHING online? Mindset: it’s too late, it’s all out there already, and I can barely manage day to day living due to physical challenges. How could I possibly add making more work for myself by researching and enacting privacy protocols? Further, this type of set up and maintenance requires a professional. Who is going to pay the bill for that? I’m on Medicaid. I give up, but think about privacy all the time, including pressing submit right now.
52
1. I agree, Zuboff's book is a must-read.
2. A heads up: You can say "!g" at the end of your search string on DuckDuckGo, and it'll do the search on Google on your behalf, without letting Google track you. DDG and Wikipedia are the only two choices on my search bar.
3. But protecting your privacy shouldn't be your job. Nobody expects you to make a personal inspection of the airplane engines before you fly! Nobody expects you to check personally for bacteria in the kitchen of the restaurant before you eat. In the actual physical world, we rely on a combination of spot checks by government inspectors and tort liability (suing the pants off the airline if their plane crashes). It should be the same in the digital world.
4. In particular, it shouldn't be your job to read the fine print. When you fly, you are implicitly accepting a contract with the airline that attempts to limit their liability, and that's not completely unreasonable; it wouldn't help anyone for an airline to go bankrupt the first time they lose someone's suitcase. But the contract can't be too one-sided, and in fact they do exert themselves to find that suitcase, in my experience. The fine print in online click-through contracts is unfair and against the public interest; it's the job of government to ensure that the rules are fair.
152
@Brian Harvey
"Nobody expects you to make a personal inspection of the airplane engines before you fly!"
The difference is that you pay for the airplane flight.
@Brian Harvey
Point 3 is absolutely right
3
@TT
Agreed, but in reality you are paying google with your behavior, time, and attention. And google makes hundreds of billions of dollars from these three things of yours. These three things are crucial pieces of our daily humanity, and they make loads of money controlling them. Please, never think that you aren’t paying. Google has managed to get the customer (advertisers) to pay, as well as get the product (you!) to pay as well. Brilliant!
13
It may do no good whatsoever, but have fun with this DataMining system!
Everywhere I go, with the exception of critical records of medical, financial, I use alternate names, birthdates, etc.
F/ex I am not Zeke Black!
Very early on, I fantasized how my Stop & Shop grocery record could be accessed by my Insurance Co. and -- judgements were made.
Hence, on S&S I am Liz Gifford. So for CVS, Walgreens, etc. They don't need my info.
Spoof the computers, imagine the alter-egos you can create! Your computer can fill in the forms, by memory!
I have no idea what it does, but it feels Sooo Good!!
6
This is an intriguing, insightful, and thoughtful article ... right up to the last paragraph.
3
This is too hard.
2
We turn our noses up at DuckDuckGo because they have a stupid name. I'm told it's some kind of game. Did they not realize most people outside the US wouldn't know it or were they just not that ambitious?
And yes, I know I'm superficial....
1
A suggestion. If you are a group of non-a.i. humans with mutual interests and you absolutely must them communicate through Facebook, sign up as Zuck Markerberg #1, Zuck Markerberg #2, #3 and and so on, with random identifiers. E.g. "100 year-old transgender salamander in Cincinnati". Do NOT enter real demographic info. It might even start a social movement.
3
Shoshana Zuboff aptly says that the situation is "an intolerable contradiction.”
Agreed, but it doesn't have to be this way. If our elected representatives actually did their job - work for us! - and enacted meaningful legislation that protected us rather than indulged corporations, this wouldn't be an issue.
7
@Sara G2
The clueless questions posed to Mark Zuckerberg at the Senate hearing were a national embarrassment. The Europeans are way ahead of us on privacy.
2
I use a VPN, and never sign into chrome Google, or Microsoft. I only Facebook for business, but always sign out.
Doppler forget to sign out and are tracked 24 hours a day.
2
Actually I don’t think it’s possible to reach an airline personnel for help with a problem in lesson 55 minutes and then it takes another 40 to resolve the issue. The 15 minute estimate was wildly overestimated and over optimistic. I do luse DuckDuckGo. What’s the good substitute for google mail though? How are ubiquitous is the cross contamination between apps? I haven’t figured that one out…
1
We need an app, maybe Watson Jr,
to condense the privacy policies into
something reasonable and quick.
1
Students at my school are furious at Facebook for collecting their information. Students around me have called it a crime, said they have been stolen from. Yet, I am not angry at Facebook's and other big-name company's collection of my data. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is because I rarely use my Facebook account, or because I know I probably agreed to it when I made my choice not to read the labyrinth of the terms of service. However, despite my lack of anger over the collection of my data, I am very distrustful of online pages. I don't know as much as I think I should about the inner workings of each page, but I hate giving over personal information. For three years, I have put myself through the trouble of downloading and re-uploading assignments because I refuse to allow my school's submission portal to view files in my Google drive. I sometimes leave pages when they ask me to agree to their terms of service and YouTube can NOT figure out what I like to watch. (I am actually not trying to be careful there, so I don't know what is up in this case). In what may seem like even more of a paradox, I find it funny when I see Google's short lived display of Zappos shoes all over my web pages whenever I decide I should replace my last (now torn up) pair. I know a few Google employees. Every day, they are thinking about raising their kids, workplace social dynamics, and how they will eventually fix that annoying -blank- someday. Just like any employee.
"We claim to treasure it [privacy], yet want badly to be known and seen (posting on Instagram, preening on Twitter). "
Therein lies the problems. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
One can live without Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms.
I have been working with computers and involved in computer programming since my college days. I'm 63. But I never signed up for an account with Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platforms, save for LinkedIn, which I use sparingly. I do have a Gmail account but I use it basically for junk mail.
I have a NY Times account, and though the Times lets you sign in using your social media accounts, there is no need to do so. I use my own Times account to sign in.
I use Ghostery, which helps to block tracker, and clean cache and cookies regularly. Using a VPN helps as well.
Regardless of the precautions that one takes, when you are on the Internet, you are giving up privacy, but to what extent is up to you.
4
I am an old lady, and don't do much on the web other than watch Youtube videos, read the newspapers, and occasionally comment, and e-mail. No Twitters, no Instagrams, don't purchase or do banking, and I have a dumb flip phone. I'm careful about who has what information about me. So imagine my surprise when I was told to get a simple blood test, and the aide grabbed my driver's license and tried to scan it into their LabCorp system on a checkout kiosk, permanently obtaining all kinds of details that they had no need to have. She could have verified my identity by simply looking at it, not take the information permanently and broadcasting it to every interested database. I demanded it back and left the lab, and now am trying to find another facility.
5
Google History and Google MyActivity have many tracking settings that can be turned off or paused.
1
Some homeowners on Scenic Ave, a very public thoroughfare, built a glass house, and this morning, I noticed a sign outside reading “please respect our privacy.” Hilarious. A perfect metaphor for our age.
12
I actually don’t tell Google a lot, clear my cookies if I ever need to use it and don’t get a lot of ads. Used to be anonymous on Instagram and never once saw an ad. Quit Insta when Zuck bought it.
1
Another reason why, as the author points out, we make little effort to limit the automated forms of tracking that underpin modern online services: it's almost impossible for normal people to know what difference their privacy-protecting efforts have made.
We've learned to be judicious about what we post on social media (well, some of us have), because we can put ourselves in others' shoes and consider what they will "take away" from our posts. In contrast, what Facebook, or Google, or some obscure ad targeting company take away from our online actions -- one more entry in an activity log, one more "signal" to shape a machine-generated interest profile -- is both foreign and invisible to us. Its specific effect on our future online experience (targeted ads, recommended videos to watch on YouTube, etc.) is impossible to determine. And even the privacy policies that we do not read give little clarity to how the data collected about us will be used.
There's a certain irony: the online behavior of companies that track user activity is vastly more private than our own behavior.
Sorry, I use DuckDuckGo....and don’t use Gmail.
