Internet Privacy - Where Does It Go from Here?

[DonRocks]

Undoubtedly related to Mark Zuckerberg going before the Senate these past couple of days, I got this email from Google today. 

Can someone read it and summarize it for me?  Reading this stuff after working on the website for hour-after-hour makes my eyes glaze over.

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Dear Google Analytics Administrator,

Over the past year we've shared how we are preparing to meet the requirements of the GDPR, the new data protection law coming into force on May 25, 2018. Today we are sharing more about important product changes that may impact your Google Analytics data, and other updates in preparation for the GDPR. This e-mail requires your attention and action even if your users are not based in the European Economic Area (EEA).

Product Updates

Today we introduced granular data retention controls that allow you to manage how long your user and event data is held on our servers. Starting May 25, 2018, user and event data will be retained according to these settings; Google Analytics will automatically delete user and event data that is older than the retention period you select. Note that these settings will not affect reports based on aggregated data.

Action: Please review these data retention settings and modify as needed.

Before May 25, we will also introduce a new user deletion tool that allows you to manage the deletion of all data associated with an individual user (e.g. site visitor) from your Google Analytics and/or Analytics 360 properties. This new automated tool will work based on any of the common identifiers sent to Analytics Client ID (i.e. standard Google Analytics first party cookie), User ID (if enabled), or App Instance ID (if using Google Analytics for Firebase). Details will be available on our Developers site shortly.

As always, we remain committed to providing ways to safeguard your data. Google Analytics and Analytics 360 will continue to offer a number of other features and policies around data collection, use, and retention to assist you in safeguarding your data. For example, features for customizable cookie settings, privacy controls, data sharing settings, data deletion on account termination, and IP anonymization may prove useful as you evaluate the impact of the GDPR for your company’s unique situation and Analytics implementation.

Contract And User Consent Related Updates

Contract changes

Google has been rolling out updates to our contractual terms for many products since last August, reflecting Google’s status as either data processor or data controller under the new law (see full classification of our Ads products). The new GDPR terms will supplement your current contract with Google and will come into force on May 25, 2018.

In both Google Analytics and Analytics 360, Google operates as a processor of personal data that is handled in the service.

For Google Analytics clients based outside the EEA and all Analytics 360 customers, updated data processing terms are available for your review/acceptance in your accounts (Admin ➝ Account Settings). For Google Analytics clients based in the EEA, updated data processing terms have already been included in your terms. If you don’t contract with Google for your use of our measurement products, you should seek advice from the parties with whom you contract.

Updated EU User Consent Policy

Per our advertising features policy, both Google Analytics and Analytics 360 customers using advertising features must comply with Google’s EU User Consent Policy. Google's EU User Consent Policy is being updated to reflect new legal requirements of the GDPR. It sets out your responsibilities for making disclosures to, and obtaining consent from, end users of your sites and apps in the EEA.

Action: Even if you are not based in the EEA, please consider together with your legal department or advisors, whether your business will be in scope of the GDPR when using Google Analytics and Analytics 360 and review/accept the updated data processing terms as well as define your path for compliance with the EU User Consent Policy.

Find Out More

You can refer to privacy.google.com/businesses to learn more about Google’s data privacy policies and approach, as well as view our data processing terms.

We will continue to share further information on our plans in the coming weeks and will update relevant developer and help center documentation where necessary.

Thanks,

The Google Analytics Team

[DaveO]

I got the same stuff.  I had also been forewarned on this by my internet guru.   She has been similarly digesting it.  She is learning about it in greater depth than me.

It actually directly comes from how the EU will be tightening up on google and other websites and has to do with rulings coming out of the EU about a right to privacy.   Damn I went over it with her and did find some simple pieces on it, that gave me background.  I can't recall the articles but search on it...its being diced, described all over the web.

It appears we will apply it on a number of websites.  It has "something to do" with the data you have on individuals.  It might VERY WELL impact dr.com because you have membership data.  I'd look into it.

It seems to be more involved than just your website.  Our little businesses make sales, get information about people get cc information, private info etc.  At this moment I think our smb's will require an "audit" and we are going to have to change some things on our sites to be more transparent.   My advice is research it till you find a digestible article or two.

