We all know that Google, Meta, and other social media harvest and monetize every click we make on their sites. Google is particularly worrisome because of its search engine, the subject of a multi-party lawsuit it just lost.
What many people don’t know is how closely Google works with national security agencies (and always has). Keep reading to find out more from a three-part series I blogged a few years ago, and for some tips on how to avoid being subject to constant online surveillance.
This week news broke that the Justice Department had prevailed in its suit against Google/Alphabet, filed during Trump’s presidency. DC Federal District Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Google had monopolized internet search by making offers that other tech monopolies couldn’t refuse to establish Google as the default search engine in their devices. And Google’s prime motivation, of course, was to harvest browsing data from users of those devices and tantalize them with personalized ads. The same might be said for Google’s operating system, which abides within various smartphones, tablets, laptops and televisions. (My Chinese-made TV runs Google’s OS, which is why I deny it access to my Wi-Fi network. It is getting harder to buy TVs that don’t incorporate spyware, part of the larger story about how high tech infiltrates our lives.)
Google will appeal until the case reaches SCOTUS, which would not surprise me if it overturned the judgment. By then it will have been litigating another Federal and state lawsuit claiming its ad networks are an illegal monopoly, filed in January 2023. The DOJ press release begins:
Today, the Justice Department, along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia, filed a civil antitrust suit against Google for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
Will any of these outcomes change Big Tech’s behavior? Marginally, I would say, and the NY Times tends to agree. Those clever tech bros know how to countermand court rulings, legislation, and regulations, and spend enormous sums to forestall them. Kapital uber Alles! And, regardless of antitrust rulings, Google will continue to serve as eyes and ears of the US “Intelligence Community,” aka Deep State, a cozy arrangement I doubt the DOJ will choose to challenge.
A few years ago I looked into why the internet came to be so vulnerable to bad actors, and found that it was designed to be that way. I reported my findings in a three-part series on my other blog, progressivepilgrim.review, cross-posting at counterpunch.org, which I often did then. If you are interested in understanding how high tech and security agencies wash each other’s hands and computer scientists wash their hands of responsibility for data breaches, you might browse those installments:
The Net’s Good Old Boys
- Hacking the Arpanet; Engineered to be insecure
- If We Only Knew Then; The rise of the surveillance state
- Dr. (Don’t Be) Evil Meets Dr. Strangelove; Eric Schmidt as Deep State Troll
(I’ve neglected Progressive Pilgrim Review’s upkeep while I focused on finishing and promoting Her Own Devices (affiliate link), but it still has lots of good stuff. For example, here’s what I’ve posted there concerning surveillance.)
How to Protect Yourself
As for Google and social media’s unending personal data mining, here are three things you can do to limit your exposure to it and to all websites that harvest your mousetracks and sell them to data brokers:*
Use Anonymous Search (free): Google is most likely the default search engine on your device. You always have the option to override it and you should. If you prefer Google Search, use it safely via startpage.com. (See how it works here.) It forwards search requests to Google by proxy, so that Google doesn’t know who’s asking. There’s nothing to install unless you want the mobile app. It also lets you view any search result anonymously, hiding your IP from sites you visit that way.
A better known secure search engine is DuckDuckGo, which works in a similar fashion (see details here) on any browser (including its own). As an example, view results for searching for “anonymous search” on DuckDuckGo. Compare with results from the same search at startpage. Both let you filter by region (country) and date and search specifically for images, videos, and news. DuckDuckGo even lets you converse anonymously with AI chatbots.
Get an Ad Blocker (free): The first, ad blocking, is not specific to Google and will improve your experience of almost any website yo visit. An ad blocker is a browser extension that detects advertising content and prevents it from rendering. You will be amazed at how clean and placid web pages look when it’s running (you can turn it off for any site you want if you like their ads). Get one and cut away a lot of distractions. I use uBlock Origin, but most of them work well. See this review to help you choose.
Sign Up for a VPN (subscription): Your ISP (internet service provider, such as Comcast or Verizon) channels all your online activity and probably monetizes it by selling information about what you use your connection for. You can do something about that. Sign up for a virtual private network (VPN) from any number of providers (including Mozilla, which provides my fave browser, Firefox). Check some out here. Not even your ISP will know what you’re up to on the Net. Not only that, but if your ISP throttles bandwidth (limits download and upload speeds) a VPN can actually retrieve content (e.g., streaming media) faster. Costs for most hover around $10 per month, though all offer introductory deals and online support.
But even if you use these services, your privacy can still be compromised. That’s because some links in web pages include tracking information. (Hover on a link and inspect it in the status bar at the bottom; if you see gibberish like what I show below, you’re being tracked.) In such cases, if you use the Firefox browser (and possibly others I haven’t tried), you can right-click on the link and select Copy link without site tracking. Open a new tab or window and paste that link into the address bar up top. Both sites will still know your IP number and thus location, but to them you’re just another anonymous visitor.
Happy anonymous surfing!
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* Don’t be fooled by Google’s claim that its Chrome browser’s “incognito mode” lets you browse anonymously. All it does is to discard your browsing history when using it. So while it isn’t stored on your device, Google and site trackers know all about where you’ve visited and what you’ve searched for. I searched for “anonymous search” at google.com, click here to see the result. Note that up near the top, you’re told misleadingly to use incognito mode. Not only that, Google postfixed my query string with this crap (I removed it from the link for you):
&sca_esv=daaa450ae4e070d5&sca_upv=1&sxsrf=ADLYWILaKanxdvvWIIvYFVHUNuDkFuQYDw%3A1723227391214&source=hp&ei=_1y2ZtinCvyv5NoPzu7jiAI&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZrZrD_qr3ssdXUF9GpZCIB0xj6OuVzUO&ved=0ahUKEwiYo5KkwuiHAxX8F1kFHU73GCEQ4dUDCBk&uact=5&oq=anonymous+search&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IhBhbm9ueW1vdXMgc2VhcmNoMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABEj9RlCqCljcMHABeACQAQGYAcwKoAHvG6oBDzkuMy4xLjEuMC4xLjAuMbgBA8gBAPgBAZgCEKAC4h2oAgrCAgcQIxgnGOoCwgIREC4YgAQYsQMY0QMYgwEYxwHCAgsQABiABBixAxiDAcICDhAuGIAEGLEDGIMBGIoFwgIOEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYigXCAg4QLhiABBixAxjRAxjHAcICChAjGIAEGCcYigXCAgQQIxgnwgIIEC4YgAQYsQPCAggQABiABBixA8ICCxAuGIAEGMcBGK8BwgILEC4YgAQYsQMYgwHCAgUQLhiABJgDhwKSBw04LjMuMi4xLjEuNy0xoAe1dg&sclient=gws-wiz
Google does this to “personalize” your search results. Truly anonymous search engines don’t do that. Whatever that gibberish means to Google, it has nothing to do with my actual query. User beware.
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