Gary Kovacs: Tracking the trackers

People really don’t care about this big issue…

I've shared your brief talk with so many times over the past decade, thank you for informing everyone. An update of how this complexity has grown since then would be lovely. :)

Somebody who thinks like I do my personal life and not be out there unless we consent to wait for somebody to write a book or an actually profit off of our data

Absolutely

Yea my whole family name is been..turn in a business....now I am tracking them

Adjust your cookie settings, very easy to do

Awesome 👍🏻 thanks for the add on recommendation

So, watching the watchers is fine. How do we STOP the watchers? VPN?

As long as the US values the dollar, and profit-taking, more than anything else, nothing is going to change.
You can call it the price of, so-called, freedom, but really, it's the hidden costs of capitalism. And the guys making the big bucks rarely, if ever, pay.

Don´t let "them" watch your life, let us (Collusion) make this work. Pretty funny, this guy underestimates us. why should we trust this browser?

I m turkish lan ben anlamadım :DD

Great stuff. More people need to be aware and this is OLD news.

I don't get it.

You tell that wherever you go you shouldn't be followed but do you really know that all websites are following you around?

This dot graph show all the websites that are getting your data. It doesn't mean they are following you on all of the other websites you are visiting.

Think about a retail store. You go in. They have security cameras. They have staff that remembers your face (if you're a common visitor there). They might remember that you have bought the last peace of something. But they never follow you to other stores.

Most of the websites does the same and I'm ok with that. I'm not ok with websites that do follow you around (like Google Adwords cookies on all of the websites).

So first you should stop making everyone panic and deliver the right message. There are a lot of mom and pops websites that use your information for their own use and it's no big deal. They just try to make a better experience for you. And also, there are big enterprises that make all the money on selling your data for marketing (like Gmail Ads).

Fight against the big guys, not all of the web.

This makes me never want to go online again, EVER.

Track the trackers with the Cayova box, its free!! Google it ;)

It is okay if I take a small soundbyte of this to use in a song I am making???

Well you dun told me...

Is this a promise? I sure hope so.

Oh, this message shows your intellectual supremacy so convincing, that I simply cannot survive and will have to commit suicide, so I'll go and shot myself with a slingshot (It won't be an easy job, but you know, there are some problems with firearms here in Europe)...

I couldn't afford the pay cut! Now be gone. I'm tired of talking to your stupid ass..

'We'? Who 'we'? ;) Andrew, you're so brilliant in this thread, have you ever considered career of politician? Look, you've got all the necessary tools: your conversation style vary from arrogant to caddish, if anyone has the meaning different from yours, instead of bringing your own arguments you're personally accusing the opponent (even better when multiple accusations contradict each other) and you never answer the questions... Perfect mixture, Congress is desperately missing you ;)

Why would I give a flying fuck about your case? I don't, specially since you don't even give any data about it - you just claim, like you have all along with no proof. We've already established that you are paranoid.

My personal case -- combination of following factors: 1) Wrong place, wrong time (a bit of bad luck, hehe...) 2) Google search results based on my geolocation and pattern of my online behavior, optimized by sophisticated SEO methods 3) Lack of due diligence (my fault, of course, partially caused by family stress) was enough to put me in significant trouble, severe damage many other people and even nearly ruin lives of some of them. Details of this -- neither for you, nor for the broad public.

Andrew, I would like to remind you that: 1) There are other people, personal circumstances and jurisdictions OUT of your comfortable 'Globe of California' 2) What is harmless in one country can become dangerous and even fatal in the other one 3) This video is NOT about you it has much broader scope. Can you imagine, there are people out there, who are clicking banners, opening 'runme.exe' files in email attachments and trust search results blindly without due diligence...

It's about conspiracy when you impart onto what's happening, nefarious intent, hence my question of how does it negatively impact me. Since you cannot show that's the case, to suggest it's a problem without proof you have just created a conspiracy. There's no controversy here - there are *claims* of nefarious intent without any proof.

You're weird!

Oh, I nearly forgot to thank you for your effort. I, perhaps, owe you a beer ;) Thank you a lot for occasional participation in my small social experiment, you've just proven some parts of my theoretical assumptions and confirmed some statistical data I accumulated throughout last 10-15 years... Have a nice day ;)

1) This video is not about YOU, that's the point. You're not an average internet-user and you should admit it. People with the same level of skills/experience as yours? Perhaps 1/1000, maybe even 1/10000... hard to say, but definitely not even 1%. 2) I've already told my real name, didn't you see it? Or should I write it in Cyrillic? Here we go: Кирилл Песков 3) See my another reply to your comment, its about your style of conversation, perhaps, re-read the whole thread, it could make sense ;)

I see. You refuse to answer my question. So I then declare my point correct - I do not suffer in the slightest. I also submit that you don't suffer either except you're still too paranoid to even say your name. So then you may suffer but the reason you suffer is because you are paranoid. You should see somebody about that. It's not a health way to live your life.