[DonRocks]

Okay, this has perhaps gone to a new level.

I'm in a *hotel* watching Rocky III, and the same, damned, obscure, seemingly tailor-made-for-me commercial just aired. Could it be?

[zgast]

11 minutes ago, DonRocks said:

Okay, this has perhaps gone to a new level.

I'm in a *hotel* watching Rocky III, and the same, damned, obscure, seemingly tailor-made-for-me commercial just aired. Could it be?

We cut the cord about a year ago. Our commercials - via an internet tv provider - are now localized to feature, for example, the closest Verizon Wireless store with the address and phone number on the commercial.

[DaveO]

10 hours ago, DonRocks said:

Okay, this has perhaps gone to a new level.

I'm in a *hotel* watching Rocky III, and the same, damned, obscure, seemingly tailor-made-for-me commercial just aired. Could it be?

Go into google, Facebook and Twitter and reset all your privacy settings to the extent it is possible.  That will help.

On the hotel side, that sucks.  I assume your hotel has your email and has “ sold” or made it available to advertisers who have it via search, social media and/or any apps that have that email.

Read the terms of service of these social media, apps, and google services.  There are cleverly worded terms of service that give them broad power which translates into at the minimum following you everywhere b/c you visited some site on one of those internet properties.  The terms are remarkably non explicit but vague with powerful implications that invade one’s privacy.   

Also there is rampant use of something called remarketing which overlaps with the above.  You search something one time for any reason and the web entities remarket ads for that entity and hit those ads up in your internet usage all the time.  As an individual I hate it. Certain web marketers I know swear by it.   I tried it for one of our small businesses but I couldn’t see its effectiveness in our cases and dropped it.  I consider it terribly obnoxious.

[DaveO]

I'm about to walk out of my office, but as I was scanning stuff on the web, on a news paper site a large ad came up for IHG.   IHG///   hmmm.   I commented on it on this site.  When I saw a question about it I had looked up the Willard, the Carr Company and IHG.  I did it off this working computer.

Now that search has been captured in search....and IHG probably uses remarketing.  The caught that I had visited the site once through cookies and they will probably show me that damned ad or other IHG ads for weeks or months.  Who knows how long.  They didn't have to blast me with the ads.  They have the option to filter users (found by cookies) who visited 2 or more pages, particular pages....or they can remarket to everyone under the sun who hits their home page.  

If you want to limit web tracking of activities do the following:   Search using duckduckgo.com , Don't use any social media.  Find a (probably paid) email service, that doesn't track or follow you.  Don't use any services that google supplies such as Youtube etc.   They will all track cookies from your activities on the web.   Even if you use duckduckgo, they do monetize using ads via Bing.com (microsoft) so you still might see some ads (I'm not sure of that).   Also get rid of an android phone and use an IPhone.  There is less tracking on an IPhone, but I don't think it is tracking free.  Also don't sign up for Apps.   Most apps today use all sorts of tracking. 

All of the above is akin to getting free TV (back in the day).  Advertisers paid for the TV companies.  You had to watch the ads.  You didn't have to pay to watch shows.  Originally cable had few or no ads.  Now you pay for cable AND you get ads galore (crappy deal). 

I run the web activities for some businesses.  We want wide exposure.  So I use google.  I use social media.  I don't like the tracking but I live with it. 

Parenthetically the most invasive I felt was after driving up to the NY area a couple of years ago for a long weekend.  Over the weekend my cell was always in my pocket.   The drives up and back were leisurely.  I stopped twice at rest stops on I-95 both trips.   Because at the time I was using a variety of google services, was putting up google reviews, etc...They showed me a map tracking my entire trip and all the commercial places at which I lingered;  the rest stops, hotels, a venue, restaurants, blah blah blah.  The only thing they screwed up was when I ate at a restaurant in the second story of a mall.  They showed my visit as the mall not the restaurant.  (maybe their tracking can't tell what floor you are on)

I couldn't believe the maps.  They showed the darn rest stops.  They distinguished between moving and being stationery.  That damn cell phone was probably tracking when I sat on the porcelain throne in the highway rest stops and wasn't walking.  I wonder if it tracks height of the phone relative to the floor, but not above multiple floors.  Its incredibly intrusive. 

