Are you a Google user? Well, let me laugh at you and congratulate to voluntary participation in violation of your own privacy. As an average internet sheep, it is quite possible that you have a Gmail account and/or a Google toolbar installed. And since you have figured out how to use the internet, you would have already heard about that abomination called Google Buzz. Given that internet’s giant did their homework of brainwashing their brainless sheep to believe that Google Buzz is the next best thing, you have likely fallen for the propaganda and spread the hatred upon others by using it. However there are some who are aware of questionable privacy policies and blatant violations of such by Google so let me bring up some of the facts to your attention and most of all – show you How to Turn Off Google Buzz.

Did you know that the moment you click on Google Buzz button in your Gmail accounts that Google Buzz sets you up with followers automatically? People you email the most will be added as your followers list without you or them consenting to it. But that’s just the beginning. Since Google wants to create a tool that would be a competition to Twitter or Facebook, strangers will be able to “follow” you on Google Buzz (kind of the same way as it works on Twitter) and view your profile. Because Google has virtually no respect for your privacy, everyone who views your profile will get to see who is on your list of followers and who follows you. That may not seem like a big deal to you at first, but realize this:

• If your wife check out your Google Buzz profile and sees that your ex-girlfriend is on your list of followers – what kind of conclusions is she gonna come to? You have never added her there, Google did because you sent her a few emails believing that you’re doing it by utilizing a private tool (LOL, Gmail a private tool?)
• If your employer checks out your Google Buzz profile and finds out that you are following one of their competitors – what kind of conclusions is he going to come to? Again – perhaps you were looking for new opportunities but unsure you wanted to quit your job yet, so you looked around at other options. It’s your own private business, your current employer needs not know about it but through Google Buzz he can find it out.

If Google Buzz automatically makes the information on whom you send the most emails public for anyone to see, people could be coming to wrong conclusions or could be learning about stuff related to you they have no business knowing about – or you don’t want them to know at this time. But Google has no respect for that. That’s why it’s crucial to turn off Google Buzz before it can destroy your life. You can’t protect yourself from being spied on by Google, but you can protect yourself from people around you learning about perks from your life you may not wish them to know.

So how do I turn off Google Buzz? How do I disable it so the list of people I email to the most as well as the list of people who email me the most doesn’t become publically available? Just log in to your Gmail account and scroll all the way down. You will see the tiny link there which reads: “turn off buzz” – click on it (see picture above for reference). Make sure it changes into “turn on buzz”. That should disable your account and quit broadcasting your personal information, the information others have no business learning about.

Google violates your privacy by default. It has been like that for ever and it is no different with Google Buzz. Instead of giving you the opportunity to enable the sharing of personal information, Google automatically shares it, unless you disable it. But now that you do know how to turn off Google Buzz, go do it cause Google itself won’t. Google is also a master in concealing or not making absolutely clear the risks you are exposing yourself to when you use their applications. Together with blatant privacy violations, one has to be very careful when using Google services. It is near impossible to get out of its clutches now as Google already has so much information about you they have a pretty clear idea about who you are, what you do, where you live, where you work, how many times a day you fart and how your impotency treatment is progressing. But at least take steps to prevent other people from learning too much about you and turn off Google Buzz immediately.

Further Reading:

• Google Buzz – Beware of Privacy Invasion
• Asa Dotzler Suggest Switching to Bing from Google on FireFox Blog
• Google is Watching You
• Google Street View Funny Scene – Two Guys in Scuba Gear Chasing the Car
• The Lost City of Atlantis Discovered – See it on Google Maps

All people with 2 or more brain cells know that Mozilla Firefox sucks as internet browser. Smart people have always known it but due to anti-Microsoft campaigns, less savvy individuals were brainwashed to believe that FF is the best thing since plastic dildo and despite complete suckiness continued using it. Google joined the bullshit and promoted Firefox as well but that only lasted until some Google individuals decided to create their own failed browser – Chrome. The near perfect relationship between Mozilla and Google started to stand on shaky grounds. And now, high rank personnel at Mozilla, such as the director of community development Asa Dotzler suggest switching the default search engine settings of your Firefox from Google to Bing.

This is nothing new to me. I have been questioning Google and their potential violations of people’s privacy ever since Google started to exist. Google is the biggest depository of on line behavior in the world and as it seems, they only provide their services (primarily search engine services) in exchange for permission to spy on you. In order to use any of Google’s services, you must enable Google to put cookie with unique identifier on your computer. Each time you log in to any of Google’s services, regardless of whether it’s your computer or not, this unique identifier follows you around and tracks everything you do on line. It likely stores all of your behavior on Google’s servers that never get erased. Even if you think you are deleting something, it’s only deleted from your access pane, but Google keeps it. Do you think that if you use Gmail and delete a compromising message that it is erased from the face of the world. LMFAO, think again you moran!

No my friend, if you look around the internet, you will find lots of evidence that Google keeps all of this info because it’s a valuable information about your behavior on line. It exactly identifies you so they know precisely who you are, where you live and what you do.

