Google to Users: We Own You

by Bryan Wilcutt

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal." -- Einstein The Staff at Curious Internet received an email from Google recently.  Chances are you received the same one:

Dear Google user,

We're getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that's a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.

We believe this stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service at http://www.google.com/policies. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.

Google goes on to exclaim what an exciting move this is, how happy you will be, birds will be singing, flowers will bloom.  If you didn’t get their email that’s okay, they are merely sending out this page to everyone who is registered to them.

Let’s get to brass tax and analyze what is really going on here.

CHANGES

Here’s what Google is claiming and what it really means to you. 

1. What they collect:

A new single policy that does what you need.   If a policy did what we need, it’d keep Google’s nose out of our business.  The new policy does quite the opposite.  In fact, it allows Google to track every damn thing you’ve ever done from the first baby steps you took  to your last gasping breath!  In their policy, they claim they collect the following information for you:

Info that you normally give them (name, address, bio/profile, changes, etc.)

Info that they collect from you using their service … which includes referrer (where you came from), agent (what type of system you are using), IP addresses you’ve used, MAC addresses you’ve used, telephone numbers you’ve used or called, text messages you’ve sent or received, time and date for every damn thing you do, etc.

            Info about your location, including GPS (if available), the various BST (cell towers) you’ve connected with via your phone, how fast you move (such as driving), etc.

            Info about things you’ve stored off-line in some “cloud” somewhere including analyzing that information for whatever reason they seem fit to give.

            Info about cookies and other information stored from other websites that have nothing to do with Google.  Good to see what the competition is doing, no?

2. How they use what they collect:

They use the info to “protect, maintain and improve them, to develop new ones and to protect Google (from you, you monster!)

They use the info to share across all services (one name/password fits all Google services) and your online foto is now shared as well.

They use the info for the off chance you contact Google—probably to complain about their lousy policy.  Since when has Google ever answered a consumer question?  Hello? Can you say “Microsoft Customer Service”??

They use the info to customize your “user experience”.   You ever wonder why the gun industry doesn’t use that term, “user experience?”

They use the collected info to share with other users.  For example, if you’re birthdate shows you are 25 on one Google service, and 87 on another, then everyone will know about it.  Cougar Power has been diminished!

They will kindly “ask” you if it’s okay to use your info for any other purpose.  What other purpose is left?!

3. What you can do to protect yourself:

You can no longer remove information from Google after Mach 1^st, 2012.  You can add to it, you can change it.  If you change it, the delta changes are always stored.  But, you cannot delete anything from Google as they’ve stated in part A above.  They claim you can take information out of Google.   Google graciously set up a Red Herring website to make it appear as though, darn it, they’re on YOUR side and want to liberate you from all that nasty data they are collecting on you!  Google’s Red Herring website is called Data Liberation.  Remember, using this service also will give them the right to collect information on you.  D’Oh!  So, before March, use it to delete everything!

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

First, if you’re telling yourself “This isn’t a big deal, it doesn’t really concern me”, you’re wrong.  This is the biggest deal on the Internet since Microsoft separated IE from Windows.  It’s a big deal.  If you are not concerned now, you will be in the future.   Parents should be especially concerned as info on their youngsters and teenagers will not only be sticking around forever, but it will most likely affect them in their college and job years, too.

Google has violated the trust of their users more than once over the years, especially in the UK.  You have a limited window of time to remove everything you have on Google before the the policy takes place on March 1^st, 2012.

You should….

1. Delete your Google+ profile.
2. Throw your Google phone in the trash, replace it with an iPhone.
3. Delete your Google gmail account.
4. Delete your Adsense account.
5. Delete your Blogger account.
6. Delete your Webmaster/Analytic account if you have one.
7. Unregister and delete any other services even remotely connected with Google since they will still have “rights” to that information.
8. If you advertise with Google, delete your Ad account.
9. Delete all your photos on Picasa Web Album because after March 1^st, they belong to Google and can do as they please with them.

OUR PREDICTION

Google smack-down will eventually come...

Thankfully Google’s over reaching policies are going to effect people in power.  We expect to see calls for investigations into Google in the coming months, even calls to charge Google with Antitrust violations on their monopoly, just like what happen to Microsoft.  And, like Microsoft, we expect to see Google’s foray end in the internet world.  How smart was it for Google to do this during an election year?  So much for “genius”.

