You're just biased, because Facebook has way more potential for doing you harm and has used your data against your interests already.įacebook manipulates the emotions of its users: To this day, my main concern with Google isn't so much with Google as it is with a malicious third party somehow gaining access to the info Google has on me. I've not found anything yet that leads me to believe this is how Google runs their advertising business. Lots of companies flat-out do sell your data, either in aggregate and somewhat anonymized or in full. The main difference is that by getting some sense of who you are and what you might be interested in, they can decrease (in theory) the amount of irrelevant ads that end up on your screen versus the traditional methods of just blanketing things with general ads or using cruder demographic info. They sell access to your eyeballs in much the same way as a broadcast TV station or free alt-weekly does. Using algorithms to build a general profile in order to increase relevance is not the same as "selling your data". Not because there are no potential issues to discuss around ad-funded free services and data aggregation, but more because it's like clickbait (in that it oversimplifies a complex issue for emotional effect and makes discussion of actual issues more difficult). It often irks me when people say things like "Google sells all of your data to advertisers and you are the product!" That's just preposterous and these products only survive because users are gullible and technically illiterate. A third-party that does not have the scrutiny of your open-source web browser. And it's a serious vulnerability, because their certificate can get stolen and used by malicious software, not to mention you now have to trust a third-party with all of your secure connections, which includes your Google searches exposing your most secret desires, your Facebook and Slack chats, your bank account, everything. And I only noticed it because I know how this shit works and those green icons seemed suspicious.Īnd yes, I'm using the word " fake", because I doubt that companies like Bitdefender have to pass the same certifications as a certificate authority or that they have any deals whatsoever with Google. In the name of "security", this undermines the very purpose of what HTTPS is about, knowingly endangering their users.Īnd consider that I, a highly technical and security conscious software developer, only noticed it because I saw green icons appearing in my search results and then noticed that Google's SSL certificate is now a fake. Your HTTPS connections by installing their I also want to raise an alarm about a current AV practice, not mentioned in the article:
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