3
Actually, that resulting barrage of robo calls, probably stemming from Google searches or analytics of Google Mail, has gotten us closer to our real friends. We now routinely ignore all phone calls from numbers we don't know. If they not leave a voicemail, we block the number permanently. We delete all emails from sender we don't know and have only our friends and work connections white-listed. The rest: Hasta la vista, baby!
My searches on Google go all over the place, since I am using it for my work as well. 80% of my searches at least, actually. That totally obfuscates what I am interested in privately, so all ads I am being served are next to useless and a total waste for those who pay Google to serve them to me.
The few huge concerns I have is that my correspondence is not private and that is its impractical to use PGP for all interactions with my friends. And also that my smartphone basically is a GPS tracker. The latter is becoming less of a problem as intrusive governments are using face recognition software (thanks to San Francisco for banning that bane!).
In the meantime, I can only advise everyone out there concerned about privacy: Generate as much garbage on Google as you can. Make it impossible for them to extract any relevant information about you.
6
Am I the only one amused by the targeted ads I see while reading the NYT online? From smart watches to Raspberry Pi kits to previously viewed Amazon products my tracks follow me wherever I go. In a way it's counter-productive since I've either bought the product or decided not to, so new items I might spring for rarely display. At least I don't see ads for hardwood flooring any longer. I'll never make that mistake again.
4
@Robert
And how many cars am I going to need? The one I bought 2 years ago still works. (Plus, I'm 81.) But still the ads roll.
1
The modern world and society are built on the technology that swallows up our intimate knowledge. In earlier days the average person didn't understand the lengths to which this was happening. The truth was buried under mountains of fine print and terms of service that were designed to exhaust our patience. It was a betrayal of trust and still is. So how do we keep the structure of the world we've built while protecting the public? I'm not sure we can. If we stop indiscriminate data collection then tech companies will need other ways to make money. A pay model is a start. That would worsen the plight of the underprivileged who already struggle to keep up with education, work, and society in the age of expensive tech. Will privacy become the luxury of the privileged, like wholesome food and decent housing are also? Probably. There are no easy answers.
What I like about this article is that is puts a right problem "What can we do about it?", creates tension and that is a way to finding a solution.
And, what is more important, it stresses, that concerns about privacy are not just the annoying hustling of conspiracy-theory advocates, but a real issue to center attention on. So now, we have Tor, we have DuckDuckGo and other tools are emerging, and they get supported, because people know about them.
So, thank you, Jennifer Senior and other guys from your team!
I find Google’s products useful (maps/docs/sheets) and I like that I don’t have to pay to use them. You could argue I’m “paying” in other ways, by consuming ads, but I’m ok with that. There has to be some way to pay for the massive data centers that support our web searches and videos.
15
@ESD
I was about to post something similar when I read your comment. Before I retired, I was responsible for some fairly large systems. I know how much it costs to run such systems and scale makes them exponentially costly. I have never been so naive to believe that they were protecting my privacy.
This is especially true of free email (e.g., GMAIL). Email systems on its scale are very expensive to run. Google is NOT a philanthropic organization so how do they pay for it? It doesn't take much imagination to think that they mine the mail for information that they can sell. I don't use it. If you want private email, pay for it.
The same holds for many other services.
5
@ESD
ESD and Russell say it like it is, we use many "free" services, and only later think about privacy. How many of us are actually paying directly for online services we are using? There are options that protect privacy such as products by Purism, but they are not free.
2
When I want total privacy on the Internet, I just post the message in a NYT comment…
Am confident that no one ever reads them – except the intended recipients…
Been working since Dubya’s 1st term…
Since before Facebook even started…
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/22/business/the-new-york-times-introduces-a-web-site.html
Right, Mark???
6
Another good search page is Startpage.com
Because there's no practical choice, duh.
1
That was a great article until you turned it into a snide shot at Trump. It went from NYT-level writing to high school essay in one fell sweep.
2
Because Google is an American company.
The American people is, above all else, imperialist by nature.
1
I don't know why Wikipedia is included in this list. They don't track people and sell to advertisers, they have a donation model for funding. When was the last time you saw an ad on Wikipedia? Or started getting ads for anything related to a search there? A: Never.
Sloppy reporting.
5
Is this 'author serious? Cannot be. Face it, anyone that 'uses' googoo, (in your) facebook, and (your a (twit)ter, is just plain pc illiterate. There is, quite literally, nothing, zero, nada, ANYTHING that you do online that's NOT FOR SALE about YOU if you use these sitesc(as well as other sites, as sp6ware from them can & WILL destroy you!
3
So helpless. Ditch the lazy convenience for one thing. Rule your time instead of the reverse. How? Sorry about the lousy education in practical matters you received, but hey -- how about that 'formation' video, eh? Fret not. Your Chinese tech overlords will inform you of your future.
1
If you look for products on Duck Duck Go Go, the fist place it shows you to get it is Amazon. Why?
DDGG uses Amazon servers.
4
Nice article. I resigned to the concept of forfeiting my privacy about a year ago. Prior to that, I had an old flip-phone that I disabled the web feature. I only used a Tor browser that supposedly hid all my searches and history. I encrypted everything through military grade tools. I watched the tv shows “Mr. Robot” and “Silicon Valley” and took screen shots of anything related to privacy or hacking then researched it. I created elaborate passwords and changed them frequently. I was exhausted. So I surrendered. I was reborn. Now I feel like I can breathe. I have an iphone and I’ll use location-services! I stream on Twitch. I accept and friend almost everyone on Fortnite. I let my computer and apps update Automatically. I listen to Deezer and let it suggest songs. Hell, I’m still using the stock Verizon password for my router. If I want to view something that isn’t tailored to me, i just delete all my cookies. I’m free!
Exactly
Scwew Gewgle. Go outside. Take a hike (without your phony). Rediscover the real world. Hear the birds chirp ....
5
This is something that was my highest priority when I got my first computer just 10 years ago, staying incognito on the net. I have slowly succumbed to the ease of google yet I try to find ways to stay free and thumb my nose at all this intrusion. I don't tweet, I'm no twit. I cover my face by never going on facebook, someone should tell this alien running facebook that wearing the same shirt everyday is a flag that says I AM A BOTT. I like to search for stuff I'll never want, need or buy just to screw with the ad tracking. But I have become a complete sucker to typing one letter and going where I want to go. I down loaded Windows 10 because I got tired of it constantly popping up telling me to to do it. I then turned off most of it. I know when I start thinking of talking to my computer it's time to go to a bar where they know my name.
4
Just a couple of simple steps can considerably enhance your privacy online. On your Apple devices, go to Settings->Safari->Search Engines and select DuckDuckGo. On my laptop, I use StartPage.com which masks my searches and I use Firefox as my browser. I read my Gmail using Outlook or Apple mail. With all that, there is no way to protect myself from Amazon. It keeps me logged in all the time so knows every product I search for ... I don't have a Facebook account. I don't feel compelled to share everything in my life with everyone online. I guess I'm lucky that I am an introvert.
32
@Shanti Subramanyam
All that Mac + Ghostery, Blur opr ABP and a basic VPN.
1
I'll add to your list: if you're on Windows use the Firefox browser and while you are there install the DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials extension which blocks trackers. (
It goes without saying: don't use Facebook or any of it's products such as instagram and whatsapp.
3
@Shanti Subramanyam
I use Wikipedia a lot. I don't get chased by ads about the things I look up.
Every now and then Wikipedia asks for donations (via a banner ad on the Wikipedia site, not a personal email to me) and I make a tax-deductible contribution.
6
The reality is we don't have much choice. If you want to live in the modern world and get anything done you are forced to give up personal data.
Before the internet, in order to get a bank loan you gave the bank a lot of personal data. The data you gave was not seen as a profit center but was used to make sure you could pay back the loan. It was not sold to anyone or used to make money. The bank made it's money from the interest it charged.
Fast forward, if you insist on privacy at a bank today you simply will not get the loan. Or if you buy tickets online and you don't agree with the privacy policy you don't get the tickets. This list is very long and I am sure everyone has examples of their own.