But here’s the bottom line, folks—if you use Google, you’re screwed.  You need to protect yourself because even Google does not yet know how it’ll abuse your information in the future, and neither do you.  We’d rather not find out!   There are other services out there that compete with Google and could use your patronage.   THE BACKLASH GROWS Now that Google is the new Microsoft of evil, backlash has been growing world wide against the organization.  See the recent stories posted below. Christian Science Monitor: Google introduces privacy changes (cue the backlash) CNN: Google Seeks to clarify new Privacy Policy Washington Post: Google faces backlash over privacy changes Columbia Journalism Review: WSJ Privacy Series Raises Questions on Google’s Power

Google: "Do (mostly) No Harm"

 

Google's broken promises

By Bryan Wilcutt

"Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold - but so does a hard-boiled egg."   ~Author Unknown

Some of you may not know this but the internet is filled with search engines.  If you think Alta Vista, Google, Yahoo and Bing are the only things around then you’ll be shocked to learn there are over 5,000 search engines out there, perhaps more.   Google, Yahoo and Bing (“Big Search”), on the other hand, are merely generic searchers unlike most of the other ones who specialize.  So what’s with the other search engines out there?  Are you missing anything?  Has “Big Search” blinded you to other possibilities?  Well, probably.

A little history

The first search engine was called Archie and was developed by Alan Emtage and a few of his buddies from McGill University (those dang Canadians think of all the cool ideas, huh?)   However, on the flip side, if the search engine is your enemy, “Blame Canada!”  We remember Archie, it wasn’t much different than a directory search engine.   Gopher was another search engine that could have been considered the Google of the 80’s.  Talk about a missed opportunity—the folks at Gopher had the internet by the bits back in the 80’s and somehow lost it all.   Wikipedia has a good write up on the history of search engines and we recommend following up on their web page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine) for all the details.

Gopher Query Screen

Archie Query Screen

Archie and Gopher were your Daddy’s search engines.  Back in those days they had to smoke-signal requests to the search engine using an old technology called “dial-up”.   I know, strange, huh?  And then they waited seconds, yes, seconds, to get a response.  Compare that to your 2-millisecond wait time with Google.   Those were tough times and frankly I don’t know how they survived—it was like turning butter… manually!   But today the most common search engine is focused on a specific theme.  Take  www.buyhawaii.com, for example.  This is a terrific little directory system specifically geared towards businesses in Hawaii.  Many other similar directories exist around the internet.  You will often see SEO (Search Engine Optimization) sites claim they will, for a fee, submit your website to these engines to give you more exposure.  Fact is, most of these search engines cost money to post your links—and besides, if you don’t fit the genre of a search directory, don’t join. 

"Big Search"

Digital Vortex

So what happened to Alta Vista?  Well, they got sucked up into the Yahoo vortex.   It’s a search-engine-based-on-RDF-algorithms eat search-engine-based-on-RDF-algorithms world, people!   Yahoo does have a few cards up their sleeves, though.  For example, they own most of the patents that deal with pay-per-click and bid-placement.  Bid placement, by the way, is the ability to bid money on keywords in a search engine.  Say, for example, you bid that you’ll pay 2 cents per click if someone search’s for “Widget”.   When the search engine displays results for “Widget”, your website is listed on the top 10.  The more you pay, the higher you show up on the list.  “Bid Placement for Search Engines” was a patent  that was sold to Goto.com which was bought by Overture and then purchased by Yahoo.  Maddening, no?

Pet + Bumper = Not Good

So why does Yahoo have two search engines now?    Hey, who said pets were limited to people?  All kidding aside, we feel Yahoo will eventually forget they tied little Alta to the bumper at the next rest stop, and then take off.   Not a pretty picture… but it’ll save on having to stock more office coffee.

“Do No Harm”

Curious Internet predicted Google would “step in it” and violate the trust that has been put in their hands by us little folk.  In our Sept, 2011 article “Google knows you better than your Mother,” we weren’t joking!  Recent headlines have shown our writing staff is leaps and bounds ahead of your kid brother and his blog.

