People left seriously creeped out after woman shares how to find out everything Google knows about you
People left seriously creeped out after woman shares how to find out everything Google knows about you
Alternative title: People creeped out after woman discovers what tech literate people have been saying to do for a decade
Same can be said for any field, academic or not. For example, it won't do any good to dismiss cancer awareness campaigns because doctors have been saying about it for decades. It's for the public's benefit, and everyone deserves privacy.
In my country, we had been saying that the government was doing business with Israel, even though they were condemning on every public forum. It took only 1 journalist until the whole public saw the hypocrisy. 1 journalist against all TV channels and internet trolls. (Here 95% of all TV channels are sponsored by government).
I remember telling this years ago, yet this man, who also had to leave the country for his other journalist work said it at the right time with the right tools.
So, what I get this is, don't stop telling the truth. Even though nobody listens now, people will when the right time comes.
Isn't that after what, 40?
There isn't a soul in your country that isnt aware cancer exists.
Thanks past me!
I have all my histories turned off and once a year or so I go in and make sure they haven't added anything new for me to turn off.
Now the question is, are they really not collecting my data or have I just made it so I can't see what they have on me?
I would assume the latter until proven otherwise. No doubt they hide that.
They collected incognito session info, whose entire existence was 'not keeping a history', so almost 100% the latter.
I do the same thing, and always wonder that too. These companies have been caught lying consistently and repeatedly about what they collect and how, so even with all the right settings I’m very skeptical that they actually respect my choices.
My best guess is that they instead aggregate your data and serve ads based off of basic demographically information - instead of data they've harvested from your Google account. E.g. they'll use your age range, gender, region, etc
i have only YouTube enabled (personalization is good enough that i actually do care about it) and google search (since it also affects google maps) and both are set to the lowest auto delete option
How do you turn them off. I mean, do you go through every Google product and dig for the settings? Or do you just mean you revisit the ad settings?
Same here. Disabled it a year back.
Yep, same here. I turned off all that tracking a long time ago.
Same here... disabled this AGES ago.
To save you some time, it's Google's Ad Center, which the article doesn't even link to, as far as I can tell.
I'm not creeped out by any of the info I found in mine, but I am annoyed. "Yes, Google, I searched for [random thing] twice because I needed to know a little more information. That time has passed because I bought it or the event has passed or whatever. Reminding me about it just makes it weird."
Mine's turned off. But thanks for saving me the read.
That was neat I could turn it off thanks.
some people might like that it helps them get targeted ads - after all, the tech has crunched all the data, and can advertise things to you that you might actually want.
Hahahahaha Next best thing to ad blocking, is generic ads that you don’t care about and can ignore more easily, and you know that the company is getting paid less for those ads showing.
I much prefer random ads anyways. Targeted ads are 90% something You've already recently bought.
With random ads sometimes you see something interesting that you didn't even know you wanted because you didn't know it even existed.
If I'm looking for a laptop I don't care to see 1000 ads for laptops, I'm not going to just click an ad and buy one I need to research and deep dive into the kind I want.
Yeah, that's the thing, the more I want something, the less interested I am in ads. Their whole point is to sell me their product or service, not inform me if it is worth buying.
And in the meantime, Amazon is trying to sell me a monthly subscription to once in a decade purchases.
Also one or a few people turning it off doesn't matter much. The tech giants still get their demographic statistics from the ones who haven't (which is the larger percentage of the population). You could be spending money on things based on targeted ads for your demographic.
In other words, you are creeped out about wondering what they could do with your personal data if you turn it on. But you should be even more creeped out about how your daily decisions are already influenced by them using others data
Same, but I just reviewed mine a week or two ago when I finally switched my email away from Gmail, and lo and behold, there were more trackers enabled (for new stuff they added and I don't use, but still...).
Even the article about how Google's tracking is bad is loaded with Google trackers.
LoL, I clicked the link above, and EFF's Privacy Badger had replaced the TikTok widget. Thank you, EFF.org!!
lol it has almost nothing on me. Even has my relationship status wrong
ADHD - The ultimate Info Tracking killer
Same lol
Between that and the random shit it has listed as what I get ads for...it isn't a whole lot. I spend most of time looking up highly specific things on Wikipedia or out of immediate utility, so I suppose I'm just not that interesting...also ublock origin ftw
I supply mine with fake info with the google rewards app :p
I answered the question as if I was a mother (am not and male) of 4 children, which has higher education, is into tech and fashion, has 4 children and a house.
So far I made 29,30€ in total in Play Store cash. ¯(ツ)/¯
Sadly some of the funds lapse after some time but I have used it for smaller apps and such.
I used to do surveys as a CEO of a megacorp making lots of money
Turns out they give more money to you if you're already rich...(probably because rich people don't really do that stuff so they want more of their data)
I used to do this, but I honestly don't have much need for Play Store cash. I paid for a couple FOSS apps I wanted to support, and then stopped w/ the opinions thing because I don't have a use for the rewards. I'm actively trying to avoid the Play store in general, so it's a bit counter-productive.