As any animal knows, and yes humans are animals, lack of privacy is dangerous.
10
Neuro- and the behavioral sciences have given us a flood of information on human behavior, which is like handing advertisers, political strategists, media firms, etc. a blue print on how to manipulate us, whether for dollars, data, or votes.
How is it that Fox News has been able to get people to believe the most outrageous lies? Or people do things that compromise their values? Or the country has been dragged into extreme right-wing lunacy?
They all start with basic premises of human nature:
-- fear rules. Create a scare, repeat it often and loudly, and people will come to believe it -- and you can then be their savior
--people are lazy - not slothful, but using minimum energy to accomplish something. Companies know how far people will go before giving up
--we're pretty poor judges of risk (especially when being dazzled with benefits). Imagine when the first automobiles took the streets. Traffic lights? Paved roads? School crossing guards?
--we all have a need to belong and be accepted
All of these are built into structures designed to work in favor of the company.
Our whole way of life is being designed (or, if you prefer, manipulated) right under our noses, while we're occupied reading articles on how to be more 'productive' during those 12 hours work days, because all that tech we bought into that was supposed to make life easier only created more work for us to do.
2
No irony at all that within the article are nested umpteen "click here" suggestions, and a big banner at the bottom to allow ads.
Not the same, but how different, really?
3
"We claim to treasure it, yet want badly to be known and seen (posting on Instagram, preening on Twitter)." Really, we all want to be known and seen badly?
If one is in the media, you might crave such status; it is how you build your portfolio. And then of course, the narcissists and exhibitionists, really want to be known and seen. But this singular statement does not ring true for millions of Americans. And yes, privacy is important when it comes to the personal details of our lives such as financial and legal information.
I suspect the columnist is making an observation based on her profession and her generation. The generalization however of the quote above, simply defies facts when it comes to a vast majority of Americans.
2
Finally an examination of internet "privacy", an excellent example of an oxymoron. What I have always wondered at is the acceptance of the lack of privacy when it comes to commercial interests but the total outrage & effrontery if any government organization such as police or schools would dare to "look" at their online "stuff". I have learned if I don't want anyone to know about it I don't put it anywhere on the internet. As far as advertising, I'm not interested in anything, I have everything I want & if don't I'll look for it AND the best part, ads on the internet are even easier to ignore than fast forwarding the PVR.
When they come for you, you'll know why we care so much about privacy.
4
who are "we" ? because I ain't telling google anything because I'm not stupid.
Along with the occupant of the WH, "celebrities" like Kathie Lee Gifford were some of the first wave to grasp the idea of "flooding" in order to hide behind the mass of information. And Kathie Lee Gifford's explanation was to let it all hang out to frustrate the paparazzi and gossip columns. It goes back a very long way than the internet.
We no longer have a say in our internet usage. The big cable companies own us and the big Google and other browsers tell us what we can do. We have to accept what they put on our phones and computers at our level of usage. The only solution is one people wont accept: Stop using social media for all your communications! Pick up the phone! Stop thinking that the world is interested in the intimate details of your life.
2
I've found that if you read the privacy policies and care about the results, you often don't have another option. How many policies do you have to read to find one you agree with?
To rein in the selling of our data, the government or a private foundation like EFF should create a few indicators and require them to be prominently posted so that you have to see them before you hit, 'I agree'.
1
Count me as one of the conflicted. I'm both paranoid and hooked. Probably more paranoid after reading this article, but enough to cut the cord? Decisions, decisions.
1
I am totally blown away at the ignorance of so many about their contributions to this mess that we call Social Media, I have never had a FB account but I know that they have records on me & know what I do and where I go online. I can only pray that the EU will force a "Forget me" upon Facebook, (Are U listening President Juncker?) so that my staying out of Facebook forces them to stay off my trail & life.
While on peeves, I do love that the author of this article has one super fine vocabulary, quite impressive but she misses the point, inclusion is key to extending our dialogue. If such needed dialogue is to be accepted by the masses, it has to bridge the gap between Harvard and Ole Miss. The people who think that the emperor has on clothes would not know the difference between obtuse and obfuscate. Yeah, right. All that I am trying to impart is, give joy to learning all this stuff that may save us.
Last, many, maybe even most, who comment on NYTimes are the types who really read with intelligent devices like PC's & tablets, a few with smartphones but the smartphones have the biggest clout by sheer weight of their numbers. Microsoft is trying to play catchup to G, FB, A & A & they realize that they are way behind. I feel that they are buying their way into the mass loop by strategic purchases, such as hubs of development tools(Github, Stackoverflow, etc.) where software is designed in collaboration, even to using the ubiquitous Office to watch us.
Peace
Such is the life.
So get off Instagram, then. How about studying Classical Chinese, instead? It's a phenomenal experience…
1
Well, if you had nothing better to do, you might google an interest in beaches in Malta, or polar bear expeditions in Sumatra; a life-time affinity for Jerry Lewis in French, and where to find bone-spurs at the local supermarket.
Behind the times here, I have yet to discover what is a tweet, or what technological appliance is necessary to tweeter away. Instead, I am rambling away 'here'. It was unfortunate, but in receiving an 'invite' from a friend of a friend, whom I liked, to join a web called Liverwurst, I found myself on Google with a salary to rival the chairman of GE and a police record, along with data about my complexion and religion.
Let us be more careful, and The New York Times has spent these days last, explaining how Privacy is becoming a luxury commodity with a window giving you an option to tell the above 'Who You Are'...'A Subscriber to The NYT'.
All this is harder for our younger Generation brought up on these tech tools, some essential to progress and even life-savers.
When Hans Andersen, the Danish author was a child, his mother, a washerwoman, took him to see the new king in a crowd, and he was disappointed and vocal because the Royal was dressed like everyone else.
You ordered 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' for your neighbor, but Amazon does not know that you are, in reality, reading fairy tales from a childhood book bought before the invention of the computer.
Regardless of eras and seasons, discretion remains a valuable trait. Namaste.
1
"...why do we keep telling it everything"? BECAUSE WE'RE STUPID!
Would you walk around wearing your tax return on the back of your shirt, or your SS #, or your bank account pin? What you put out there is under YOUR control, so don't complain when it is used for nefarious reasons. Google is just one of MANY sources of personal information out there, FaceBook being the one with the greatest risk. Your kids use it, your enemies read it.
If you don't want your life spied on by anyone with a smart phone, stop putting your life on line - go back to the telephone and/or secure communications. ISIS knows this, Trump has no clue, and the Russians and Chinese are watching closely as are dark web hackers all over the world.
Get a life - and keep it to yourself!
2
The only people worried about privacy are a few loud wonks and journalists who need something to write about. Get real. This is a non-issue. Twitter is for twits and Facebook for fools. The internet is a useful tool when used appropriately. It is not for making noise about yourself or saying stupid things
1
We were warned ....
“He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother”
― George Orwell, 1984
1
@ Jennifer
Your opposition to Biden is based on the belief, the next president must be a woman. It is called gender politics bandwagon and you are one of them.
In every job, a person with experaince and accomplishment gets the promotion. I don't know about your profession since I have not been in the bloviator profession, which I believe most of you are because of the political coverage all of you did during the 2016 election when a most capable woman ran for POTUS. What did you all do, you let a master CON ARTIST con you to become POTUS.
Truth be told, I don't see a capable and accomplished woman running for POTUS. Closest may be Warren because she has put forward some solid ideas, which I happen to agree.
Harris and Gillibrand are only playing politics and sounds to me like empty beer cans in a parking lot.
I voted for Hillary and would have done it again.
Let the best person be POTUS because we need it.
"I think, in my own life, about the first random person whose friend request I accepted on Facebook. I no longer remember his name. I simply remember realizing that he was not, as best as I could discern, a friend of a good friend, but rather had come my way via a loopity skein of loose ties. Still, I clicked “accept.”"
-------
Why would you do that? I just don't understand it.
