All this paranoia about Google I find to be highly amusing--from those
using Windows (and even more so--older versions of Windows) and, to a
lesser extent, OS/X. There's nothing that Google will get from your use of
Chrome or other Google product that doesn't already leak or get easily
hacked from Windows itself, or wasn't often requested by--and almost just
as often provided voluntarily to--Apple.
Much of the data collected is public record, anyway, and was always
available to anyone interested enough to find out. It required only a trip
to the library or appropriate government office. Or as anyone who ever had
a mail subscription to a magazine quickly found out, purchase of a mailing
list. I knew how to use the reverse phone number look-up directory
available at my local (and tiny!) public library by the time I was in
middle school.
At least Google are quite straight-forward about what information they
collect, and alone among the three, provide a means of extracting most all
of your data that may be stored with them should you desire to do so, via
their Data Liberation feature.
Google has even decided publish to details of security holes left
un-patched for more than 90 days by OS vendors, including itself. A move
which arguably provides at least a means for end-users to be aware that
there is an issue that could affect them. This elicited howls from both
Microsoft and Apple recently when they couldn't manage (or didn't care) to
fix their issues in time.
I'd rather deal with an organization that at least makes some attempt to be
honest and somewhat open about their intentions and the potential pitfalls
of use, rather than find out, as a bunch of celebrities recently did, that
my very personal data which I had "safely stored in iCloud" was easily
"liberated" by hackers.
None of these companies or their on-line solutions are even close to
perfect. But as long as end-users prefer to pay little to nothing for the
services available, they are going to have to reconcile the fact that those
companies must monetize those services in some fashion. One can always do
as I have often done in filling in so-called "required" information: just
flat-out lie. The worst that you risk by so doing is loss of a free
account. Make up names, addresses, phone numbers, whatever. Use throw-away
email accounts. Consider using Tor or other means of obfuscation.
I'd venture that for some 80+ percent of users that it won't help anyway,
because in my experience over decades is that most of them have such
utterly useless passwords or other account security (even when there is
means provided for better by the vendor!) as to be quite easily compromised
anyway.
On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 6:15 PM, Chris Trask <christrask@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> >
> >> Google does all the updates for me.
> >
> >How comforting!
> >
>
> How absolutely gut-wrenching scary!
>
>
> Chris
>
> When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
> - Hunter S. Thompson
> --
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