Be careful, Big Google is watching you

• by: David Frith
• From: The Australian
• January 31, 2012 12:00AM

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With its huge array of services, Google has the capacity to silently track its users. Source: AAP

IF you use any of Google's many-faceted services -- Search, Gmail, Docs, Maps, YouTube, Books, Calendar, Contacts, to name a few -- or if you ever make calls on an Android mobile phone it will probably come as no surprise to realise that your movements are being tracked.

Google's tracking technology, which is probably the best in the business, builds a profile of what are perceived to be your interests: information that is consequently used by advertisers to bombard you with ads targeted to those interests.
Though Google claims it never reveals your name or more personal details to advertisers, it's a practice that has had privacy advocates concerned for some time.
In March last year, as Doubleclick revealed at the time, there was growing pressure in Australia to set up a simple Do Not Track register, like the Do Not Call register that prevents you being bombarded by telemarketers.
It would have applied to all web operators, not just Google. Alas, nothing has come of it.

And last week privacy concerns grew when Google revealed plans to greatly increase its web-tracking operations.
The company announced a major shift in its privacy policies that will allow it to follow the activities of users as they move across its many websites, including YouTube, Gmail, Books and Docs, as well as its nearly ubiquitous search engine.
This will give it a single vast database of information to share with advertisers, and presumably increase its money-making ability -- all without asking your permission. There is no opt-out provision.
Google will also be tracking much of what the world's many millions of Android phone users do on their mobiles, where they do it, and combining that information with their web activities.
This will only apply if the phone user signs on to their Google account.
But nearly all do, if only to access the Android Market app store: without signing on, they can only make calls, browse the web and use some pre-installed apps.
(Apple iPhone users can also be tracked to some extent, but Apple doesn't -- at this stage, at any rate -- have the same imperative to bombard iPhone users with targeted ads.)
The biggest problem with the new all-pervasive Google tracking policy is the lack of a simple opt-out mechanism.
In the US, that has attracted the attention of the Federal Trade Commission, which could put pressure on Google to add a one-click opt-out button to its services.
The Canberra-based Australian Communications and Media Authority could possibly do something similar here, though it has been loath to do so in the past.
Not everyone believes online tracking is a bad thing. Many users like reading ads that target their interests: special offers on travel, cars, motorbikes, pets and recipe books, for instance.
On the other hand, privacy advocates argue the vast trove of personal information now being garnered is so huge that abuses are almost certain. The risks outweigh the possible rewards.
In 2010, Google sacked an engineer accused of accessing Gmail accounts to spy on people.
And last year saw the personal accounts of many people at a number of companies, including more than one million Sony Playstation users, hacked and their details published on the web.
In Australia, David Cake, chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, an online privacy advocacy group, told Doubleclick EFA was deeply concerned about the new Google policy.
"It's a very big change, with significant implications for privacy," he said. "We would like to see Google discuss and explain the implications."
In particular, Mr Cake said, users should be offered a simple opt-out mechanism.
Pondering this last week, Doubleclick decided to take a gander at just what kind of data Google was holding about us. We were in for some surprises.
Google, we found on delving into the account depths, noted that we possess and sometimes use an Android phone and a Motorola tablet, and correctly noted the models, when we had last used them and which telcos' services we used. But it didn't appear to know about our iPhone, Macs or other Apple gear.
It had stored a record of every Google search request we had made since April 2006, many thousands of them and some quite personal. (Nothing untowards, you understand. But we can imagine that someone who might have once out of curiosity visited, say, an adult film site or perhaps sought health information might thereafter find themselves pelted with ads for unwanted products).
There was much, much more: among the stored data were lists of apps we had downloaded, ebooks we had ordered, Docs items we had written and records of more than 900 Gmail conversations. Again, nothing untowards, but nothing we want shared.
If you're a Google user and want to find out what the Big G is storing about you, then you need to view something called your Google Dashboard.
Few Google users have even heard of it, but it's quite easy to access: just sign in to your Google or Gmail account.
In the toolbar you'll find a bookmark titled "account settings". If it's not there, try clicking on your name in the same toolbar: account settings should be there.
In the account settings menu, you'll see a link titled "Dashboard". Click on that and, after signing in again, the full grisly history of everything you have been doing on various Google services -- Search, Maps, Docs, Gmail, YouTube, phones, etc -- unfolds.
Unless you have taken action to stop it, nearly all of this is available for sharing with companies you have probably never heard of.
At present, the Dashboard offers options to "manage" settings, including wiping your web search history, and declining to share some information.
It's far from clear whether there will be similar options when the information-sharing policy takes hold on March 1.
If this worries you -- and Doubleclick reckons it should -- let Google know. Says EFA's David Cake: "We have found Google does take notice when users get upset."
davfrith@gmail.com