2
What frustrates me is that I have no choice in these matters. The yellow pages are gone, so I have to use the internet. I bought a shower curtain at Target and somehow Amazon knew—an ad for a shower curtain liner was chasing me on the NYT site. I was browsing about a possible tour to France (travel agents—gone) and tour group companies were calling my landline. I was on my iPhone telling my sister that I hoped my cats wouldn’t pee in their cages during a cross country trip, and an ad for a product to deter cats from spraying showed up on the Times page.
25
@Kb Re: Target - Use cash. I'm glad there is pushback against card-only stores. It's being couched as helping the un-banked, but I'm all for it for privacy.
8
You have to also leave your phone in the car when entering a store or you will be recognized and tracked the second you walk through the door, whether or not you use a credit card or cash for a purchase. They can probably track which aisle you go in, how long you linger there, and if you pick anything up off the shelves. So by all means pay with cash, but first leave your phone in the car or at home. Just turning it off won’t do the trick.
7
@Kb
I was casually looking for chairs. I saw several I liked and stayed on that site for a while.
I now have my own Casper the Ghost as the chair I clicked on several times to see closely is still following me around after a month in the hopes I will return and buy it.
9
There are plenty of reasons to be paranoid about the intrusion of the internet and its 14 trillion applications. But one can moderate one’s use. It’s largely about your phone.
And it’s a phone, by the way. Not your go anywhere, do anything friend. It’s a tool, not a guidebook for life. And here’s a newsflash: very few people really care about anything you post online. And they wouldn’t miss it if you didn’t post. Get over it!
How many apps do you use?
How few do you actually really need?
I’m down to about 15, and some are due to mostly business travel needs (airlines, maps, hotels, Uber).
Don’t make your phone your life.
One commenter here proudly proclaimed to have tossed their phone in a Florida canal and not use social media. Yet the person does much of their purchasing and all their banking online. Sorry, dude, but you have a trail and it’s easy to follow. Every place you buy stuff shares info, even when they say they don’t. Ditto for banks and credit card companies.
None of this is good, but it’s reality. Want to avoid it? Avoid all electronic communications, go to the bank in person, pay all bills by mail. You might have a chance.
But don’t count on it!
1
you are quoting so many experts who also have books to sell...
your very own opinions are so wishy-washy. like what can we do ? or why bother ? you are quite correct: we can't do a thing... even reading a book from the library ? does the library secretely sell our book preference to google ?
best to move to the beach. the sand at least has no net connection. or does it ?
I switched to Duck Duck Go for my search engine for less tracking. I also recently removed Open Table from my phone. Got their privacy notice, tried to understand it, tried multiple times to click through to actually get to the privacy options and failed. Clearly these companies are ruthless and relentless exploiters - their legalese is undecipherable and the opt outs are a joke. I will just stop using them whenever possible.
I am happy! I don't have a smartphone. I don't get cramps in my hands from clutching one. I walk down the street hands free and head high. I can wait until I get home to see who has emailed me, and in most cases it's not urgent or even important. I do send emails, and (non-food) shopping. But I have decided, much as I abhor the overwrought atmosphere of stores, to do as much local shopping as I can.
The truth is: I'm too lazy to use a smartphone. It's too much trouble, too complicated. I put bank deposits in an envelope and mail it at the post office. If I don't know where a certain address is, I ask someone. If I don't know how many minutes before the M104 bus comes along, I wait, and eventually I know, because it comes along. I sometimes creep into FB to see what classmates and friends are up to, but in most cases it's not important, or even interesting. It's my nosiness. Sometimes it's fun to be nosy, But most of the time it's. . .well, tiresome.
I'm a little dismayed to know how much information about me and my preferences can be gleaned from my limited use of my computer. For instance, my preference in music. My searches on how to get the baked-on gunk off an oven tray, or what to do with a watery eye, or what veterinarians in my neighborhood are well thought of, and. . . . Okay, I do use it more than just a little bit. And of course, there's NYTImes online.
4
This hits the nail on the head. We want and love all the benefits, yet freak out that it comes at a cost. Hello, no useful service is free. Whether taxes or a fee, it has to be paid for. I don’t use any of the benefits (except reading the NYT online and sending in comments) and I don’t pay the “privacy” tax. It’s a choice guys.
Simply stop and take back your life. Do not use Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, etc., etc. Ditch your cell & smart phone except for critical situations.
There seems to be an assumption that there is a way to truly opt out.
For someone who was there at the start of the Internet Age (and before), the Internet started as a novelty. Then it became a business. Then it was EVERYWHERE.
The old saying that "Too much of a good thing is bad" applies.
1
We need laws to deal with this taking of our data. Companies like Google and Facebook operate in areas where laws have not been written. To create Street View Google when around all streets taking photos of everything, even people. Everyone's house could then be seen on Street View. This was an invasion of privacy by Google and they didn't ask permission to put the photos of houses online. The just did it. Facebook carries out experiments on people without asking permission. There are laws against doing this but apparently no laws specifically covering social media. This is how these companies operate. They disrupt, break stuff, and we are left with the consequences, which are often serious. I think privacy and democracy have suffered the worst consequences. But also the younger generation has been basically addicted to social media which is carefully designed to addict and exactly how this generation will be affected as it grows older is unknown.
1
The market domination of Google and Facebook is far greater than the market domination of Standard Oil ever was. But we seem to have no answers. Unbridled capitalism has failed in these cases. We need a government that understands technology and institutions to ensure it does not destroy us.
1
Not only are we being stalked on our phones and laptops by corporate entities the listening devices like Alexa ease drop and record personal conversations. There are few consumer privacy laws and someday it will come back to haunt us. Wake up America.
1
A big part of you online privacy and security depends on how you manage your cookies while surfing. They are the currency of the internet. Learn about what they are, how they work and how to manage them. Clear them between site visits and you'll leave less of a trail for marketers to follow you around.
Just hit control + H then clear history. Or you can have your browser do it automatically every time you close it.
5
One part of this issue never mentioned; Why are we not being compensated for the use of our data?
We're supplying the "raw materials" that others are greatly profiting from...so why cant we be compensated?
We should be compensated in some form for this supply of raw materials. Beyond the "free" use of a platform. (nothing is ever free!)
4
@Boregard We are compensated by the free services provided. If people don't want the businesses to have their info then they shouldn't use the services.
1
@A Yes. That is technically compensation but it's like working all day and receiving a sandwich for your work.
Humans evolved to be contradictory animals. Its part of our survival mechanisms. We hold contradictory positions because our world is always in flux, so we need to be capable of ignoring what we "believe in", or what/who annoys us, or what we like/dislike, in order to glide thru the modern world. (modern; as in that moment in history)
We want privacy (subjectively) while lusting for public acceptance...to be a welcomed part of the herd. So we don't want our data mined, but we do NEED to be seen as a willing participant of the herd, and what the herd deems proper herd behaviors. So that means vomiting up our lives online.
The Herd looks at those who don't fully participate as weird, strange, and in many cases "other."
I'm not on any social media platform. Never was, never will be. It drives my bosses nutz that I don't have (to their knowledge, wink,wink) a smartphone so I cant be a part of their GroupMe instant-contact coalition of other managers. They have to actually call me, or email,and then wait for me to react. They cant trigger reaction in a moments notice. So they tease me, call me the Luddite (meanwhile I own and often use several devices - but for my needs!) and press me to "get a phone!" (not in my job description and the lack of, in no way impacts me or my teams performance)
On the fringe of the herd
Surely its a generational thing, I'm fine with turning on a device, purposely looking up a thing, or deciding what to listen to. Its never been that difficult.
3
The fact is that very few of us care about privacy anymore. "Let it all hang out" is the modern motto. We have a sad variation now: "Ready, shoot, aim!"
We keep thumbing on social media every chance we get, whether we are malinging others or boasting about our own sad behaviors.