So what is Google’s future?  That’s simple: Google is a liberal organization, not a conservative one.   In a nutshell, conservative organizations survive, liberal organizations crash and burn.   Yahoo IS the big dog on the block, much larger than Google.  Surprised to hear that?  It’s true.  Yahoo is far more conservative in how they do business, present themselves, and treat their users.  Yahoo has been around for a long time, Google is fairly new by comparison.  

Next Gen Search Engine Engineer

Google’s liberal approach is what gives them “the nerve” to do some of the things they’ve done recently and in the past—things that worry people and violate their trust.  While Google sits back wallowing in the temporary success of there unexplainable popularity, others are turning Inference Engine magic in an RDF black pot, stewed with GA, N-processors and Filenet farms.  Soup, anyone?  Just think, in the future you’ll sit down at your desk, turn on your compute and instantly, there on the screen, is the answer to the query you haven’t even asked yet!

Tip: Want to avoid Google’s back channel tracking of you and your information?  Use www.duckduckgo.com to do your searches through Google.  All the cool kids are using it.

Wikipedia: Over bloated blog or encyclopedia?

Wikipedia has had a fault with academia for many years. Most colleges and universities specifically state to their students they are not to reference anything from Wikipedia. In this article we explore the possible reasons why and what solutions may exist. Even if you’re not an academic, if you use Wikipedia you should be aware of its dangers.

Wikipedia contains a lot of great information, much of it is accurate but it is the few inaccuracies of this organization that pick at academia. Information placed into Wikipedia is done so by anyone, which is a terrific idea for a small organization not focused on pure accuracy. The organization does have strict rules that help guide the creation of new data with the goal of increasing accuracy.

According to Wikipedia, articles must:

a. Maintain a Neutral Point of View
b. Cannot contain conflicts of interest
c. Must be non-attacking
d. Must be meaningful, “something you would expect to see in an Encyclopedia.”

These are great rules to follow in a self-governing knowledge base but are truly followed? Wikipedia is managed by volunteer “editors”. These editors manage domain areas assuring changes and newly added information is relevant and accurate. With a voluntary group of people, many unqualified for the job of fact checking, it is no wonder Academia scoffs at Wikipedia.

Academia takes neutrality much more serious than Wikipedia does. There is no Internal Review Board [IRB] or IRB process at Wikipedia. Without the guidance of people educated in collecting and disseminating information, Wikipedia will always remain a 2nd or 3rd tier source of information.

Proving a Point

Punishment for upsetting a Wikipedia 'Editor'

We wanted to prove a point about Wikipedia’s poor attitude towards quality. Recently we came across a webpage that contained a poorly written autobiography of an individual with no particular achievement. The article also contained numerous other entries which were completely irrelevant to the autobiographic person in question. The article in question existed in pure conflict with Wikipedia’s own rules.

Our attempt to correct the article was not well received and the original article remains, faults and all.    Actually, We were insulted and treated horribly.  We should sympathize with Wikipedia as 4 million articles is quite a bit to manage with unpaid, untrained, un-vetted, and in some cases, uneducated volunteers.

How to use a Wikipedia Article

What we like the most about Wikipedia are not the articles but the references. When you read an article on Wikipedia you want to head directly to the bottom of the article and note the included references, if any. These references are typically the key to finding more academically acceptable information.

"On Wiki you start with publication and that's when you start your review, I mean it sounds backwards cause you might publish mistakes," states Ward Cunningham, an inventor of Wikipedia (Johnson). Although Curious Internet appreciates the work of Wikipedia and its hoard of volunteers, one must also ask themselves whether it is better to have an inaccurate, unchecked piece of information for free, or pay to have it fact checked? This would depend on whether you are seeking a quick piece of information for your own curiosity or are using information in an academic or journalist manner.

Einstein would approve!

Academically Acceptable Online Encyclopedias

Wikipedia has some strong competition. Other encyclopedias exist and they are properly reviewed.  We’ve compared their contents to Wikipedia.

	Wikipedia 3.83+ million articles Articles are brief, biased, and probably written by your 5th grade educated Uncle Ester. Second largest source of misinformation on the internet.
	Encyclopedia Britannica 18+ thousand articles Articles from the Crème de la Crème of writers. This is also the Encyclopedia Microsoft uses for Encarta.
	Information Please 57+ thousand articles Articles are from Columbia Encyclopedia. Out dated.
	Encyclopedia Smithsonian 100+ million articles/pictures/artifacts Articles are in depth with pictures, excellent material by recognized Scientists, writers and scholars.

