What Search Provider do you use? (Poll)

23n1th · 17 February 2012 at 2:39PM

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

Happy to be corrected, but I don't think that's the case.

Google can say to advertising companies "We can target your adverts to this specific set of people who search for x, y, and z", and use that information to do so. But they don't sell the information to 3rd parties.

They may make available stats like "70% of searches for Hello Kitty came from Japan", but nothing that could tie it down to a person.

Its does when they have created one policy on privacy and can tie you to your searches if you are logged into you account knowing basically more about you than say your wife. Google is big-brother!

mr_fishbulb · 17 February 2012 at 2:53PM

23n1th wrote: »

Its does when they have created one policy on privacy and can tie you to your searches if you are logged into you account knowing basically more about you than say your wife. Google is big-brother!

Yes, but they are very up-front in saying that this information is used for targeting adverts to you. This is their business model. I don't think the new privacy policy has anything to do to selling this information to other companies.

fiddiwebb · 17 February 2012 at 3:35PM

"Major search engines capture your IP address and use tracking cookies to make a record of your search terms, the time of your visit, and the links you choose - then they store that"

So how does the above work on a dynamic ip address which I have, I can understand that they could obtain a static ip adddress but not one that is changing everytime you log onto the internet.

Just checked my current ip address and it points to Birmingham, I am actually located 490 miles away from Birmingham so not an awful lot of help with advertising is it.

mr_fishbulb · 17 February 2012 at 3:42PM

fiddiwebb wrote: »

"Major search engines capture your IP address and use tracking cookies to make a record of your search terms, the time of your visit, and the links you choose - then they store that"

So how does the above work on a dynamic ip address which I have, I can understand that they could obtain a static ip adddress but not one that is changing everytime you log onto the internet.

I don't think they'd use the IP address. They would use the cookie from other services you sign-in to on the same domain (e.g. gmail, google+, yahoo mail, hotmail).

23n1th · 17 February 2012 at 3:44PM

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

Yes, but they are very up-front in saying that this information is used for targeting adverts to you. This is their business model. I don't think the new privacy policy has anything to do to selling this information to other companies.

Surely if these advertising agencies are targeting advertising at you google has passed that information on to them? Its their business model as you say.

fiddiwebb wrote: »

"Major search engines capture your IP address and use tracking cookies to make a record of your search terms, the time of your visit, and the links you choose - then they store that"

So how does the above work on a dynamic ip address which I have, I can understand that they could obtain a static ip adddress but not one that is changing everytime you log onto the internet.

They would log that IP address and the searches associated with it. That dynamic IP address can be easily traced back to you if it needs to be. You make it a hell of a lot easier if you say log into google/yahoo/msn etc.

Besides which dynamic IP addresses don't change as often as you'd think. And thats no mentioning the cookies they set on your computer.

fiddiwebb · 17 February 2012 at 4:10PM

"That dynamic IP address can be easily traced back to you if it needs to be"

Sorry, bit confused but I thought that it wasn't that easy to obtain your "real" location using your ip address without certain legal procedures ie. police or court order to your provider to obtain your address/location.

As I said after checking my ip address location it points to my provider in Birmingham but I actually am located in Scotland.

Also i usually use ccleaner to remove cookies/crud a 3-4 times a week.

mr_fishbulb · 17 February 2012 at 4:22PM

23n1th wrote: »

Surely if these advertising agencies are targeting advertising at you google has passed that information on to them? Its their business model as you say.

I've just been searching (via google) and can't find any evidence of this happening.

I guess, in theory they could via this statement in their Advertising and Privacy page:

We will not collect, sell, or share personally identifying information from ad serving cookies without your explicit consent.

However I would have thought the Internet would be full of stories of this happening if it actually was (although maybe Google is filtering these

)

Google dashboard is a great example of how much stuff they hold on you.

23n1th · 17 February 2012 at 5:00PM

fiddiwebb wrote: »

"That dynamic IP address can be easily traced back to you if it needs to be"

Sorry, bit confused but I thought that it wasn't that easy to obtain your "real" location using your ip address without certain legal procedures ie. police or court order to your provider to obtain your address/location.

As I said after checking my ip address location it points to my provider in Birmingham but I actually am located in Scotland.

Also i usually use ccleaner to remove cookies/crud a 3-4 times a week.

Highlighted the part that answers your question. Your IP address is very important and when associated with your searches, social network, watched videos, etc etc, it can be bad. You only have to look at those "law" firms sending out those letters demanding payment for supposed piracy. Or even the 3 strike rule the government were trying to pass (have they I haven't checked lately) solely based on your IP.

Quick question, how many places did you try with your IP address? I just tried 5 and each one gave a different location some close some far away.

Its not just your IP address either. They can record a lot about you this is just what your browser reveals: http://www.mybrowserinfo.com/detail.asp