Even the Facebook founder can't believe the immoral madness. The new onslaught of dissing one another has also swamped current politics . There aren't any politics done anymore. We've become a long, long phalanx of finger-pointers.
The only way out is the AA solution: Pull the plug or the battery.
5
I'm sure Google has all kinds of information about me, but I have never personally given them any of my info, nor have I ever given them permission to use the info they may already have.
2
With addiction there are always unintended consequences that are, often after a while, unwelcome. Persisting with the immutable and optimistic doctrine of having choice greatly underestimates the hold of addiction ... and gradually the addiction becomes the accepted norm for experiencing life ... and those who cave become part of the problem. There’s nothing essentially new here; in fact, it’s what “original sin” (before becoming trivialized in nonsense) is in the sense of originating.
1
And another potential reason: we subconsciously (or intentionally) want to be treated like children. We expect a virtual world where magical things help us, overseen by powerful forces who always have our best interests in mind.
Not likely.
1
The fact of the matter is that I don't really care what some advertiser knows about me. I probably won't buy what they are selling anyway (unless I want it).
3
@Robert McKee
Once again, you/others miss the bigger point.
Its about constant and seamless multi-platform surveillance.
But of course your reply will be; "I'm not doing anything wrong, so who cares?!"
2
Exactly. It's up to us to protect our privacy, not the government, not Google nor any social media platform. If you want to stay private stop sharing your info on the internet.
4
This is a great article
I would also summarize it simply
We get a ton of value in exchange for our information
If someone asked for me to pay for every google search or maps use, I would say, no way
Instead I pay with my data
Is it a good trade? Yes, I don’t really care that people know I’m googling “how to get dog pee out of a carpet”
7
"For most people, that effort — to change how they search, how they buy stuff, how they connect with others and absorb news — is just too great."
Too great for what? It's certainly not impossible, as we all lived without phones and the ubiquitous Internet as little as 20 years ago.
I think what this throwaway statement is shorthand for is, "I don't care enough to be bothered to give up the convenience that I've gained in exchange for all of my privacy." When writing articles wondering why people willingly give all of their data to a few giant corporations, I think it would be best to be honest: It can be done, but most people just don't care enough to be bothered.
It's not impossible to live without a "smart" phone". It's not inevitable that one has to give all of their personal data to Google or Amazon. It's a conscious, active choice that people make every day. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
15
@Frank
You're wrong.
1
@Frank
You’re right. We are all lazy, and in the back of our mind, think giving up our personal privacy is worth the price of internet admission.
1
I think this article has it right. We don't crave privacy. If anything, we crave visibility. We want to be found. We want to exist. We Google our names.
Privacy isn't a right. It's a social contract. We choose what to share. Without this capability, we'd be islands of personal information, cut off from everyone around us. The was true, long before Google and the internet.
The problem is when we can't choose. We're happy to spend money. We're not happy when our money is taken and spent elsewhere, without our permission.
This is true of shared money as much as private money. We'd be justly annoyed if our landlord raided our house grocery fund. That's what Google is doing. They're harvesting our shared information, and using it for their own purposes.
How to stop them, and still keep the social utility we crave, is the question.
15
@Tansu Otunbayeva
Nationalize Google et al!
1
Unless we all want to return to using snail mail, hard wired telephones and the World Book Encyclopedia to find things out, and return to film cameras with film developed and printed at local photography stores....all our daily lives are processed in one form or another involving the internet.
As one responder wisely pointed out, our government agencies should guarantee our privacy, just as they oversee airplane regulation, bank regulation, and a myriad of other regulation that individuals alone do not have the ability or resources to handle on an industry wide scale.
Aye, here’s the rub! Our government officials and congressmen are bought and paid for, and therefore owned by those huge online conglomerates! And these masters want no action on privacy. There are BIG DOLLARS involved in selling information. Nothing substantial will ever be done to change that! A pity!
53
@SAH You're right about the government (politicians), but you forgot to mention how incompetent and uninformed they are. That has to be at least half the problem of their inaction.
2
@Jsw
Agreed. Every time I’d like the government to get into something it should be dealing with, I take a look at the condition of the subways, public housing that’s crumbling, roads and infrastructure that are rotting away and it gives me great pause. Are we better off with, or without incompetent government getting into the act? A rock and a hard place!
1
@SAH I am always amazed that people as high profile as Senators, Congresspeople, are not extraordinarily vulnerable to malfeasance.
I assume this is one area they must suffer the same way we do!
2
I think there are three (3) levels of privacy online:
1. You are a public figure
2. You are a quasi-public figure or you are selling something
3. You are a private individual just navigating along
The first group generally has at least 1 person (or group of people) working for them, so most of what you see online is tailored, bland and FOR public consumption.
The second group is those that are amassing people in their social media groups (the author said as much) for something to sell, It may be for book sales or some such thing, or most of the time it is solely for popularity.
The last group is the remainder of us that (as you said again) just click away. with the majority of the time just looking for convenience.
For this last group there is a HUGE leap that can be done as far as privacy, by doing some very simple things. You could research what a VPN (virtual private network) is, and you can go app by app to turn off tracking and the like. (at least bulk up privacy conditions)
Every little thing you do online starts when you simply turn on your laptop for the first time, by (most of using using Microsoft) entering in your personal information and email account. It just cascades from there with that email account, web browser, and apps that pile on. It continues on when you do your banking and purchases online. It really cranks up when you join any of the big social websites.
It all is only a drop in the bucket as to what the state has going on though. Scary.
37
@FunkyIrishman
The "state"? Perhaps your "state," but not mine.
@FunkyIrishman I, too, use a VPN. It is really quite simple to set up.
But I still have to trust them.......
3
I joined Facebook for about 2 months a few years back, thinking that it would help me keep in touch with relatives I didn't get to see very often. As soon as strangers started posting religious and political comments on my page I closed my account. I know they still track me, but I have no idea how I can make them stop. I also use an ad-blocker on my PC, which saves me from some aggravation. I don't use Twitter, Pandora or other social media sites. I haven't owned a cell phone for 15 years, because I couldn't turn off the GPS tracking feature; that phone wound up in a canal in Florida. Track that, Facebook. I do most of my banking, bill paying and a lot of shopping online. How can one avoid those things completely? As a subscriber to the NYT, I strongly suspect they track me, too. I believe Congress should act to severely limit how much personal info these sites should be able to collect and share, but they're too busy collecting bribes and sharing polling data with their PACs...
15
The state of privacy on the internet?
The internet seems to me a lot like video games, designed by video game mentality, designed to act like a video game, and ultimately a platform to be run by machine, A.I. which finds video game conception ideal to its mentality and which supposedly will better the human race.
It's no wonder a film such as the Matrix was stunning in its effect on society. People are literally forced to be on the internet today, everything happens by modern systems of technology, and we are lured on to win rewards if we perform this and that action, and we are given the impression there is some sort of justice at end of it all, some worthwhile oversight, some ultimate understanding in fact, as if anyone can potentially beat the game and enter the ranks of the illustrious who are permitted to understand entire design of system, and you too can administer justice across the internet, pick the worthy from the unworthy, run the game in ever better fashion.
But in actuality there appears no supreme and honorable oversight to the internet, just same old human ambition, power boxing people in with this and that small reward, any number of individuals and groups hacking, gas lighting each other, which means you can run around for years in a blind circle trying to make sense of it all, trying to understand overall design, who runs what, where and how, what it all ultimately means, and in all probability you will use time and money to die merely on first stage.
6
"Most of us haven’t paid a humiliating price for being watched and tracked. “We’ve had a massive experience of walking around naked with no perceived consequences,” says Searls. Why bother getting dressed?"
Excellent column. Of all the attributes driving people online, me included, to become an open (if boring) book, ego and FOMA seem the driving forces.
If you never go online you might avoid annoying ad tracking and nasty comments from people who somehow ended up as "friends," but you'll always wonder what your missing.
Human nature is by definition contradictory. We say what we want as we pursue the opposite.