The above lists is inclusive of the best-of-the-best of peer reviewed, fact checked encyclopedic information. Some encyclopedias contain more information than others which should not surprise you— only Wikipedia attempts to be the encyclopedia of “everything”.

Wikipedia could easily be classified as the Unabridged Encyclopedia. Perhaps the only one in existence! But how accurate is Wikipedia? Why doesn’t academia trust it?

“An increasing number of academics - many of whom have helped edit the resource to maintain informal quality control - are concerned that Wikipedia is becoming a stronghold for cranks: people who anonymously submit and edit entries on pet subjects to bolster the credibility of highly questionable theories.” (Farrell).

This is Wikipedia’s attitude of quantity-over-quality. Academia has a major issue with this point of view.

Bias - It's not for stereotype writers any more!

Bias writing in Wikipedia has been an on going concern.  The open, non-review style of Wikipedia has led to abuse by certain groups. For example, Fox News broke a story on June 25, 2010, that Pedophiles have been “normalizing” articles in Wikipedia to make them more “pedo-friendly” (Fox). We're not saying Wikipedia condones this behavior, but it did happen and had been on going for quite some time before it was pointed out.

What other group are currently scurrying around Wikipedia with the same behavior? Here’s a hint—you’ll find more favorable articles on Liberals than you will on Conservatives. For example, simply view the entry for “President George Bush”.

The website Conservapedia is dedicated to pointing out the liberal left’s mangling of, among other things, Wikipedia (Conservapedia)-- or so they claim. I’ll leave it for you to judge. Conservapedia points out an interesting situation where an Islamist “editor” of Wikipedia modified tens of thousands of entries in Wikipedia to make them “Islamist-friendly”. Even Wikipedia agrees that was on going and wrote about it on a page dedicated to the rogue editor, you can find it here.

Wikipedia has no idea who “Jagged_85” is since they don’t vet any of their editors.  Much of the damage caused by this individual still lingers.

Wikipedia lacks many quality controls you would expect from a peer reviewed style organization, such as a professional journal.

Our Recommendations (oh yes, we did)

Having lived in Academia for the past few decades, we believe we may be as qualified to make recommendations on this topic as the next Academic.

First, we were told that Wikimedia, the parent of Wikipedia, supposedly employs professional Encyclopedist however we haven’t seen any evidence of that.  We’ll make the assumption that they don’t in our list of recommendations.

a. Develop an Internal Review Board hierarchy headed by professional Encyclopedists and/or writers (some one with better grammahzzz than their current volunteers would be appreciated).

b. Invite professional writers, politicians, etc., to participate in exclusive writings.

c. Require article reviews before making them publically available, even if they are reviewed by their onslaught of volunteers. I would start by removing the 8,000+ “F” words mentioned in articles. You certainly wouldn’t find that kind of rhetoric in a professional outlet.

d. Keep their article debating system, it’s good for the article, however they should be mediated by a professional Encyclopedist or Academist.

e. Think about advertising. They could use the extra income to replace all the “volunteer” editors.

Wikipedia has grown too large and too important to maintain an apathetic attitude towards its content.

Conclusion

Wikipedia is no longer an experiment or a “play thing,” it has become nearly ubiquitous to the internet and to many people. When Wikipedia decides to take steps towards implementing a viable quality control methodology Academia may warm up to it but as it stands now, it is merely the tool of Heutagogist.

Finally, to answer the question “Why doesn’t academia allow you to cite from Wikipedia?”, the answer is quite clear: Academia rightly views Wikipedia as an over bloated, well organized blog, not an encyclopedia.

References:

Johnson, Caitlin. (2009). “The Good And The Bad Of Wikipedia”. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/10/sunday/main2244008.shtml

Farrell, John. (2007). “In Wikipedia we trust?” Retrieved from http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1339

FoxNews. (2010). “EXCLUSIVE: Pedophiles Find a Home on Wikipedia” Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/06/25/exclusive-pedophiles-find-home-on-wikipedia/

Conservapedia. (2010). “Examples of Bias in Wikipedia”. Retrieved from http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia