Did you know that when you search on Google, they Keep your search history forever? That means they know every search you have ever done on google. That alone is pretty scary, but
it’s just the shallow end of the very deep pool of data that they try to collect on people.
What most people don’t realize is that even if you don’t use any Google
products directly, they’re still trying to track as much as they can about you.
Google trackers have been found on 75% of the top million websites. This means they're also trying to track most everywhere you
go on the internet, trying to slurp up your browsing history!
Most people also don’t know that Google runs most of the ads you see
across the internet and in apps – you know those ones that follow you around
everywhere? Yup, that’s Google, too. They aren’t really a search company
anymore – they’re a tracking company. They are tracking as much as they can for
these annoying and intrusive ads, including recording every time you see them,
where you saw them, if you clicked on them, etc.
But even that’s not all…
If You Use Google Products
If you do use Google products, they try to track even more. In addition
to tracking everything you’ve ever searched for on Google (e.g. “weird rash”),
Google also tracks every video you’ve ever watched on YouTube. Many people actually don’t
know that Google owns YouTube;
now you know.
And if you use Android (yeah, Google owns that too), then Google is also
usually tracking:
·
Every place you’ve been via Google Location Services.
·
How often you use your apps, when you use them, where you use them, and
whom you use them to interact with. (This is just excessive by any measure.)
·
All of your text messages, which unlike on iOS, are not encrypted by default.
·
Your photos (even in
some cases the ones you’ve deleted).
If you use Gmail, they of course also have all your e-mail messages. If
you use Google Calendar, they know all your schedule. There’s a pattern here:
For all Google products (Hangouts, Music, Drive, etc.), you can expect the same
level of tracking: that is, pretty much anything they can track, they will.
Oh, and if you use Google Home, they also store a live recording of
every command you’ve (or anyone else) has ever said to your device! Yes, you
heard that right (err… they heard it) – you can check out all the
recordings on your
Google activity page.
Essentially, if you allow them to, they’ll track pretty close to,
well, everything you do on the Internet. In fact, even if you
tell them to stop tracking you, Google has been known to not really listen, for
example with location
history.
You Become the Product
Why does Google want all of your information anyway? Simple: as stated,
Google isn’t a search company anymore, they’re a tracking company. All of these
data points allow Google to build a pretty robust profile about you. In some
ways, by keeping such close tabs on everything you do, they, at least in some
ways, may know you better than you know yourself.
Because Google is not really a search company;
they are an advertising company. On Google, your searches are tracked, mined,
and packaged up into a data profile for advertisers to follow you around the
Internet through intrusive and annoying ever-present banner ads, using Google’s massive ad networks, embedded across millions of sites and apps
And Google uses your personal profile to sell ads, not only on their
search engine, but also on over three million other websites and apps. Every
time you visit one of these sites or apps, Google is following you around with
hyper-targeted ads.
It’s exploitative. By allowing Google to collect all this info, you are
allowing hundreds of thousands of advertisers to bid on serving you ads based
on your sensitive personal data. Everyone involved is profiting from your
information, except you. You are the product.
It doesn’t have to be this way. It is entirely possible for a web-based
business to be profitable without making you the product – since 2014, DuckDuckGo has been
profitable without storing or sharing any personal information on people at
all..
The Myth of “Nothing to Hide”
Some may argue that they have “nothing to hide,” so they are not
concerned with the amount of information Google has collected and stored on
them, but that argument is fundamentally flawed for many reasons.
Everyone has information they want to keep private: Do you close the
door when you go to the bathroom? Privacy is about control over your personal
information. You don’t want it in the hands of everyone, and certainly don’t
want people profiting on it without your consent or participation.
In addition, privacy is essential to democratic institutions like voting
and everyday situations such as getting medical care and performing financial
transactions. Without it, there can be significant harms.
On an individual level, lack of privacy leads to putting you into
a filter
bubble, getting manipulated by ads, discrimination, fraud, and identity theft. On a societal level, it can
lead to deepened polarization and societal manipulation like we’ve
unfortunately been seeing multiply in recent years.
You Can Live Google Free
Basically, Google tries to track too much. It’s creepy and simply just
more information than one company should have on anyone.
Thankfully, there are many good ways to reduce your Google footprint,
even close to zero! If you are ready to live without Google, we
have recommendations for services
to replace their suite of products, as well as instructions for clearing
your Google search history. It might feel like you
are trapped in the Google-verse, but it is possible to break free.
