Google's "Privacy Policy" Oxymoron

Marketers are rapidly overtaking lawyers as my most despised profession. The marketers take a marvelous tool like the internet and them promptly abuse it. [As an example of non-internet marketing abuses, our local Walmart now has small TV screens in almost every aisle that broadcast nothing but a steady stream of advertisements. And our Exxon gas stations now have a small TV screen between each pair of gas tanks to promote the products sold inside the local store. Gag me with the proverbial spoon!]

Here are some measures I have already taken to try to limit the intrusion of marketers into my internet web browser:

• turn cookies off
  (selectively allow for those sites that have valid security need like on-line banking)
• turn JavaScript off, then selectively allow as necessary
• turn pop-up windows off
• even turn images off to block gif animations (selectively allowing images for things like editorial cartoons, of course!)
• use only secure, encrypted Google (https://encrypted.google.com) to search, not the usual open and unencrypted http://www.google.com/
• recently installed add-on called "Ghostery" on my Firefox browser: a real eye-opener to the vast array of entities tracking us on almost every web site. As a result, I have chosen to block everything listed as 3rd party elements (820 as of this writing!)

I am not happy with what I'm seeing and hearing about Google's changes to their so-called privacy policy that became effective on 1 March 2012. I give them credit for publicizing the changes in advance, but the term "privacy" in this case a gross misnomer. On the contrary, they instead encompass ways to increase the range and scope of sharing user information with an expanding base of commercial vendors. At this rate, "Google privacy policy" is destined to become a classic oxymoron along with my previous favorites: military intelligence, congressional ethics, rap music, and Microsoft Works.

My previous internet service provider (Verizon) assigned dynamic IP addresses, so I would shut down each night and log on the next day to a different IP address. Unfortunately, my current internet service provider (Comcast) assigns static IP addresses. That means that even though I still shut down every night, I log on the next day to the very same external IP address I had the day before. That makes it far too easy for transactions to be identified to me over long periods of time, thus making it easier for vendors to compile my browsing history.

Consequently, I now take special additional measures aimed specifically at Google:

• When I check my Google mail account, I read the mail and then promptly sign out. No searches or other transactions while signed in to gmail.
• Same thing for Google+: whenever I sign in to Google+, I read the postings, make my own posting(s), if any, and then promptly sign out. Again, no searches or other transactions while signed in to Google+.
• Same applies to Google's Blogspot: sign in, post new blog, then immediately sign out. Again, no searches or any other transactions while signed in to Google's Blogspot.
• Ditto for our family web page posted to Google's web site hosting service at sites.google.com. Same principle applies: sign in, make changes or additions to my web page, and promptly sign out. No other searches or other transactions while signed in to Google's web site service.
• Likewise for my individualized Google search profile (iGoogle). In addition to selecting a baseball stadium background, I have selected a variety of widgets to show MLB/NFL/NBA scores, the performance of various stock market indices as well as my own mutual fund holdings, news briefs, weather updates, etc. This is the most insidious because I must sign in to see all of this information and I am sitting right there at the Google search page! Even so, the same principle applies: sign on, view the information, and then sign out.

You can see how pervasive Google has become to my internet life, but one clear pattern should now become clear: execute no Google searches while signed in to any Google account!

As a result, in addition to all the privacy measures I outlined above, I have now for the first time in my life begun experimenting with using manual proxy servers chosen from a list of publicly available (i.e., free) proxies. The primary purpose, of course, is to maintain anonymity by hiding my readily identifiable Comcast static IP address.

A quick summary of results after changing to manual proxies, especially the https proxy: Facebook and Google mail require verification (e.g. a CAPTCHA input screen and/or answering a security question) with each proxy change. By contrast, Twitter, Comcast, and Yahoo mail presented no problems at all.

My initial thought was to simply disable my manual proxies and revert to "Use system [default] proxy settings" whenever I access Facebook or Google mail. However, I quickly rejected that notion because Facebook and Google are the most aggressive profilers out there. As such, they are the prime target for security measures such as these.

I have instead settled for a compromise that while not quite eliminating all problems, does greatly reduce them: use manual proxies for the standard http but not for https. If something is securely encrypted already, then I presumably will remain moderately safe even without https proxies and all of their associated problems.

I now feel slightly more comfortable with that compromise because of another recent discovery I just made: my Google Web History has apparently never been activated. You can check your own status by logging on to any of your Google accounts (gmail, Google+, Blogspot, etc.) and then visiting the https://www.google.com/history/ url. In my case, I see the following hogwash narrative:

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Web History makes search better

Your Web History includes searches you've done on Google and pages you've clicked in search results. Web History allows you to:

See personalized search predictions as you type.
Get results and recommendations that are tailored to your preferences.
Search the full content of pages you've already seen.

You can view and edit your Web History from any computer by signing in to your Google Account. Learn more.

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This is followed by two buttons labeled "No thanks" and "Turn Web History on." Guess which one I selected.

If your history has already been activated, you will have to explore how to turn it off if you still can now that the 1 March 2012 deadline has passed. More than likely, you will have to experiment with settings to minimize future tracking of your comings and goings. Good luck with that!

And if all of this sounds slightly paranoid, just remember what Sigmund Freud himself once noted: even paranoids can have real enemies!