back to article Google merging more personal data into search results

Mountain View is rolling out much tighter integration of its Google+ network into search results with what it calls “Search plus your World.” In practice, this means an extension of the Google+ integration that started in August, with a new button in the top right of the page that adds data from the user’s social network that …

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  1. Number6

    Extra Browser

    I might finally have a reason to install Chrome on my PC, so I can use it solely for Google searches and make sure I never run Google in other browsers where I'm logged in to Twitter or Facebook (I exclude Google+ from that because I don't have an account) or elsewhere.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      My thoughtsexactly

      I have Chrome installed - it's used *only* for access to Gmail, Goggle+ and Google services.

      All Google searches are done in Firefox with cookies killed every time the browser closes. I don't use Twitter, Facebook or any other persistent applications. I can't do much about my work IP address (OK, I could but I can't be bothered to), but my home IP address is dropped and renewed every day.

      I accept that I can't stop them tracing me, but I can make it difficult.

      1. Mike Judge
        FAIL

        makes me wonder

        What you have to hide. You know the authorities can track you anyway...?

        Personally Facebook areuch worse than this.. Try clearing you cookies and registering a new account and give no personally identifiable info, make up all the details... It will still recommend people who you know.. Go figure.... IP address logging.???

        1. Eddy Ito

          Re: makes me wonder

          What makes me wonder is why you assume anyone needs something to hide in order to have a desire to not have some arse sniffing corporate/government lackey following them around. I'm sure if GI Goog wanted to know what I had for lunch they can analyze my shit but that doesn't mean I won't flush the toilet.

        2. Adam Nealis
          FAIL

          Naive.

          So can you please post the address of the webcam in your bog at home so we can watch you having a shit?

          1. Eddy Ito
            Mushroom

            Sure Adam

            Naturally as a native Maine-iac, the address is www.bite.me.us. Sorry, I don't know what gave you the idea I keep a webcam in the bog but you're more than welcome to join the other GI Goog's sifting shit in the sewer.

        3. a_been

          @Mike Judge

          Do you have curtains?
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward You can simply load an incognito window in Chrome which stores no data. Handy if you need to be logged into the same site under different names. Nobody tracks IP addresses, it's pointless because they change around too much. If you want to know what Google knows about you just visit: https://www.google.com/dashboard
  2. dogged

    God thinking, that man. +1 for you.

  3. ratfox

    Results from other, dominant, social networks

    I think this mostly depends on the willingness of those networks... No?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just one more reason to avoid Google.. or to use Scroogle

    AC cos the googlespies are everywhere

    1. Martin 47

      Scroogle is OK but I am starting to like duckduckgo, apart from the name that is.

      1. blade-runner

        https://www.ixquick.com/uk/aboutixquick/

        Https by default, you can also look at results through their proxy too.

        They don't store any info supposedly.

        I do find their results a bit hit and miss sometimes though.

  5. JDX Gold badge

    Monopoly?

    Isn't using their search engine to promote their social network exactly the kind of thing that gets companies in monopolies investigations?

  6. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    Ive never really understood

    Why I should be even passingly interested in "sharing stuff on the web". I can understand dropping someone a quick email if I've seen something that may be relevant,.

    Just to post "Hey everyone, lookit this" for everyone who claims (or is claimed by Farcebook et al, to be an acuaintance) strikes me as utterly inane.

    Why should I believe that world+dog (or at least my retinue of friends, acquaintances and people I've noddded to) has even the remotest interest in my every move.

    Can we have untainted, unskewed serach results, please, that don't change depending whether I'm logged in or not, on whether I'm using someone elses' PC, whether I've just been looking at any soecific products.

    Google got good being straightforward, simple and reliable.

    i really hope they are not beginning to Clever themselves into uselessness.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      As it happens.

      Posted links are probably the least inane things in my facebook feed. The real offenders are folk who post about what they've had for tea, or new parents, who seem to think that the contents of their child's nappy is somehow relevant to the worlds interests.
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    personal info in a search?