Imagine this for example:

When you repeatedly search for directions from place A to place B using Google Maps, and one of those directions associated with your searches repeats often, it is assumable that it’s either your place of residence or work. Thus the unique identifier that is contained within Google’s cookie could quite potentially identify where the person that this Google ID belongs to lives or works.

It gets far worse if you also have Google toolbar installed and if you turn on Google History, then there is no hiding about what you did, where you went, whom you fist fucked, or what your favorite condom flavor is. This information is stored right before your face and you consented to it. This way Google knows everything about you, because they have been collecting this information that identifies you for years.

It took people at Firefox quite a while to realize and admit to that. Asa Dotzler brought it up on his blog and offered recommendation to switch from Google to Bing with instructions on how to do it, particularly because of privacy issues. Yet Mozilla is also one of the reasons why so many people became victims of what could be Google’s abuse. Because half brained internet users who were bullshitted into using Firefox had Google set as their default search engine. Well, even though they suck, at least Asa Dotzler did eventually realize the potential threat and admitted the dangers.

The main reason why Asa Dotzler recommends swishing to Bing from Google is Google’s extension of personalised search which basically means that the search engine will store any and all information about what you search for unless you specifically stop it. In other words, this collection is not turned off by default, it is turned on without your consent and remains on unless you turn it off. Not that Google will stop collecting data about you, but this way they do it with your consent because you haven’t told them not to, so they have a legal right to do it.

The video below is from the interview with Eric Schmidt, Google’s SEO who addressed the questions about privacy like this:

That’s right, according to Google’s CEO:

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

So let me translate to you what Google’s CEO is saying. He says, that if you search for a divorce lawyer but don’t want your wife to know, you’re doing something wrong. If you are searching what jobs are available in your area but don’t want your current boss to know about it, you’re doing something wrong. He believes that if you do something that is private to you, it’s something bad. Google remains the most ridiculous company ever and their CEO is a good proof of that.

Eric Schmidt continued by saying:

“If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is search engines, including Google, do retain that information for some time….. it is possible that this information could be made available to the authorities.”

Let me translate this again – Google CEO basically confirmed everything I have been saying all this time. Google does collect all form of personally identifiable data about you, stores it all and waits for the moment to use it against you, when need be. Google can and Google will use information they have on you and they have a lot. They collect absolutely everything and paste it together to get a perfect picture of who you are, where you are, what you do and what you will do next. This is how I translate the words of Eric Schmidt that came right out of his mouth.

I’m no longer the only one who knows that. At this point of time, even Asa Dotzler from Firefox knows that and wants everyone to know. Firefox fanboys can get off their high horses and listen for once (wait, they still have no more than two brain cells… Ahh well). Even though on his blog Asa Dotzler has been reluctant to say it as bluntly as I do, the message is clear. Google’s privacy policy sucks and it is time to switch to Bing, the privacy policy of which is more user friendly. In other words, Bing doesn’t base their business model on spying on people and sharing personal information with third parties without your consent. I have switched to Bing a long time ago. How about you?

To read the post posted by Asa Dotzler on Mozilla Blog, head over to weblogs.mozillazine.org

Asa Dotzler photo by ReyBrujo, Wikipedia

Further Reading:

• How to Turn Off Google Buzz
• Google Buzz – Beware of Privacy Invasion
• Google is Watching You
• Bing Maps Adds 41TB of Aerial and Birds Eye Photography – Awesome
• Google Chrome Browser – Not Another FAIL from Google!

Google is watching you in more ways than one. It is no secret that Google is the biggest repository of people’s online behaviors. If you have used Google but once on your computer, a cookie has been nested in it that tracks everything you do on line and every track of it is stored in Google databases. It gets far worse if you use Google toolbar and further worsens if you agreed for Google History to store your own data for yourself to see. But Google is watching you in more ways than by just tracking your activities on line.

As satellite technology improves, Google Maps views of our planes from space get more detailed. Then you have Google Street View with pictures taken by cameras mounted on cars and trikes riding the streets of popular cities. Google claims that it respects people’s privacy and their software automatically blurs people’s faces and license plate numbers. While the idea of being able to see what streets you may wish to visit look like, there is also an idea of one of those Google tricycles may capture your precious ass in an awkward moment and pictures of it will be all over Google. Imagine you get captured walking with toilet paper stuck to your shoe or vomiting after a good night out. Blurring my face my ass. Google is watching you and while there is a lot of convenience to being able to look up stuff, the inconvenience of being stripped of any and all privacy negates the purpose.

Oh, that cookie that Google embeds in your computer never quits and if you increase your computer’s security settings so it rejects cookies, all Google services quit functioning. You will get an error message appealing on your to enable cookies or else Google won’t provide any of their services. They want something in return for their “services”. They want to know everything about you. And given that Google are good buddies with CIA, this whole “Google is Watching You” phenomenon should make everyone feel uneasy. And rightly so.

Further Reading:

• How to Turn Off Google Buzz
• Google Street View Funny Scene – Two Guys in Scuba Gear Chasing the Car
• Google Buzz – Beware of Privacy Invasion
• Asa Dotzler Suggest Switching to Bing from Google on FireFox Blog
• The Lost City of Atlantis Discovered – See it on Google Maps