For starters, just switching the search engine for all your searches
goes a long way. After all, you share your most intimate questions with your
search engine; at the very least, shouldn’t those be kept private? If you
switch to the DuckDuckGo
app and extension you will not only make your
searches anonymous, but also block Google’s most widespread and invasive
trackers as you navigate the web.
DuckDuckGo has been a profitable company since 2014 without storing or
sharing any personal information on people using our search engine. What you
search on DuckDuckGo is private, Its a business model for a web-based business
that’s profitable without making your personal information the product
The Big Myth
It’s actually a big myth that search engines need to track your personal
search history to make money or deliver quality search results. Almost all of
the money search engines make (including Google) is based on the keywords you
type in, without knowing anything about you, including your search history or
the seemingly endless amounts of additional data points they have collected
about registered and non-registered users alike.
In fact, search advertisers buy search ads by bidding on keywords, not
people. It makes intuitive sense, too. If you search for ‘car’, you are more
likely to respond to a car ad than something you searched for last week.
This keyword-based advertising is our primary business model. When you
search on DuckDuckGo, we can show you an ad based on the keywords you type in.
That’s it. And it works.
Google, Facebook, and The Creepy Line
Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and Chairman, famously said “Google’s policy on a lot of these things is to get
right up to the creepy line, but not cross it.” But for most people, that
line was crossed by Google, Facebook, and others long ago.
Alarmingly, Google now deploys hidden trackers on 76% of websites across
the web to monitor your behavior and Facebook has hidden trackers on about 25%
of websites, according to the Princeton Web Transparency & Accountability
Project. It is likely that Google and/or Facebook
are watching you on most sites you visit, in addition to tracking you when
using their products.
As a result, these two companies have amassed huge data profiles on
individuals, which can include interests, past purchases, search, browsing and
location history, and much more. This personal data is stored indefinitely and
used for invasive targeted advertising that can follow you around the Internet.
This advertising system is designed to enable hyper-targeting, which has
many unintended consequences that have dominated the headlines in recent years,
such as the ability for bad actors to use the system to influence elections, to
exclude groups in a way that facilitates discrimination, and to expose your
personal data to companies you’ve never even heard of.
The operative question is, though, is all of this tracking necessary to
make substantial profits? Is this the only way to run a profitable digital
consumer focused service company? Not in my opinion. The fact is, these
companies would still be wildly profitable if, for example, they dropped all of
these hidden trackers across the web and limited the amount of data they keep
to only what is most necessary.
Yes, this additional tracking probably helps them compete with each
other and adds some incremental revenue, but I believe the vast majority of
their revenue would still exist if the tracking dial was turned way down, and
they backed far away from the creepy line.
The reason is simple: Google and Facebook are the undisputed champions
of audience and reach across the internet, something advertisers will always
pay for. Their business models don’t need to be this invasive.
It is a choice to squeeze every last ounce of profit at the expense of
privacy, democracy and society. A choice they don’t have to make. Without all
this tracking, I’m confident they would still be among the most profitable
companies in the world, and we’d all be better off.
Anonymous Affiliates
As mentioned, DuckDuckGo is profitable based mostly on keyword-based
search ads, though we have always been on the search for other ways to
anonymously make money so that we can reduce the dependence on advertising. The
only other way we’ve found so far, which currently accounts for a much smaller
portion of our revenue, is non-tracking affiliate partnerships with Amazon and
eBay.
When you visit those sites through DuckDuckGo, including when
using !bangs, and subsequently make a purchase, we
receive a small commission. This mechanism operates anonymously and there is no
personally identifiable information exchanged between us and Amazon or eBay.
These partnerships also don't affect the ranking of search results. The reason
we can do this in an anonymous way with Amazon and eBay, though not with other
retailers, is because Amazon and eBay run their own affiliate networks.
What Other Companies Can Do
At the beginning of this answer, I noted that other companies using an
advertising business model could follow a similar path to DuckDuckGo. Here are
a few actionable things companies can do to remain profitable without tracking
the maximum amount of information possible on consumers:
·
Favor interest-based advertising instead of hyper-targeted advertising.
For us, that is basing ads just on the keywords people type in. For others,
that could mean basing ads on the content on the page and not on the individual
viewing the page.
·
Sell advertising directly based on such interests, avoiding going
through the hyper-targeted advertising systems of Google and Facebook.
·
Consider using an anonymous affiliate system like DuckDuckGo does as
described above. This can help you get away from as much advertising on your
pages.
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