Google's new advertising product, called Customer Match, lets advertisers upload their customer and promotional email address lists into AdWords. The new targeting capability extends beyond search to include both YouTube Trueview ads and the newly launched native ads in Gmail.
Customer Match marks the first time Google has allowed advertisers to target ads against customer-owned data in Adwords. Google matches the email addresses against those of signed-in users on Google. Individual addresses are hashed and are supposedly anonymized. Advertisers will be able to set bids and create ads specifically geared to audiences built from their email lists.
This new functionality seems to make de-anonymization of google's supposedly proprietary customer data just a hop, skip and jump away. If you can specify the list of addresses that get served an ad, and the criteria like what search terms will trigger that ad, you can detect if and when your target searches for specific terms. For example, create an email list that contains your target and 100 invalid email addresses that no one uses (just in case google gets wise to single-entry email lists). Then apply that list to searches for the word "herpes" - set the bid crazy high, like $100 and you are guaranteed to find out if your target searches for herpes which would be a strong indicator that they have herpes. Repeat as necessary for as many keywords and as many email addresses that you wish to monitor.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:24PM
Good job Google, talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Those not yet running ad blockers can't be far from enlightenment.
I've switched to uBlock Origin, with no exceptions. Clean fast loading pages.
I expect some totally new (old) behavior on the part of Google and other advertisers, such as putting ads directly into the html, indistinguishable from the content, and served from some cache of ads on the same web server. If they didn't have something up their sleeves they would be less callous in the capabilities they provide to advertisers.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:32PM
Well, the best defense is Google not knowing your email address. Who needs a Google account anyway?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:51PM
Everyone. You'll die without it. Don't think; consume.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:56PM
I like their services, and trading some info fore them currently seems like a pretty good deal. That said, I block ads, and scripts as well for the most part.
I use Google Apps (free) for running a few personal domains. I use Gmail for them, Google Docs, Hangouts (great cross-platform chat service), search (of course), Keep, Maps (on occasion), and a bunch of others. I'm not sure how much I'd actually *pay* to use it, but with the current rates for Google Apps domains, I'd rather have the ads ... which I block.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:30PM
Blocking ads doesn't block them from building a dossier on you based on every interaction you have with their services. Every time you access them, your IP address, every single word, every single photo, it all goes into your permanent record. Just because you can block the most obvious ads doesn't mean you will be immune for the rest of your life. You are essentially gambling that no one will figure out a way to use your dossier against you in the future.
That's probably a reasonable gamble to make, as long as you never become interesting to anyone motivated to really exploit that dossier. So, no political career for you or anyone in your family, no big dollar business career, cross your fingers you never win a lottery, etc.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 05 2015, @04:18AM
You're not wrong, but you're not entirely correct, either. Google has a number of servers, each used for various purposes. If your router blocks adsense, but allows google search - you've thrown a monkey wrench into their data collection. No, of course you haven't blocked them from collecting data, but you have skewed it.
If your idea is that the best thing to do is not use Google at all - I can't argue that. But, Google does offer some pretty good services. If - and only if - you are willing to give up some data, then Google is a pretty good deal. If, on the other hand, you're not willing to give up any data at all to Google, then you should not use Google.
As for blocking some but not all Google servers and services, Google is aware of it. How can they not be? They track and correlate everything. But, they aren't much worried about people like me. There are so few of us, relatively speaking, who block any data collection, they don't care. Even among people with adblockers, they mostly allow Google servers. Either they've decided to trust Google, or they are unaware that they can block some Google servers, and not the rest.
Bottom line - I don't see Google's ads. I'm happy with that. The data that Google has on me is rather sparse, and I can live with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @02:09PM
The data that Google has on me is rather sparse
That's quite a statement you're making there... How much are you willing to bet that you are wrong?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 05 2015, @02:22PM
I don't think that I quite said exactly what I meant. A small addendum should help accuracy -
"The data that Google has on me is rather sparse compared to people who make no effort to block Google's prying eyes."
Better? I don't beleive for one moment that I can use Google services without leaving any trace. It may be possible to create an online personna that isn't traced by Google at all, but I've made no attempt to do so.