Those same people will be shocked when their smart assistant has saved all past recordings of their requests. Lmfao
Then again, This article is on one of the cancers of the internet "unilad".
Literally the first time I've heard about this site
Well I had it disabled on my main account, but to be sure I checked my other accounts, which weren't disabled. Turns out Google thinks I'm a high income female who works at a large real estate company. Kind of tempted to visit a bunch of weird sites to poison their data more
I checked my throwaway/spam account. Apparently, I'm a high-wage tech employee at a large company, and I'm also a homeowner.
Damn, they think too highly of me.
Show that to the large real estate company and get a high income job!
I tried to check mine and was extremely glad but underwhelmed that all my accounts have personalized ads turned off. I'm sure Google has tons of info on me anyway though lol 🙃
I turned off my Google account entirely by deleting it in January of 2022. And I use add and tracker blocking DNS functionality on all devices on my network and primarily use open source software. So good luck. They may very well still know stuff about me, but the stuff they are going to know is going to be limited and or very old.
The ad settings are so far off the mark it's not even a little concerning ... besides the fact they where on by default (fixed)
What is concerning is google activity. literally everything you do on your phone is tracked by default
Doesn't tell me anything becasuee I would need to verify I'm over 18, but I'm sure it still collects all that information.
Went to check - had personalised Ads off on every account I have already, so I guess I won't be seeing what Google's got on me ¯(ツ)/¯
What I want to know is why when I'm talking to my wife in the car about buying new shoes do I get a YouTube ad that evening about new shoes, when I never got that kind of ad before.
Are our phones listening to us while we talk in the car, and then ads are generated from that?
I'd really like to know the answer to that question.
Edit: fixed typo, shoes, not shows.
What are the odds than anyone in the household searched for the shows? Targeting ads to all devices on the same IP or even devices that have previously been on the same network happens.
I was able to predict that my mom had been researching “bunion shoes” after I started seeing ads, seemingly randomly, for them not long after she came to my house to visit.
It's not even just that, humans a incredibly predictable and that predictability is able to be microtargeted based on trends and past activity of an individual.
What are the odds than anyone in the household searched for the shows?
It's just me and my wife, and we were both in the car together.
Also, I meant to say shoes, not shows. The voice-to-text doesn't always get me perfectly, and sometimes I miss the typos it creates.
I highly doubt phones are always listening.
But, they already are.
Some people like the option where they just say "Hey Google" (or whatever) and then the phone talks back to them, so they're always listening so they can hear that initiation sequence. This old article from Vice describes what I'm speaking of.
Personally I'd like the ability to turn that feature off, so I have to explicitly enable the microphone to have Google listen to what I'm saying.
It's usually not a case of the phone listening but, more creepily, that your behavior before and after talking to your wife about new shoes signaled that you want to buy new shoes.
Ad algorithms are surprisingly perceptive about signals that aren't obvious.
that your behavior before and after talking to your wife about new shoes signaled that you want to buy new shoes.
There was no previous or after behavior.
We were in a car, long road trip, I mentioned needing to buy new shows during the trip, and when I got home late that evening YouTube was serving me up ads for shoes on my PC. No searches was done before or after the trip (as I mentioned elsewhere, I just go to a store and buy multiple boxes of the same kind of sneakers/shoes on sale).
I am skeptical about listening not only because it was not proven,
This old article from Vice seems to have proven it, back in 2018.
It most likely is. And if it's not your phone, then it's your car (assuming it has been built in the last few years)
It most likely is
Instead of guessing, you people need to learn to use Wireshark and find out for yourself.
No, they don't just listen all the time with an open mic and just send all audio to the cloud. Anyone in cybersecurity would definitely notice that and sound the alarm. There's probably tens of thousands of people watching what these companies and their tech do all day long.
They can get all the data they need through other means, like trackers. Most of us aren't consciously aware of the metric shitton of bread crumbs we all leave behind on the net.
It most likely is. And if it’s not your phone, then it’s your car (assuming it has been built in the last few years)
Yeah, that's really creepy. I would only want the phone to listen when I actually ask it a question, not 24/7.
I'm not aware of any research that's proven that phone are listening on conversations and serve ads based on that, just a bunch of anecdotal evidence. there has been some research a few years ago that proved the opposite, though.
there has been some research a few years ago that proved the opposite, though.
Could you supply a link for that article? I would very much like to read it. Also, I would want it to be a recent article, to be believable for the current conversation we're having.
just a bunch of anecdotal evidence
Well, we all are just black boxing this, as we do not have access to these corporation's servers and what data they collect.
But you have to admit, that in my case at least, Occam's Razor would definitely point you in a certain direction.
Edit: You should also take a look at this old article from Vice.
Answer is no. Google Ads doesn't work that way. If you perceive such a coincidence, it just happened by chance or you or your wife sent out other signals that buying new shoes is a topic for you.
If you perceive such a coincidence, it just happened by chance or you or your wife sent out other signals that buying new shoes is a topic for you.
None of that happened though. It was on a long car trip, no Internet web browsing done, and no previous searches done from home.
The only time shoes were relevant was a verbal discussion in the vehicle.