Anyway google was encouraging me to write a google review of every damn place I visited.  Frankly google wanted endless reviews for their descriptive boxes about businesses when you look them up in search.   The more reviews they had, the fewer times people would visit a site like yelp.   F**k them.  I was a pawn in their efforts to control and monopolize the web and destroy other sites.

And that is the world we live in.

(my $0.02 rant)

[DonRocks]

I guess I should add that I was watching Rocky III on the hotel's TV!

We've recently been talking about baseball cards (and I've Googled plenty) - I've been deluged with vintage baseball card pictures on my ads now for weeks, but I actually don't mind it.

[Count Bobulescu]

As to where it goes from here........I don't currently know enough about the topic to have a strong opinion, but am having to learn. I suspect that the current backlash against big tech may eventually lead to an EU GDPR (lite) style regulation in the US.  The jury is still out on whether or not it has been a success. 

Coincidently, I read recently that in 2017, before GDPR, Google paid more in fines to the EU, $5B, than it did to the rest of the world in taxes $4B.

[DaveO]

As it applies to apps and their applications and usage here is stunning information on the loss of privacy

[DaveO]

Yesterday, in conjunction with National Cheesecake Day:

I researched cheesecakes and purchased a medium sized strawberry cheesecake from CC Factory for about $37/38.  It depleted the sizable CC Factory gift card I had from the beginning of the year and was the third cheesecake our staff had shared.  It reminded me that I hadn't purchased a cheesecake from the delivery service for Carnegie Deli so I checked that out on Google.  Similarly sized cheesecakes sell for about $79-84.  Big price difference.

It also reminded me of a promise here from several years ago to purchase a Carnegie's Cheesecake as that recipe is the one I and probably thousands of rough age and location peers swear by as it is the recipe of a once favorite cheesecake in North Jersey, the chef's son and his recipe moved to the Carnegie following a devastating fire that destroyed the Claremont Diner  (story and a better story here)

All that being said it reminded me that I hadn't ordered a Carnegie Cheesecake.  So I'll do that in the next month or so.

Now back to the purpose of this thread.  Having researched the Carnegie Cheesecake I immediately started seeing ads for Goldbelly, the firm that ships the Carnegie Cheesecakes on Facebook and on Google Ads on Newspaper sites   Endlessly.  They immediately popped up.

That is the result of the overwhelming level of personal data that web sites pull from your searches.  Research ANYTHING, and if there is an advertising connection websites such as Facebook and Google and endless others will thrust those ads before your web searching eyes....EVERYWHERE..

So much for privacy.    There are sites that protect privacy.  Google and its browser chrome are not among them.  They completely ignore privacy, and in fact violate promises for privacy.  Their terms of service, so broadly written allow them to identify your search preferences to thousands of buyers. 

Fry their monopolistic butts is my response.

Meanwhile in a month or so I'll try the Carnegie Cheesecake and report back on that cheesecake that was the "best" of my childhood and the lives of possibly in the aggregate millions in Northern Jersey in the 1950's, 60's and 70's in that section of Northern NJ.

[DonRocks]

I highly recommend the Netflix documentary, "The Great Hack" - it's a compelling two hours of viewing.

If you Google it, you'll see there are numerous articles out about it in the past week - catch it now while it's on the front burner.

"Review: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid of Big Data. The Documentary 'The Great Hack' Tells Us Why" by Kenneth Turan on latimes.com

Remember the name "Brittany Kaiser" - you'll get to know her very well. 

[TrelayneNYC]

Privacy depends on people keeping things off limits - if you never say X about Y, how is Z going to know?

As of today, 99% of my content on Facebook is gone. Disappeared, eliminated, obliterated, etc. They really make it hard for you to leave but I managed and it's been extremely liberating.

