Remove Your Google Searches Before Its Too Late

[Phoenix]

Posted by TargeT (here)
oh,,, just an FYI... (US ONLY... though I wouldn't be supprized if this was globally appicable)

google the term "nexus centers" I've been to the one in alaska... it doesn't matter what you do, everything "on line" is being watched unless you are heavily encrypting your traffic (which is easy)...

best way to get the attention of the 3 letter agencies is use encryption on your cell phone or internet... so really,,, either way your under scrutiny.... but really, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Awesome, can you show us how to do these encryption tactics? I'd love to encrypt my phone.

[math330]

Been mentioned already, but www.duckduckgo.com is a non-tracking search engine, also www.startingpage.com

When you're online, turn on private browsing via your browser, turn cookies and java off if you want to.

Be very careful what you comment on on youtube (delete all Gmal and youtube accounts), what you send or publish on facebook. For the overly cautious, look into Tor Browsing and proxy servers. Though I can imagine using those now puts you onto a list of suspicious users

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Also - remove flash cookies (cookies that track you and your data) with this little gem.

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/32994/flush

[TargeT]

Posted by Phoenix (here)
Awesome, can you show us how to do these encryption tactics? I'd love to encrypt my phone.

thinigs like this:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-te...app-iphone-473

there's a few options out there but really, you will pull the kind of attention you DO NOT WANT by doing this.. right now your a face in the crowd, encrypt your phone or internet and you'll be a face in the crowd with a huge spot light shining on you.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Arrowwind (here)
But before that date you can delete your browsing history and, which will limit the extent to which Google records your every move - including your embarrasing secrets.

My (cynical) guess is that what this means is that "deleting your browsing history" means removing your access to it (actually your Google searching history, not your browsing history), but continuing to allow the NSA to access it.

I chose not to delete my browsing history. I find it useful to have Google recommend searches while I am entering a new search, based on my prior searches.

I figure that the NSA is going to see it anyway ... unless I take fairly careful steps to hide from them.

[Laurel]

Firefox offers a "do not track" option. So far, I haven't had any issues with it.

Most major websites track their visitors' behavior and then sell or provide that information to other companies (like advertisers). Firefox has a Do-not-track feature that lets you tell websites you don't want your browsing behavior tracked. This article explains what tracking is, how the Do-not-track feature works and how to turn it on.

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/...-track-feature

[Ilie Pandia]

Posted by Laurel (here)
Firefox offers a "do not track" option. So far, I haven't had any issues with it.

Most major websites track their visitors' behavior and then sell or provide that information to other companies (like advertisers). Firefox has a Do-not-track feature that lets you tell websites you don't want your browsing behavior tracked. This article explains what tracking is, how the Do-not-track feature works and how to turn it on.

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/...-track-feature

That "Do-not-track" is advisory only. You are just saying "would you pretty please not track my activities on this website?" You have no way of knowing what the server actually does.

Because of how the web works today:

- you can have medium privacy to protect you from stalkers or un-wanted people
- you canNOT have privacy when it comes to huge companies. Yes, taken one at a time they do not have enough data to profile you, but when (not if) they get together and sync the data they have, they can easily build a complete profile on anyone. Facebook and Picassa allow other people to tag you in photos in other accounts you have no control over, so not having an account on Google or Facebook does not help much.
- having a single sign on thing like using your Facebook ID to log in virtually everywhere, or using your Google ID or the Open ID helps a lot with tracking you. And it does not matter if you clear your history, cache or cookies. Tracking now days is much more complex than that. (Not even something like Tor can completely anonymize you if you use single sing on)

Having a web business it's all about tracking your customers and providing what they are looking for. That should be OK if the tracking data stays on one website alone and is not aggregated with the data from other sites, but unfortunately you cannot prevent that from happening.

The "new web" has changed a lot and is still changing. From simple service or information oriented sites we now have huge corporations controlling virtually every service you expect to have online: mail, blogging, social networking, news and searching.

I don't see any way to stop this "evolution of the web". The only thing to do is to become aware that this is happening and then decide how to respond to it? Alternatives will only get you so far...