The evidence that I've blocked some of Google's data gathering lies in the few advertisements that I see. Their "targeted" advertising misses the mark, badly. Amazon has hit me with some pretty targeted stuff that has made me reconsider how I deal with Amazon, but Google misses the mark by a long shot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2015, @12:29AM
> You're not wrong, but you're not entirely correct, either.
You seem to have lost the context of the thread. We aren't talking about general search use. We are talking about specific google apps where you have to be logged in to use them and the data is all stored on their servers to begin with. Blocking adsense does nothing for you there.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 05 2015, @07:21AM
Not free. You just pay indirectly. And may never find out where.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by SanityCheck on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:39PM
For starters I have one from work... which I need... then my university also runs google mail....
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:57PM
then my university also runs google mail....
In Soviet America, google mail runs your university!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @01:01AM
Schools should not depend on companies that violate people's privacy, just like they shouldn't use proprietary software. That should simply be illegal.
(Score: 1) by SanityCheck on Monday October 05 2015, @12:58PM
Wholeheartedly agree. Explain this ethics-based argument to a bunch of MBAs that have penetrated institutions of higher learning. You think they will take you seriously when they see it costs them $100K+ a year to run their own email server? Not likely. It is disgusting, but it happens all the time now a days. The shit that happened at my school, which is mostly publicly-funded mind you, thoroughly disgusted me. I'm just waiting for one of those alumni donation calls to let them have it :)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday October 05 2015, @07:44AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 05 2015, @07:50AM
Even if someone has my email address in his address book, there's no way for Google if I watch a YouTube video to associate the email address with the YouTube access. And that is what counts.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday October 05 2015, @08:05AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 05 2015, @08:07PM
I've got a dynamic IP. Unless I send an email to a gmail address and then visit YouTube on the same day (and don't disconnect/reconnect the router in between) there will be no way to infer a connection.
You honestly believe that I accept any cookies from Google?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 06 2015, @09:05AM
I've got a dynamic IP. Unless I send an email to a gmail address and then visit YouTube on the same day (and don't disconnect/reconnect the router in between) there will be no way to infer a connection.
And does it change every day? Is there a predictable pattern? Do you always get an IP from a small subnet range? How much entropy is in your browser fingerprint (list of fonts installed, browser version, plugin versions)? It doesn't take much to identify you as a unique user on a few hundred IPs.
You honestly believe that I accept any cookies from Google?
You honestly believe that you block all of the hundreds of domains that provide Google tracking information?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2015, @01:41PM
And does it change every day? Is there a predictable pattern? Do you always get an IP from a small subnet range? How much entropy is in your browser fingerprint (list of fonts installed, browser version, plugin versions)? It doesn't take much to identify you as a unique user on a few hundred IPs.
Get/make a browser addon that randomizes the information sent. That's what I did.
You honestly believe that you block all of the hundreds of domains that provide Google tracking information?
Hundreds is nothing. I block hundreds of thousands of domains, including all of Google's garbage.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday October 06 2015, @10:15PM
Yes. Actually I don't know if it would change every day if my router wouldn't automatically disconnect/reconnect daily, but I've yet to have two consecutive days with the same IP address,
Unlikely. But then, I don't visit YouTube (or other Google sites) daily, so the pattern would have to be super-predictable.
Disabled JavaScript blocks the reading of most identifying properties. There was some time ago a web page that tells how unique your browser fingerprint is (it probably still exists, but I don't remember where it was). I don't remember the exact number, but when I checked, my browser was found reasonably non-unique.
It's not the domain that provides Google the information, it's the browser, on request of the loaded web page. Thanks to Policeman (and before, RequestPolicy) I'm 100% sure a non-Google site cannot request the browser to send data to Google (or anyone else) unless I explicitly allow it specifically for that site (whitelisting approach).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by Ayn Anonymous on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:27PM
I like the google docs a lot.
The only thing I miss since moving to https://Yandex.com/ [yandex.com]
But I trust the Russians way more than Google.
And Yandex.com don't hassle me when I use TOR.
Try it. You may like it.