[DonRocks]

3 hours ago, TrelayneNYC said:

Privacy depends on people keeping things off limits - if you never say X about Y, how is Z going to know?

As of today, 99% of my content on Facebook is gone. Disappeared, eliminated, obliterated, etc. They really make it hard for you to leave but I managed and it's been extremely liberating.

[As long as we're on the topic, it's as good a time as any to say that this website will *never* violate people's privacy, in any way - I can't control what internet browsers do, but I can promise that I will never make a dime by violating our members' trust. I dream of a MacArthur Grant walking into my front door one day, but I'll never campaign for it, and I won't care if it doesn't arrive.

In other words: All that stuff I promised in 2005? It still applies.]

[Count Bobulescu]

18 hours ago, TrelayneNYC said:

Privacy depends on people keeping things off limits - if you never say X about Y, how is Z going to know?

As of today, 99% of my content on Facebook is gone. Disappeared, eliminated, obliterated, etc. They really make it hard for you to leave but I managed and it's been extremely liberating.

I feel fortunate never to have posted much of anything on FB. I reluctantly joined to appease family members, and was quickly surprised by the extent of digging into my background.

Now, they're on my list, but low down, as potential advertising platform. Makes me feel dirty, but I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to look at it as my revenge.

[DaveO]

On 7/31/2019 at 11:53 AM, DaveO said:

Yesterday, in conjunction with National Cheesecake Day:

I researched cheesecakes and purchased a medium sized strawberry cheesecake from CC Factory for about $37/38.  It depleted the sizable CC Factory gift card I had from the beginning of the year and was the third cheesecake our staff had shared.  It reminded me that I hadn't purchased a cheesecake from the delivery service for Carnegie Deli so I checked that out on Google.  Similarly sized cheesecakes sell for about $79-84.  Big price difference.

It also reminded me of a promise here from several years ago to purchase a Carnegie's Cheesecake as that recipe is the one I and probably thousands of rough age and location peers swear by as it is the recipe of a once favorite cheesecake in North Jersey, the chef's son and his recipe moved to the Carnegie following a devastating fire that destroyed the Claremont Diner  (story and a better story here)

All that being said it reminded me that I hadn't ordered a Carnegie Cheesecake.  So I'll do that in the next month or so.

Now back to the purpose of this thread.  Having researched the Carnegie Cheesecake I immediately started seeing ads for Goldbelly, the firm that ships the Carnegie Cheesecakes on Facebook and on Google Ads on Newspaper sites   Endlessly.  They immediately popped up.

That is the result of the overwhelming level of personal data that web sites pull from your searches.  Research ANYTHING, and if there is an advertising connection websites such as Facebook and Google and endless others will thrust those ads before your web searching eyes....EVERYWHERE..

So much for privacy.    There are sites that protect privacy.  Google and its browser chrome are not among them.  They completely ignore privacy, and in fact violate promises for privacy.  Their terms of service, so broadly written allow them to identify your search preferences to thousands of buyers. 

Fry their monopolistic butts is my response.

Meanwhile in a month or so I'll try the Carnegie Cheesecake and report back on that cheesecake that was the "best" of my childhood and the lives of possibly in the aggregate millions in Northern Jersey in the 1950's, 60's and 70's in that section of Northern NJ.

It has been 4 weeks.  I'm still seeing the same DAMN ads.   Frankly it gets old fast.   Clicking on the ads would incur a cost to the advertiser.  Haven't done that....yet.  

So what occurs on my end if I click?   Will the same damn ads run for another unending dreadful month...or will they stop.  

[Ericandblueboy]

You can hide those specific ads.

[Count Bobulescu]

43 minutes ago, DaveO said:

It has been 4 weeks.  I'm still seeing the same DAMN ads.   Frankly it gets old fast.   Clicking on the ads would incur a cost to the advertiser.  Haven't done that....yet.  

So what occurs on my end if I click?   Will the same damn ads run for another unending dreadful month...or will they stop.  

I get a daily solicitation email from a marketing vendor, that I told was not getting my biz. I save them unopened. When I've collected 100, I'll contact them and tell them I'm thinking of opening and marking them all as spam.