Staying Safe online and on Wattpad

PUP #13 Google's Trackers: The Search Engine

It's pretty hard to put together a list of all the trackers on the internet and what they get up to, so I'll highlight the main culprits and their ways. Our personal details and the things we click on a website are mined in various ways – with tracking cookies, beacons, JavaScript, widgets – and stored on servers. This power of detection is used to profile every potential consumer's product choice – what film, sport, music, show, book, food, wear, holiday, financial service, medical requirement, we may like or need to purchase. Only brand new internet users (generally very young, late bloomers or users with a new device) are out of their loop, but the moment these newbies fill in a form and allow Google trackers...

Every one of Google's products, websites and domains collects our private data when we use them. The data lands on its many servers on various domains, giving it the power to drive its business of selling this data on or using it to learn more about us. Website publishers are allowed to use these free trackers for their own ends, or in their own marketing campaigns, but are encouraged to send data back to Google too.

Google trackers appear on an incredible range of websites – media, social network, 'security' sites, proxy tunnel sites, holiday or vacation sites, new start-ups with corporate backing, email sites, kids' and teen sites, porn sites, race hate and terror-friendly sites – in fact, anywhere. Even if we click 'do not track' settings in our browser, (not a legally enforceable request unfortunately – Google would never allow lawmakers to pass that one), the Big G will collect new data to use or sell on, while a website with a 100k following will make $7,000 dollars weekly from Google ads and by passing our private data to the Collectors. That is the landscape we face because 7k a week is hard to turn down. Safe surfers should really try to avoid websites with the trackers I'll mention in these oncoming chapters if they can – but it'll be difficult at times, especially when we find them on websites we love. The site owners have probably sold out to Google and are leaking our data all over the place. There are exceptions of course, (actual safe websites without trackers, or website publishers who NEVER send stuff to Google) but we will have to work hard to find them.

The Google search engine

One of the cleverest marketing campaigns of all time was when Google named the act of internet searching after itself. Okay, they probably borrowed the ploy from one of the many search engines they gobbled up, but users still 'google' stuff on the internet. · To be fair, Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, did work on their search engine's original algorithm in the early days. But few internet users realise every time they type something into the current version's search box and click, it's being tracked every few seconds and logged onto a multitude of servers the company own, before being collated and compiled into millions of online profiles. It's said they keep this info for at least NINE MONTHS. Other sources claim TWENTY YEARS.

The big G has a super sophisticated filter system that can distil this data down to identify a group of individuals (known as 'aggregate data') who like or do a certain thing, you know, all the teens who like cute cat videos or all the old guys who look at car websites all day. They can sell and resell it many times over in different categories. Or they can zero in on just one guy if they want (though they insist they don't do this).

Say they've been tracking a male (User ID 334455) who is between 25-34 years, has searched for baby care and hygiene products and is not blocking ads or tracking scripts, Google's algorithm will determine this subject may have a baby. This opens the door to ads for baby clothes, toys, buggies, blankets and a host of other related products – on computer, tablet and mobile platforms if Google has matched devices, or if User ID 334455 has unwisely synced all 3 devices himself. Of course, this man may just like using baby oil or hygiene products for entirely different reasons. Perhaps he is an obsessive or an even a more worrying possibility, a paedophile. Google's search engine will know the answer eventually. He can hide on the dark web or through proxy tunnel sites or anonymous means but if he uses just two Google products he is leaving a data trail that can be followed. This is why the security services and law enforcement were so interested in Google's data collections. Using Google maps or Google Earth pins down his location, as does his IP address, but his searches for local products (EG if he checks his local diner for a menu) will truly give away his location.