(Score: 2) by timbim on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:02PM
Yeah but how long is that tor access going to last? Isnt the russian government cracking down on tor?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday October 05 2015, @02:52AM
I've been using Yandex for my Soylent mails too.
I don't trust the Russians one bit. I expect they (or their computers) read every email I send or receive. But they don't have subpoena power here, and won't send people to knock down my door. The service is fast enough. I access them via https only, no need to use TOR, and I refuse to install their app on my phone.
Other than that, I use their email and their cloud storage. At times I have my phone set to upload pictures to their cloud.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday October 05 2015, @03:27AM
My brain simply stopped at "trusting the russians" since as you say they are undoubtedly scanning the same as google et all. However, you make a good point about subpoenas and kicking down doors. On the flip side, all traffic to yandex is probably recorded and decrypted periodically to search for red flags. I think the convenience is overwhelming, and we need to find alternative solutions so that as societies we don't funnel the majority of our communications through a a few narrow gates.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @05:22AM
and won't send people to knock down my door
Ha! Just wait until some vacationing Russian tax collector shows up with an offer you can't refuse! You may have noticed that Russia isn't a stickler for rules. You lie with the dogs and you're going to wake up with fleas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @07:04PM
> But they don't have subpoena power here, and won't send people to knock down my door.
Google doesn't either. But I do expect Yandex to make it easy to for third parties - including foreign law enforcement - to purchase the data they've collected. I expect Google to put up a fight - this story itself is notable because Google has a long history of being unwilling to voluntarily share their data hoard. Even this is a backdoor method to that end.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Monday October 05 2015, @10:43AM
You might give Zoho Docs [zoho.com] a try, in that case — it's a decent replacement, IMHO. I discovered it when I ditched Gmail for Zoho's mail service, which is more privacy-oriented as their main business is selling enterprise versions of their services.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:22PM
Tho i dislike ADs as much as the next guy, this is the result of everyone blocking everything.
Never forget, this is how google ( and others ) make their money.. Without ADs there would be no google, no android, etc etc. So as more people block, the advertisers have to find ways around it. ( such as ad-placement in movies and TV shows.. )
The sad reality today is no ads = no internet ( as we know it )
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:32PM
> Without ADs there would be no google, no android, etc etc.
And no g+ either.
> The sad reality today is no ads = no internet ( as we know it )
Doesn't seem sad to me.
You assume that "no android" and "no google" means no equivalent via a different funding source. How many beloved services has google shutdown internally? How many technically better services has google crushed because they could afford to run their version indefinitely even if it wasn't profitable? Even today, like a decade after they bought it youtube still doesn't break even, but they are the 800lb gorilla to never-heard-of-it sites like vimeo and liveleak.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:35PM
The internet as we know it has sucked for a while now. I liked it better in the 90's before Google took over.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:41PM
Without ADs there would be no google, no android, etc etc.
The sad reality today is no ads = no internet ( as we know it )
I'll definitely keep blocking ads then.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Francis on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:59PM
People block ads because they're shitty. There are too many sites that I can't go to because the ads are so badly broken. They freeze the browser and hold up loading. They cover content to force me to look and spy on my activities.
People block the ads because the ads have gotten to the point where they are destroying the internet. I doubt ad blockers would be as common if they went back to text ads or gifs and stopped spying on people.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 05 2015, @04:25AM
This exactly. If advertising were all located in a sidebar, where it sat still, without animation, no sound, just text and some links, I wouldn't care how much advertising appeared on my screen. I compressed image might be alright. You can fit a LOT advertising on a newspaper page, which amounts to a few k of data. The first asshole who started ramming megabytes of data through the pipes to ensure that his advertisement couldn't be ignored screwed things up for everyone. And, of course, like lemmings, all the other advertisers followed suit.
On a typical site, I want 50k or 500k or even a Mb of data. I'm forced to download orders of magnitude more data than I wanted. Disgraceful.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:34PM
...Without ADs there would be no google, no android...
That's two wins right there.