Again, you're fighting with windmills... I'm neither angry, nor envy if Google profits from it. I said ONLY that those tracking mechanisms are affecting search results and this 'bias' is not necessary good for the person performing the search. If YOU don't feel this harmful -- good for you. BTW, Kirill Peskov, (KirillAGA and KirillP on some forums) you're welcome ;)

You know, in this thread you're seems to be too emotional... You've already managed to accuse me of being paranoid AND naive at the same time which barely match each other ;) You've started from words which some (not me ;) ) would name 'explicit lexicon' and ended up directly judging the person you most probably don't know at all... I would suggest -- calm down and sort out your emotions. Then we could continue, cause your technical background could make the discussion interesting.

Huh? I'm not the paranoid one - YOU ARE. Since you cannot answer how this negatively affects me you no longer have a point.

So then big brave boy - why don't you just say your real name? Unlike you I realize that if somebody else profits it doesn't take anything from me. I do not get angry because other people are successful - I admire it!

;) First -- it's not about conspiracy theories, it's about business and its ethical side, which seems to be, in case of the whole tracking issue... hmmm... controversial. If FB uses exploits in popular browsers the way similar to malware operates, are they acting legally? I wouldn't say so. Ethically? Definitely not. I haven't said that I'm relying on this quote, I said only, that it passed to the discussion. No less, no more. There is no spoon ;)

Oh I see - you believe in conspiracy theories. How cute... how naive. I guess you just can't fathom that one would be able to independently verify, measure and ascertain the truth. So you rely on a quote from a movie that was... get this... * FICTIONAL* Of course you'll retort "yeah but it could happen". Get back to me when it does happen...

Famous quote, passed to the discussion: ...when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it...

;) If you dig just a bit, you'll find out my real name in couple of easy steps, my Google+, Twitter and FB profiles are linked and I'm using my real 'credentials', my nickname here is a legacy... The results are better for... you? Indirectly -- may be. May be not. You're missing the very original aim of making the search 'better'. You're not profiting from it. Google, Amazon & Co do. They're not running charity, they do business.

Thanks for confirming that it doesn't affect me in the slightest. And it affects you only because you're paranoid. I don't live my life in fear - you obviously do as we can tell by your "handle" instead of using your given name. Oh and my search results are *my* search results and are merely made *better* by using this data. In my mind that's a win - in your paranoid mind it's a loss.

If you're not 'paranoid', tracking affects you at least in the form or search results in Google (or Yahoo!, or Bing or any other...). Those very search results are no longer neutral as they were 10-15 years ago, they are biased, based on mixture of your previous search requests, geolocation, personal data (which you probably even never shared directly with Google, but taken from other site), purchases on Amazon and your overall Net behavioral pattern. If you're OK with it -- it's up to you ;)

If you: are cleaning the browser cookies after each search request or are using 'Incognito Mode' AND periodically cleaning the cookies; are never clicking ads (or news) banners; are not using web-based 'free' mail services, etc. IOW if you're using the Net in really 'paranoid' mode; only when you can be sure that tracking does not affect you.

Please show your work. How does your supposed (meaning yet unproven) power that you think I gave Google affects me in the slightest. IOW - Why would I give a flying fuck! You have failed to answer that question. You claim it is some sort of power. Please show how it is a power. Otherwise your statement is totally meaningless. And I'm not forced to deal with Google nor Facebook. I can (and many have) simply not deal with them at all.

Yes, sure. Disconnect.me then select the Collusion version for either Chrome or Safari. Firefox version is available via Mozilla plugin store...

Information is the power. When you give too much power to the certain group of people (or institution), the fact that this power will be abused is no longer the question of 'if' it's question of 'when'. The information you forced to share with Google opening an account there (or with Facebook) is the subject of Agreement between you and Google Inc (or you and Facebook). The amount and type of information Google and Facebook share amongst each other about you are neither known nor formalized.

very impressing method pro & cons time to investigate

I must ask - why do I give a flying fuck that somebody is "tracking me"? Should I be as worried that during the course of the day hundreds of people have looked at me? Have seen me? Of what harm is it for somebody "tracks" me? I mean god forbid they try to sell me something?!? We all know we can't simply so no... Well maybe you can't say no but I sure can! Where's the problem here?

So he's idea of "doing something" about being watched in the internet is to install collusion, so that we can "watch the watchers" as they watch as go about our daily internet activity

Is there a Collusion software for those using Google Chrome?