Trying to track online motivations seems futile, because these motivations keep getting reshaped by what we see, what we do, and where we go online.
We aren't victims, but many of us are addicts.
5
I confess that I long ago sold my soul to Google. For the last 17 years I have managed a moderately successful online business (I kept my day job of course) and by necessity, I am on most of the dominant social media platforms, especially YouTube and Facebook. Google knows my personal status, my home address, my email address, my phone number, and even have locked away my credit card data. In exchange Google has been very, very good to me, promoting my business at no cost to me in ways that I would otherwise have had to spend a small fortune to accomplish.
The way I look at it -- having recently retired from a 44 year career with the US intelligence community -- the only reason "big brother" might seek your personal data from Google would be if you maintained regular phone or email contact with someone who lived on the Afghanistan side of Waziristan province in Pakistan. Or of, heaven forbid, you were plotting domestic terrorism, or some similar vile act.
If, on the other hand, you are a law abiding citizen, then "big brother" does not give one hoot about you. They are plenty busy chasing the bad guys who really matter. Sorry if this disappoints some.
3
Some of us don’t…use Google OR give it much information.
2
Ms. Senior,
Your writing is a joy to read; amusing and clever. Thank you.
2
So why does your paper have "targeted" ads? I know lots about programming and capturing email addresses is really easy. Just as capturing IP addresses is simple, too. Who's kidding whom here? You are lying and Google is lying. Why it says at the end of ALL your stuff right to this very moment to subscribe to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, etc. When I told people DECADES ago that FB was tremendous violation of privacy people looked at me like I was crazy and they joined up. Millions of others can't be wrong, can they?! What you don't know can't hurt you, right? Follow us, right?
6
Change how you search? Try "Incognito Mode" on Google Chrome...
(See how easy that was?)
@Imanishi Kentaro
Google is very clear that they can and do track your live session while using “incognito mode.” That info is used for targeting you and estimating your behavior within that session. (That was pretty easy, to answer your question.)
1
@JR
I defer to your technological acumen. So, "Incognito Mode" seems to be more dangerous than just surfing the web on regular Google. Now they're "targeting me" when I use "Incognito." Think I'll just go back to posting pictures of my cat on Facebook and play it safe...
It isn't a paradox. It seems that only writers for the NY Times are in the privacy-paranoid camp. Most of the world truly doesn't care.
The more Google knows about me, the easier my life is. The only consequence for me: the ads I see are more relevant rather than less relevant. The horror!
3
@JustInsideBeltway
Oh if only I could go back to that level of calm naïveté. JIB, read a little, even just a smidge, about how data works, how it’s stored, and how - every day - the potential for catastrophic error and abuse grows. These are smart companies, so let’s all agree that they also want to limit catastrophe and maximize customer experience - but remember, JIB, you are not the customer. You are the product.
3
@JustInsideBeltway
The most sensible post yet!!
Just stop using google.
How about a little common sense? Don't do anything online that you wouldn't want your mother to see. And stop sharing your entire life - manage what you allow anyone to see. Besides, no one - but Google - cares about you and your habits.
5
People want convenience and service. Everything handy in one place. Many don't turn off the default settings which automatically collect your data. Devices like Alexa record everything in your home and we know that companies often lie about the feature being off. Your health info, your finances, all of your private details are now accessible if your use the internet for these purposes. Be careful. They are very serious issues being raised by such use and who can access your information and use it against you. Handy doesn't make it safe!
4
Knowing I surrendered any privacy in trade for wanting to get my hands on information, I like to play a game and just search for random things.
Maserati. Canada goose. Garlic mustard. Stars in Orion's belt. Synonym for being underhanded. The Mod Squad. Common rocks of the Hudson Highlands. Enteroviruses.
Sure the list will say something about me, but I challenge advertisers to find out what.
1
@Cathy
@cathy, there’s actually an algorithm in place for people like you. You may have made it harder initially but, trust me, they met your challenge and exceeded it years ago.
Not everybody, I have a small of e-profile as possible. No twitter, no tinder, etc. I have a never-used facebook account and two email accounts. Life is good
4
The current problem is that unless you "approve" of a company's privacy policy, you are not allowed access to their content. This precludes you from using some of the most useful sources of of information. Try not accepting Microsoft's or Apple's control systems. You will not be able to turn your computer on. Maybe that would be a good thing for some people who are wasting their lives scrolling clicking through personal data collectors.
1
The reason why I don't worry too much about this whole privacy kerfluffle is summed up in Jennifer Seniors brilliant conclusion to her write-up. Teenage obfuscate by flooding. As does the POTUS. Examples from either end of the generational range. Marvelous!
It points to the human, never ceasing, ability to "end run" around any system put in place to check, monitor or control them. Just give them time they will find a way.
Ultimately the systems put in place to do all that they do become zero sum self-defeating processes, because the humans who are their source material learn, adapt, and move on.
And so it goes...
John~
American Net'Zen
2
Probably like most people, I like being targeted by the internet. It pays for great services, and its more fun than non-targeting.
1
@Tamroi
Although I may be getting caught up in semantics, you need to realize the “internet” is not targeting you. The internet is free. It is companies using the internet that are targeting you to give you services in exchange for your money, or your time and attention. And let’s not get into the fact that it’s not only companies targeting you, it’s people, it’s countries. Take a step back and educate yourself about “targeting” and your use of the internet.
1
Except for the G thing, i don't use Google products, browser, search engine and so on. I disagree with the business model. In my opinion Alphabet and Google represents a far more sinister threat on open societies than radical extremism. They are not to be trusted.
At its annual conference for software developers, last week, Google showed off several new products and features that it said were created to help maintain customers’ control over their own data.
What's fishy?
A) created to help
or
B) maintain users control over data
3
The targeted ads, the "recommended for you" email, all the new digital micro-marketing, are the trivial tip of the iceberg.
It's the political danger of our digital fingerprints found and identified somewhere on the web that powerful interests -- whether an authoritarian government, hostile foreign power, or commercial blackhats -- deem unlawful, defiant, rebellious, subversive and stigmatic.
I'm conscious when I read The Times online that every article I click, when I click them, how long before I move to another article, which op-ed columnists I read regularly, etc. all contribute to a composite profile that determines what articles get highlighted and where they get positioned on the digital page. The same data can tell a third party what my politics are, whether I support reproductive rights, or am pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian.
I didn't tell anyone anything. All I did was read The Times online.
In the hands of a malefactor, I'm marked. I'm a check on a list of boxes, with consequences if I lived in China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, Thailand.
Again, I didn't post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. I read The Times and now an algorithm decides if I'm politically right or wrong. When my data is sold to an employment agency, all potential employers see the Scarlet Letter the algorithm put on my file.
There's no "privacy paradox" for most folks. It's privacy predation.
Privacy is a right, not a privilege.
92
Owning an Android phone makes it impossible to NOT give Google lots of information. I do not preen on Twitter nor do I use instagram. I use Duck-duck go and a VPN but at some point, with an Android phone, you have to give over more info than you would like. iPhones are not a whole lot better as Apple, too, feels that they need to know as much about you as possible before you can just use their product. In my line of work, I need to have a smartphone. I tried to go without for awhile but it was detrimental to my business...I'm 61 and have pretty much ALWAYS assumed that anything that I do or put out on the internet is being tracked, stored, collected, etc...Snowden's revelations were no surprise to me. It boils down to what are you doing on the internet? If you have dark secrets then online is not the place to explore them...The fact that FB and the others are selling the info is, unfortunately, fair enough. These apps cost nothing and, as they say, there is no free lunch!
5
I find that I don't worry very much about being watched, tracked or collected I suppose it's naive but I can't see that it really matters what kind of ads I see. But still, I find it incredibly annoying that companies have the right to take and sell my information for free even though I usually get to use their service for free. So I've used DDG exclusively for years, don't use a smartphone and for 10 years I have limited my facebook 'friends' to 200 actual friends, people I know and like.
So the tag at bottom says, "Allow ads on NY Times. Thank you for your support." Fat chance.