...no ads = no internet ( as we know it )
That's win number three - too much crapulence to sift through today.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Francis on Monday October 05 2015, @03:20AM
You don't like ehow and Expert Sexchange?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:54PM
And as much as -I- dislike ads, everyone blocking -everything- was the result of advertisers being WAY too intrusive, pushy, underhanded, and in-your-face as if the only reason the page was loaded was to serve their ad. So what goes around, comes around I guess. Personally I never even considered blocking ads until they started with the pop-up and pop-under garbage.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 05 2015, @04:29AM
Banners. Banners were what set me off. As I recall, popups and popunders came shortly after those in-you-face-banners. Soon after I had started blocking banners, those damned popunders hit me, opening hundreds of new windows, bringing the computer to it's knees. No point in closing one or ten or a hundred, there were yet more to deal with. Just close the browser, and restart it without those pages - THEN use google to find out how to block popups and popunders.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Zz9zZ on Monday October 05 2015, @03:21AM
I'm gonna have to agree with (I think) every comment in this sub-thread. Google has done very little for the average person that is not available in other ways. The only real change is probably that people who actually want/need online services might have to pay a small amount for them. By small I mean small, dollars per month. Wait, there is one service that can not be easily replicated, Youtube. However, that is already supported quite nicely by ads, with competitors surviving quite nicely as well.
Or, perhaps the services would be provided by multiple providers and it would encourage cross-compatibility and a more open web since people want their services integrated.
Even better, people could have software that they could more easily run themselves. Ideally, the ability to set up servers using encryption which would allow a group of people to share a server while maintaining privacy.
Yup, this new internet is turning into one big marketing scheme. Even the newest fads in web design mirror giant billboards, where even on professional sites you can find little real information beyond the short marketing paragraphs accompanying large images and videos. I would be fine if we went back to the general structure of the 90's / early 2000's. Maybe even the "News" would benefit, relying on quality reporting to earn subscribers instead of click bait headlines and faux content to get as many eyeballs as possible.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Monday October 05 2015, @02:18PM
I concur. I guess I rant too... sorry everyone, but it just seems that so many people don't care that I am collecting soap boxes to stand on; I've found a lot littered around. Abandoned ideals, I imagine. I prefer to not believe that it is mass ignorance.
The people that say that I would give up too much to not use the services are those that do not know I never accepted use of Google services anyway -- except for the search engine. Some people have asked me how do I live -- well, I use different services. It is not hard to not create a login at places. Guest checkout works -- I am sorry for those that find it inconvenient to either memorize their credit card numbers or be frusterated in fumbling with their wallets while thumbing in numbers on a tablet screen. There are solutions for these problems and many of them do not involve using a google to do it.
I even went out of my way to prevent the suggestions and "instant wrong auto-fill" to stop running.
Whenever I see a site that has google anything in the no script, immediately presume they are adversarial in nature, even if they aren't. Newegg now has so many things that come up in no script... pinterest? google? why?
What are all of these CDN servers I see connections to doing, if pictures of the product on Pinterest? why? Is it because there are too many pictures of young men and women raising their arms up in triumph about the size of the hard drive being viewed? (oh that worthless overview page that tells me I can store millions of poor bitrate mp3s on an enterprise SAS3 hard drive... What? Why is that part of the product description? Maybe for the green 90 day warranty college kid refurb drive, but not for business hardware!)
If you are going to track me anyway, at least figure it out that I don't determine my purchases by how blonde and female the college student is on the hard drive ad [and if I am looking AT the product page, do they really need to resort to this marketing? I already viewing the product? Why the lure?) Nor am I convinced that being able to store so many hours of HD content and so many MP3s... just tell me the disk capacity, and I can figure out the rest?)
You don't need personalized tracking to know that isn't why a company of any size is buying a SAS drive based on the overview. And don't send her on a sales call, either. Some people may like that, track them, I am sure they'll opt in.
But despite all the tracking for my brand and purchasing preferences, no one seems to ever ask me for mine directly, it has to be inferred. Nor will anyone actually allow me to set up the use of such preferences in a way that lets me define the user experience in a way I prefer. And no, I will not create a log in to google to alter their defaults that I don't like to the limited extent they allow hiding some things that noscript does without such privacy invasion. I will simply avoid them and their javascript as much as possible.
