If anyone can help me understand, in a broad sense, how Google tracks you when across the internet when you use their services.
I am currently signed up for Google 1 AI so I can use the Gemini in Google Docs. If have the web apps on my Mac and apps on my phone, Google shouldn’t have access to what’s on my devices unless I give them access, correct?
I understand they can track what I do on their website but can they track anything else? I only use this email address for Google services.
Google, like all websites, knows your ip address and everything you click on when on their sites. And using cookies or images sites can learn other sites you have visited and advertisements you have seen and/or have visited.
In addition, even if you aren’t tracked many sites sell your info to data brokers. And companies like Facebook have been known to purchase it.
Since you are a Google user you can set your preferences and see/delete the information that Google has. I turn off some tracking and set other information, that I find useful, to delete in 90 days.
A lot of other websites use Google Analytics to track the usage of their own sites. This information also helps Google track users who aren’t actually using google.com
For the most part I do not use Google products other than Gmail and that only from Apple Mail. DuckDuckGo is my search engine of choice. My web browsers are stuffed with ad blocking extensions (Ublock Origins, Ghostery, FBP, and when needs must GreaseMonkey) and they are active even here on MPU. Also reject all cookies on sight. Even if Google collects tracking information it does them no good because the targeted ads get blatted away.
I guess what my question comes down to, and let me know if I am completely off with this because I I’m not the most technical person, if I’m using Googles services and they have my IP address but no one else has that IP address because I’m using a VPN and other blockers then I shouldn’t be able to be followed around the internet?
Am I way off and sounding crazy?
I feel like I’m way off on my understanding of how all of this works.
You might be less trackable using the Tor browser. It masks your originating IP address. To really double down on such masking it has (or had) a feature whereby it was possible to obfuscate the country you appear to be stationed in. Whistleblower sites recommend using it. Wikileaks also recommend it.
Leave to you to decide if it is worth going that far.
If you are using Google services, you’re being tracked 1000% while logged in. Even signed out, while a VPN can encrypt your traffic, there are other techniques to id you, browser fingerprinting for example.
The old adage, you can run but you can’t hide is the current state of affairs. You are being followed around the internet by Google, Facebook, ad networks and more. You can reduce your exposure, but not drop it to zero.
Companies pay Google to show their advertisements to those people that Google thinks will be interested in the product. They don’t sell your data. If they did companies would not need Google to be their “matchmaker” again. In this respect they are doing the same thing as Apple. Apple knows everything we do on our devices, and they use that information to show us advertisements in the App Stores and News app, etc.
And Google doesn’t use data from your paid accounts for advertising. They aren’t the boogyman that some make them out to be. Doctors and lawyers, the state of Maryland and the US Army are Google Workspace customers.
No one can stay anonymous. Using ad blockers, etc. can help but there are all kinds of ways to identify you. Every time you purchase something with a check or credit card you are giving that website, gas station, or grocery store, etc. your information - which they might sell to data brokers.
I’ve been buying from online companies like Amazon for years so they know who I am, where I live, the books and music I buy, and even “boxers or briefs”. I protect information that I would not want made public by keeping it off the Internet.
Tor can mask your location and the sites you visit. But your ISP and possibly others will know you are using Tor which might attract unwanted attention.
You can always pay a data broker to see what info they have on you. I don’t personally know anyone who’s done this, but have read a few articles and let’s just say, they knew just about everything.
While much of the data collected purports to be anonymized, in practice, it’s often rather easy to suss out who’s who. And that doesn’t even begin to address bad actors, selling data they shouldn’t or illegally collecting it in the first place.
The value of the data is much greater than the penalty for wrongfully collecting, using and selling it.
I agree. In the US there have been so many leaks that everybody has probably had their data exposed. In the last decade Los Angeles School District leaked the personal data of 600,000 students, Marriott International leaked info on 500,000,000 guests, Yahoo exposed 3 Billion user accounts, and the list goes on and on. I’ve been notified that two of the three major credit bureaus has leaked my financial data.
In 1999 the CEO of Sun Microsystems said: “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it”. IMO, he was right. Our only hope is laws that protect how our data can be used.
I understand that if I’m logged in to Google they can track everything I do on their website, it I guess I didn’t realize just being logged in, even on Safari, would allow them to track me everywhere else.
That’s where I’m at. All the stuff I’m doing with Google is work related and I don’t care if Google knows about it. It more of them following me outside of that that annoys me.
I’ve accepted the fact that anyone can look up my name, birthday, address, email, and phone number.
I guess what I’m really trying to do is make it has hard as possible for people to collect or trace back to me my data and have a minimal foot print online.
Google is probably not the worst of your problems for privacy. It is a problem. The data brokers are a much bigger problem. Basically your browser is fingerprinted. Let’s pretend a website embeds an ad. Website/ad will ask the browser some questions and the sum of the questions uniquely identifies you. E.g. Screen Size, fonts that are downloaded, browser type and version; do you accept cookies; extensions installed; …
Use of Apple’s private relay or VPN might help a bit, because your browsing habits will be mixed in with others. I think Private Relay is probably better because more people will appear at the same endpoint. However the uniqueness of browser fingerprint will probably overcome that.
Recently I have also started experimenting with Google’s Gemini and am using a site-specific browser which I use for Gemini and nothing else. Am I safe in assuming that Google’s tracking will be confined to this SSB?
As an aside, I have noticed in recent weeks when doing Google searches in my regular browser (Arc) that a message will pop up every few days asking whether I want to log in to my Google account or continue without logging in. I naturally choose to continue without logging in, but this didn’t happen previously.