And this after a month of (roughly): "You know your Mother best. So give her a subscription to NY Times."
I did know my Mother quite well, she DID subscribe, and I also know her well enough to know she is dead.
20
Just switched from Android to iPhone -- would LOVE to know how APPLE gets a pass! Intrusive as Google.
4
I have been using Google from day one. Have yet to experience any negatives from whatever privacy rights of mine they have violated. But I have benefited greatly from using this fantastic free search tool.
2
@Thomas
Please, Sir, understand that Google services are not free. The internet is free, not Google. You are paying sometimes financially, but mostly with your time and attention. Remember, you are not the customer. You are the product. They are reaping rewards from your behavior. It is a universe-changing tool - brilliant beyond what anyone thought we could do - but educate yourself on its drawbacks, please.
3
@JR
Not sure you get the concept of “free”. “Paying with your time and attention”? Try doing that with your mortgage, and see if they agree...
The European regulations are a farce. (And have you ever read them?)
2
I cannot by a long shot describe the psychology but I suspect that it is very closely related to the social grooming the poor are subject to.
If you are confused by why poor people make bad decisions in life it is the exact same thing with all people and google. We were carefully groomed by google to accept them in exactly the same way an abuser grooms their victims. They told us how they were good and showed us the "don't be evil" slogan all the while conspiring and lying. When they got caught spying on people or competition and doing nasty things to prevent competition or buying their way into websites to make themselves indispensable like Amazon did, they apologized and promised they would do better, every time they got caught it was the same thing.
The people need it now as they were successful at making themselves indispensable and their is an emotional aspect to this need as well not unlike an abusive relationship which this most definitely is. The things we used before google are less available to us now, that too was part of their strategy.
6
I have been security conscious for a long time, it's good to see other people realizing it too. I've started selling locked down laptop - jailbroken phone combinations for people who come across information like this and think they should protect their privacy. The phones/laptops run custom software that makes it mandatory to run a VPN, erases tracking information, lets you run only pre-approved(safe) software among other things. But then there's social media which exists solely to mine your personal data. I see no reason to use it but most disagree. People are willing to give up a lot of privacy for a little convenience and there's no protection from that.
Want non-google email? Use protonmail or tutanota mail; others are less security oriented than those two, but do not collect your info the way google does.
1
@Me Isn’t the email provider of everyone you correspond with also an issue?
1
Use duckduckgo to search and firefox to browse; both are free so cost is not an issue. Iphones cost more but get a used one like I did (5SE for under $200) and be more secure. There are safer alternatives to google apps that mostly don't cost any more. It's not hard to not use google or its apps.
3
@Me
I also use duckduckgo's privacy essentials extension, ublock for ads, have all history and cookies deleted each time I exit my browser, which I do frequently, actually turn off my computers when not using it, do not track is turned on (though I'm not sure if that does any more good than the do not call list for phones), and use keyscrambler which is supposed to thwart keyloggers and confuse google as well (although I don't really see how).
1
@Me
I have to say that I was amazed that some people leave their computer on all day/night. Why?
2
GOOGLE CLASSROOM is why our kids are REQUIRED to tell Google too much, just to mention one answer to this "paradox."
Most schools in the U.S. now use this platform as an online Learning Management System. However, local school boards must certify that Google is a "school official" and that the board maintains complete control over Google's use of the student data. However, since Google replicates it's mega-database across the globe, NO local school board can honestly claim to maintain complete control over what Google does with all the information about American students (especially in foreign countries beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. laws). The federal law requiring Google to be a "school official" and the local school board to exercise "complete control" over Google's use of student data is called FERPA. Only a fool would truly believe that any local school board exercises control over how Google operates. In fact, Google maintains that how it actually manages your private information is a trade secret. All they actually guarantee you is that they won't sell it, but they sure make an un-Godly amount of money profiling everyone.
11
Let’s not be or act so innocent: isn’t that the definition of a monopoly?
2
Loss of privacy using a computer or cell phone is one thing but loss of privacy from the internet of things is another. Is one's physiological status something to be shared by internet companies. If not then using worn devices like the Fitbit should be out. And do we really need smart TVs, light bulbs, thermostats, toys, refrigerators, etc so companies like Google can mine our personal data? The hype to push the internet of things is on and of course the internet of things is really the internet of you and should be rejected for what it is, a devious way to get more personal data by the market-driven internet companies. We don't need our lives to be optimized or be more personalized. We need our lives to be more human and that is something the internet corporations have no interest in.
4
If there were something wrong with the telephone, but, from AT&T in the 1970's to the Postoffices in Britain and France, if the service is a virtual monopoly, we may complain about many aspects, but if we want to make that long-distance call ...
Today Google with its many features (a plus) and many issues (drawbacks) is still the best information services portal. It may be the one we love to hate, but I will still use Google Maps tp boldly drive where this man has not gone before. I also do use Firefox-Duck Duck Go for no-tracking browsing.
3
There’s no paradox. The lose of privacy snuck up on us between 1980 and today. By the time we had even an inkling of what was going on, we’d put it all out there. Yes we want our privacy, but we’ve already surrendered it to our thirty year addiction to convenience and amusement. There’s no going back.
2
Ha! Here I am adding a comment and ditching my privacy! It's all so meta.
Aside from the content, which I found interesting, I loved the writing. Obviously the column was not intended to give pointers on preserving (or reinstating?) your privacy, thus the lack of pointers on how to do that. Ruminations on paradoxes are pleasures all their own. Well written!
The solution, rather obviously, is Big Government and Regulation, dirty words in too many ears. Ah, but that's a paradox for another day.
5
Some of us don’t reveal our true identities. Google may have my information but they don’t know who I am.
So nobody has ever sent you an email from a gmail account using your real name? Nobody has allowed facebook and google to access all their phone contacts, including your name and number? And that's the easiest first step. Once you have linked email, phone number and name.... well, enjoy your invisibility privacy!
1
Contrary to the hypotheses of this article, I think people don’t protect their online privacy because they are privacy illiterate. Most people don’t realize the extent to which they are being surveilled, nor do they know what to do about it.
Two things you can do right now for free. Download and use Mozilla Firefox as your browser. Install the DuckDuckGo add on. Your online privacy will increase tenfold. In fact, if everyone took those two steps, online tracking analytics would virtually cease to exist.
8
@Mike
Great advice and I second the recommendation. However, Google Analytics is installed and recording your every move on the vast majority of popular web sites. For this reason just changing your browser (although still a GREAT idea) won't stop Google from tracking your every thought expressed online.
4
@Paul Central CA, age 59
I completely agree that people don't protect their online privacy because they are privacy illiterate. I'm one of those people. I am now using DuckDuckGo. I don't understand the comment about Google Analytics recording my every move. What is Google Analytics and how can I stop it?
1
@Lauren
A commenter on another privacy article shared about a free app called Ghostery, which blocks many trackers. When you open the app from within a website such as this one, it tells you which tracking ware it is blocking. Google Analytics is one of them. I don't know how to define Google Analytics. Google -- er, DuckDuckGo it.
5
You can use a more privacy oriented search engine, such as DuckDuckGo, but generally people don't bother. You can opt out of a surprising amount of advertising and analytics tracking, but generally people don't.
What people will do, is install an ad blocker. This seems to suggest they care far more about annoying ads than they do privacy.
5
I do use DuckDuckGo. It's not as good but that isn't the point.
8
Me, too. And I figure it will get better. In the meantime, I’m willing to settle for it not being as good.
Here’s hoping Google doesn’t buy DuckDuckGo. (I used to use AltaVista. Lol. Big fish tend to swallow smaller fish.)
9
@X So do I when I can, but to find an assortment of price comparatives, I still have to go to Google. Bing has the same virtues, or lack thereof, that Google has but with much less to offer. And, yes, I even sometimes use Yahoo. I do try to avoid a great number of click thrus that Google cash in on, I go direct.