Having google do this, and take another step in the direction of violating that required trust to use the services (and the fact I don't even use google for other than search...) it only leads me to lean more heavily on those around me to abandon them, and invest effort, for free, to help people switch to anything else that isn't obviously worse.
Too many people can't have the lifestyles they want without Free Apps and services, though, because everyone else is doing it--cheapness prevaled and this is the society we have. Ad funded and FREE! Hell I'd even pay more taxes to filter it out. I don't get ads for things with electricity delivery or my water use. Maybe in the envelope that contains the bill for the use of such utility, but that's once a month.
Maybe if there was a free app that woke people up out of their matrix pods... well. Too many people are happy being batteries to do anything about it. It's hard work to be an individual, and the rewards can be quite slim. And individuality is expensive -- it's why luxury brands cost a lot, so you can be one of the few wearing or have for adornment a name brand item.
I am hoping they send me ads for a tin foil hat -- a luxurious one, so I can be unique and stand out from my peers! People already say I am out standing in my field. Perhaps the hat will give me better reception?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 05 2015, @07:34AM
The internet as I knew it before internet ads were a much more pleasant place anyway.
Anyway, I'm not against ads as such, I'm against
Guarantee me, credibly, that none of these points are violated, and I'll happily enable ads.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday October 05 2015, @08:52AM
as a counter to that argument, if you pay for cable they *still* send you ads.
I think it is simply greed. If paying your ISP is not enough to access the internet, what is that point?
However, the situation would be *greatly* improved if ads were really specifically targeted. I mean hyper.
No matter how many of type X advert (kittens, certain cars, lawn furniture etc..), occasionally when I am in the market for object Y (computers, mobile phone, a specific car, flights), then is when advertising should be deployed.
But the scatter gun, malware carrying , time robbing garbage of today has to die. It is not fit for purpose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2015, @10:01PM
>The sad reality today is no ads = no internet ( as we know it )
Please, can you tell me when this will become reality? At least I'm proud that I took part in that by blocking ads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:59PM
I told you so doesn't quite cover it.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:01PM
Create a plugin that every few seconds or minutes does a google search on randomly chosen words or phrases. I google maybe 4-5 times a day, if this plugin shot out 40-50 random searches daily my searches are in the noise floor.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:20PM
You appear to have missed the point.
Adding noise doesn't hide the fact that you searched for a targeted keyword. Since you don't know what keywords are targeted, you have no practical way to create false positives.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Monday October 05 2015, @01:57PM
yeah... trying to use the services of the best tracking and behavioral research company out there, while trying to hinder it in such a way.
It'll work, but you'll get ads for McAfee articles if not his software.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @03:02AM
There has been a firefox plugin to do exactly that for years. It does searches far more frequently and pulls random common search terms from google itself.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:18PM
That is why Microsoft made the GMail Man video a few years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFCSp23xl40 [youtube.com]
OR
https://vimeo.com/49048679 [vimeo.com]
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Monday October 05 2015, @12:27AM
Wow so applicable.
I wouldn't go MS for any service now though.
Looks like I'll have to setup my own Webmail server soon...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @02:00AM
> Looks like I'll have to setup my own Webmail server soon...
Practically every hosting service out there will throw it in for free. Even some of the registrars will throw it in for free as long as all you want is webmail for a couple of accounts.
> I wouldn't go MS for any service now though.
Yeah, their conversion of Win10 into spyware was an amazing about-face from their previous "we are pro-privacy" stance. I guess they decided that if they can't beat 'em, might as well join 'em.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @01:17PM
This is Microsoft's MO since the very beginning. As is 'using facts' to ruin a competitor over the exact behavior Microsoft is about to jump into.
I mean seriously, has anyone doubted this, other than maybe a fanboy or shill?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday October 05 2015, @07:49AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @04:14AM
SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, your money, your comments, and by some great volunteers.
I think we will be alright.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 05 2015, @07:40AM
Also, one of the great things about this site is that it is self-contained. Zero requests to third-party servers.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.