    Why? The only reason I use google (for searching) is to find information that I don't already have stored off-line. What point would it be for me to include ANYTHING about me in a search for something I don't yet know.

    p.s. Dear Google, I'm tired of having to prefix every search, that isn't made from the advanced search page, with the word "fuck" to kill google instant. Everyone else's results suck, but your execution sucks. I bet if you stuck an ADSL simulator on your lead developers' network connection, they'd have google instant canned before lunch.

    1. Cowardly Animosity
      Go

      So you can stop fucking around

      http://www.google.co.uk/webhp?complete=0

      or

      http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0

  8. Veldan
    Go

    Afraid or what?

    The amount of people here who get completely outraged and either get worried or suspect nasty ulterior motives to every action Google take is insane.

    Sure, your privacy is your business and if you want to be private, don't have a facebook account or a google+ account. Go completely off grid and keep to yourself.

    Though personally I kind of like the idea that when I search for an Ice skating supply shop I'm likely to get actual ice skating supply shops from my country AND not a list of drug rehab clinics (this has happened in days of old, because "Ice" is a drug) or skate shops over in the US or Canada which all refuse to ship to dear old OZ.

    I don't put any information that I actually want to hide online, the rest is open season and if they use that to help me, well all the better for it!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Greedy Google

      Id use a more targeted search that included my current location as I know what is in my area, I don't need a search engine to find it. I don't have a facepalm account, and ensure as far as possible that no photos of me are submitted to the google data pile either.

      Google was good at what it did in the early days, but sorry for me they want to know too damned much about me now. Luckily my house doesn't face a street so I am not on street view either. I see a Bank has now signed up to the Google cloud. That will be the thing that moves my account out of its current home should it ever happen at my bank.

      I refuse to give my life up to Google to mine and sell. A/C Natch

  9. The BigYin

    Sounds like...

    ...the bubble just became a cage and the tracking a leash, which is why I rarely search with Google any more. Other engines (such as DuckDuckGo) are improving rapidly and give me good results.

  10. JDX Gold badge

    re:Ive never really understood

    It would make more sense if you had friends.
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re:Ive never really understood

      I think you mean 'Friends' (TM)
  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I swear to god you guys.

    Everything you wanted to know about search engines by Fravia (R.I.P.) http://searchlores.org After you finish there you will understand all you need to know about search engines to understand what's happening. It doesn't really matter if you go pick up copernic free or create a custom start page (my style.) You don't need to depend 100% on google. How many of you when searching for a file use ftpsearch http://proisk.ru after lycos killed tronda? How many links to you really have that you use? I bet if you start paying attention there's probably only 30 places you visit on the web each day. The rest of all those links are static cache hits and ads. Sure if your job is to track things down all day long for people this won't be so. But for most of you, even the techs, it's about 30 websites. You going to tell me you can't copy fravia's basic search start page and edit it to fit your own life? I have one going from way back, it's the same one edited over time. It has the same tables but nearly everything in it has been replaced over time. Did anyone ever play in the fravia's phplab You know the wands, and the search engine dat files? That thing rocked if you got it lit on your own box. today the .def files are out of date, then again so are some of the ENGINES themselves which are no longer with us. Baa, edit.. Make your own search engine! Make your own spider. Bottom line is search engines like google don't give away things for free. Your paying for it somehow. Your name, IP habits, custom ads, whatever they want, You agree to it, and You pay for it. But beyond this there's more insidious activity, and it's not just google. http://cryptome.org/isp-spy/online-spying.htm If you are like me, you have (or I can now say had) a lot of stuff tied to gmail. domain contacts, webhosting contact, paypal, ebay, amazon, and on and on. Between the NDAA, PIPA and the rest of the fascist nonsense, I had enough. I should have known better but apathy got me cause I been surrounded by bad news 24/7 for the past decade, and I just didn't feel like going off the grid yet. Last week, I finally separated, it took several days, it teaches you a lot about just how deep you are in, and also for example how annoying changing your email can be. You will also note that when you delete your google account completely, they say something about how your still responsible for any money owed. Whatever google, Goodbye. Actually a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can really feel it! Try it. Feel FREE.
  12. eGrove Systems

    Chrome will give us satisfaction for users. but there is no enough add on for many user's purpose.

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