Allow me to acknowledge @itsmildeyes also on this reply, I too hope that DuckDuck does stay independent. our only salvation in this is the EU. Here's hoping that they will not allow another FB purchase up of all the competitors by the big fish. Now people try to force Whatsapp upon me to do business, my and their privacy means nothing to them, they have not a clue.
6
@X
I'm another DuckDuckGo user.
@WorldPeace2017
I use Messages for Apple to Apple communication, and Signal for all others.
1
You may not realize that even if you log out of Google it will still be running in the background. The only reason it would be doing that is to monitor what you're doing when not logged in. To stop this, click on the three dots in the top-right corner and click on Settings. Scroll down to Advanced and click on that. Find the option that allows Google to run in the background and switch it off. Done. One more thing you might do is get the Duckduckgo plug-in for Google.
5
@John Bockman
I wanted to do this, but alas I'm one of the privacy illiterates. What I thought were the three dots turned out to be notifications. I'm stuck. This is what happens. What can you do? It feels hopeless.
1
@Lauren
Stop feeling hopeless and start learning. Many of the comments on here show you where to look. You won't become privacy literate in an afternoon, but you can work toward it.
1
Ms. Senior spent a week on the internet researching privacy concerns and didn't run across any explanations of simple things you can do to protect some of your privacy? Like setting your browser to erase cookies each time you close it. Like logging out of Facebook (not just closing the tab) and closing your browser when you leave. Tsk. What an oversight to fail to even link to a couple of advice columns on the subject, if she didn't want to spend the time preparing a bullet list. She did pass on the hint that you should use some other browser besides Google, so I give her half a star there.
The people who think they are overwhelming the surveillance by posting everything are going to be surprised. It's not a person doing the surveillance. It's a computer program. Big data programs cannot be overwhelmed by large amounts of data. Big data programs were created to deal with large amounts of data. The more data you put into the database, the better the database can get to know you.
Trump is far from flooding the zone, even by the standards of an individual human surveillor with limited brain capacity. Nobody thinks this emperor is wearing clothes. As a presidential candidate said this spring, people didn't vote for Trump because they thought he was a good guy. They know he's not a good guy. They support him for entirely other reasons.
65
@Judy Blue, none of the techniques you described work; they can still track your usage and location.
Everything you do is logged somewhere by your Internet provider and all likelihhood was sold as "consumer information".
3
@Larry L
I think you are saying that no single technique fixes the entire problem. That's true. But the techniques I mentioned do "work" as far as they go.
Erasing cookies frequently will prevent web sites from following me around on the web. Avoiding Google prevents one of the largest information aggregators from developing a huge database about me. Additional techniques mentioned by others above, such as using Ghostery and Privacy Badger, will reduce the amount of data that is collected.
Yes, the ISP can collect some data and might sell it. But not everything.
The U.S. government might also collect data by sucking it up when the international cable crosses out of the U.S. into the ocean. Again, that's a limited amount.
It would take a lot of work to protect all privacy, but reducing the amount of leakage is quite possible.
3
@Judy Blue, cookies aren't
current ly most sophisticated technique for tracking web users. Cookies are a dated technology. The newer techniques are harder to avoid.
And what I stated about your Internet provider still applies. Unless everything you do is under a VPN connection, it's visible to your carrier. And even then there have been cases recently when encrypted services lately being hacked and they were able to spoof them.
3
I read Zuboff's book and I would consider it a must read given how fast all this is unfolding and eroding our central values that go back to the period of the enlightment. According to the book as I understand it loss of privacy is not the worst of it. What is the most chilling aspect is our data are being used for behavioral modification for commercial purposes and what will matter most is the society not individuals. And it is the internet of things with nearly everything in the real world being subject to monitoring that will really take us into a whole new type of society based on optimizing and efficiency and everything being manipulated by the algorithms of surveillance capitalists. Zuboff says we need laws to prevent this type of "hive" society which would destroy personal freedom and individuality. She says that we have to be alarmed by what is happening and get our representatives in government to act. Otherwise we could be headed for digital world dominated by behavioral modification under the control of anti-democratic surveillance capitalists. Sort of a digital Walden Two. Zuboff warns that the surveillance capitalists want us to think that the internet of things that would take our data is inevitable but she argues that it is not and that we could get this technology to work for our benefit rather than the benefit of surveillance capitalists.
16
@Bob I just finish Zuboff's book. A well-written, beautifully organized read. Bob's comment is right to the point. As I read, I just got more & more scared-to-death.
3
It's rather simple than this whole article. We want to sell our success ("it was never the other way around") and we want to be famous, perhaps beyond our capabilities. Yet, we want to keep our secrets. But in the process of over-selling, we show our secrets and then we regret. Perhaps we deserve? I don't know. If all of us can be humble like our forefathers, we would not over-sell, try to become instagram celebrities, and brag unconditionally, and the firms that mine our secrets would find nothing!
4
If we care so much about our privacy in America, why do we tolerate so much intrusion into our privacy on the internet?
I agree completely with the people who say modern communications technology is so powerful, so ubiquitous that people have no choice but to go online, that paper communication, for example mail and books, is on the decline or at least too slow, and that people have such high hopes of technological advancement that they prefer to hope for the best even as the worst occurs on the internet.
In fact hopes for the internet are so high that people are even willing to give up privacy if it clearly leads to a better society. For example, the internet and everyone putting every day who they are on it could lead to a massive data analysis and we could by any number of methods of profiling get at the truly profound and capable humans among us, could pinpoint the next Lincoln or Marie Curie or Martin Luther King,--all the best of best types seen over human history and have a profound revolution in cultural and political and economic history.
But horrifyingly we see that all this intrusion into privacy, all this data acquisition, seems to be leading to greater consumerism and control by traditional powers of the left or right or religious or what have you, increased panopticon control of population to point that for example in Russia, a place which even under the worst of Soviet control we had evidence of culture, we now have Putin over a largely silent population.
3
@Daniel12
Books, yes even print books, could actually be your savior.
What we "do" is by design.
Designed by hoards of people (far) above our collective pay grade. Because addiction. And because they call it "fine" print for a reason- that is why we skate by the so-called warnings.
14
Nobody has time or means to monitor all this stuff or find alternate ways to do things. This is why we need regulations to stop these practices. Companies should not be allowed to bury important info in 20-pp documents, require 10 mins of clicking to get ads to stop following us, etc. This article just accepts that it’s “on us” without asking why.
115
@Mary
"Nobody has time or means to monitor all this stuff or find alternate ways to do things."
Sure we do. The way people do things now is only about a decade old. I don't use Google, Apple, Amazon, or any of those other data miners. I also am a full time student and run a $10M+ company. It's perfectly do-able. It's just less convenient. Saying you don't have time is just another way of saying that you don't really care enough to make the time.
12
@Mary Huh? It's called self-regulation.
1
@Mary: Even when using Google, you can use tools (like AdBlockPlus or Ghostery) that block advertisements and cross-site tracking. Installing them on your browser (paradoxically, these tools work best with Google Chrome rather than Apple's Safari) takes all of 5 minutes, and from then on, you don't need to do anything. Similarly, you can use in-private/anonymous browsing when necessary.
To the "nobody has time or means " argument I say:
1. The only means you need are a little self-discipline, the equivalent of fastening your seat belt when you get into your car.
2. MAKE the time to teach yourself about privacy protection.
2
I fear the new Facebook and Twitter culture is pervasive. I work at a Fortune 60 company and they've should a favorability for having employees provide personal presentation slides. It isn't quite yet mandatory but it sure had the feel of being mandatory and will very likely ultimately be mandatory. I don't think we want to live in a world where everyone's life is an open book that could potentially be used against us. I certainly don't mind sharing to those I consider friends, but those viewing the slides would mostly be people I have never met and likely never will...so what's the point???
11
Exactly. Everyone worries SOOOO MUCH about their info being compromised, bank info, personal info, etc., but if it isn't on there, they can't steal it now, can they?
4