A time-sensitive technology / privacy post

 

MercuryBlue reminds our reading community that March 1 is when the new Google "privacy" policy goes into effect and suggests Arduinna's post Google and privacy and alternatives: giant post o' doom as a good place to go to learn more about what the changes are, how they might affect you and things that you can do to prevent/change the impact of this new policy. Ana Mardoll posted a link on her blog to the Electronic Frontier Foundations' post How to Remove Your Google Search History Before Google's New Privacy Policy Takes Effect.

Readers are encouraged to post questions, comments and useful links about Google's changing privacy policy and other ways that using the internet can compromise one's security.

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Comments

[hapax]

I don't know if this link belongs here or in the Deconstruction thread, but anyone concerned about intellectual property rights should inform zirself about this new law in France.

My French is very poor, and I have no experience with French legal writing at all, but I would advise authors or illustrators who have their works (or translations of their works) published in France to check this out very carefully.

[Froborr]

Dreamwidth is blocked at work; does anybody have a link to an alternate source of similar information? (Tumblr and livejournal are also blocked; most other blogging sites are allowed.)

Honestly, from what little I've heard, it doesn't sound that bad--more like they're changing how they organize information they already had, than that they're collecting new information--but I don't know very much, so wish to learn more.

[MercuryBlue]

Yeah, it's not that bad, Froborr, because what I really wanted Google to do is link my realname at gmail address to the NC-17 fic and images I have been known to Google for. And link my pseudonymous gmail address to the wheres and whens of events I schedule in Google Calendar.

I'm lucky. If the streams cross and word gets out, the worst that's likely to happen to me is some embarrassment. But after the Google+ wallet-names-only debacle, I do not trust Google not to misuse personal information.

[picklefactory]

Everyone concerned -- please check out the Ghostery plug-in, which can identify and remove tracking cookies by network.

http://www.ghostery.com/

[Certainly Sylvia]

Yeah - I use ghostery ... tis brilliant :)

[AnaMardoll]

what I really wanted Google to do is link my realname at gmail address to the NC-17 fic and images I have been known to Google for.

Yeah, and feminist blogging -- as I've learned -- means that I search for some really noxious stuff at times. *sigh*

[AnaMardoll]

@Hapax, I can't get to that link at work, but this article seems... wow.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/29/france_authors_rights_compulsory_acquisition/

[MercuryBlue]

hapax: while I am all in favor of making print books (especially out-of-print books) available digitally, for preservation-of-culture and accessibility reasons (audiobook making and Braille-book making are both costly but applying a screenreader to an ebook is not), did the people who wrote this law seriously not stop to think? And if that blog post you linked is right, publishers in France are going to make out like bandits, while the authors are screwed.

...though that may have been the point.

picklefactory, Sylvia: Ghostery is one of Arduinna's recommendations. Now I've got more than one recommendation, it's going on my computer at home.

[Mmy]

@MercuryBlue: Thanks for reminding us to get a post up about this.

I think it is worthwhile to open up this conversation to discussion not only about Google but also about other privacy issues on the internet.

Strangely enough while I was teaching undergrads the most common privacy issues/problems I noticed were:

Using a public computer and then not even logging out of one's email when one left.

Using passwords that just about anyone who knew the first thing about you could guess.

Using the same password for every single site on the internet.

Using the same password for years at a time.

Never cleaning the cache on the computer (cue hapaxson here.)

More than once (in fact with some frequency) I walked into the room with the computer that we (our department) let students use to find on the (unattended) computer a semi-pornographic piece of fiction they were reading AND in case we couldn't figure out who it was from the semi-porn,† their email is open.

TRIGGER WARNING: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

† Although I usually knew exactly who it was from the stuff they were reading. Different students had different tastes in slashfic. The type most popular across a number of students was Hermione/Snape slash often legally (she was still underage) or overtly (there is obvious physical duress) nonconsensual.

[Nick Kiddle]

I think I've passed right through creeped out and into the calm on the other side: I rely very heavily on google and doubt I would ever be able to sanitise things properly. I am rubbish at privacy in general, as witness my huge internet presence under a name google considers identical to my legal name, so the horse has possibly bolted long ago for me.

[AnaMardoll]

I'm being told on another board that the France thing only applies to 'clearly' orphaned works. For definitions of 'clearly' that I cannot parse since I can't find any other unblocked articles that aren't themselves in French. Confusing.

[MercuryBlue]

If we were collectively going back to the days of copyright terms being fourteen years with the option of one renewal, this would make sense. Okay, 1 Jan 2001 was less than fourteen years ago, but not that much less. And I'm reliably informed that almost nobody took the option of copyright renewal anyway. But Disney, and Robert Frost's estate, and a whole buncha people who would rather nothing ever enter the public domain again--wait, does public domain even have anything to do with this, or are they just seizing digital distribution rights of out-of-print books?

[AnaMardoll]

I keep hearing terribly conflicting stories and it's really hard to sort out the actuals. Some say it's a PD library being created; others say it's distribution seizure.

[MercuryBlue]

If it's a public domain library being created, why would they specify 1 Jan 2001? No way is a work created in 2000 in public domain anywhere Disney might have tentacles. Unless its creator specified it's public domain, and maybe not then.

[automaticdoor]

Yeah, Nick, I honestly am not het up about it because I can't let myself be or it would be a never-ending show of horror. There is a very fine line between automaticdoor and Meredith [lastname] (I go by automaticdoor and Meredith in equal measures on blogs, I think I even have here) and I'm sure a creative person using Google could connect the dots. If I got upset now, I'd never stop screaming. The horse left like five or six years ago with my full knowledge. The problem was that five or six years ago, automaticdoor wasn't disabled, about to be a lawyer, considering teaching, etc. However, soon enough, this is going to be moot.

[automaticdoor]

Clicked post too soon! Moot in that everyone is going to have stuff out there on them. I am in my mid-twenties and my stuff is way cleaner than many of my younger peers' stuff is, so I feel okay. I think my personal bona fides speak louder. Nothing unsavory is online.

[automaticdoor]

(Or maybe you could just Google! Wow! Thanks, Google Groups! [HUGE GLARE])

[kisekileia]

I tried to do this fix, and Google told me that Web History wasn't enabled. Does that mean they're not tracking my history? If so, does it also mean they'll continue not tracking my history?

[MercuryBlue]

kisekileia: it does and it should.

[kisekileia]

Excellent!

[Timothy (TRiG)]

I was thinking of closing my Google accounts and moving to something based in the EU anyway (EU Data Protection Act > US PATRIOT Act). The problem is, I've not yet found anything based in the EU. Gmail is a good interface.

TRiG.

[Certainly Sylvia]

Timmothy: gmx.com is not bad. They also include numerous free aliases and redirects and you can access gmail and such from them too - import :)

[Mmy]

@Amaryllis: If you happen to drop by and see this -- have I permission to email you?

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Certainly Sylvia, GMX is based in the USA.

TRiG.

[Anonymous]

they have a us site too, but they are actually based in germany http://who.is/whois/gmx.co.uk/