Google doesn't do that. Rent, sell, donate, whatever. If you have some evidence to the contrary (e.g. public financial filings?), I'd be interested in seeing it. So would the FTC, actually, since AFAICT it would be a violation of Google's consent decree.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, unless perhaps you're talking about losing your opt-out cookie? If that's what you mean, Google provides browser extensions that ensure that never happens.

Yep, pretty much, that's it. Unless you're paying for Google services or buying Google hardware, online advertising is Google's revenue model. If you have some evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Again, I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that if you stop opting out from targeted ads you start seeing targeted ads? That seems pretty obvious to me.

None of what are for my benefit? The ads? If that's what you mean, I beg to differ. Most ads are useless to me, I agree, but it does happen from time to time that I see one that's useful. Even more importantly, those ads are how the sites that I like get funded, so they benefit me very directly.

(In my particular case, Google ads also pay most of my salary. But I felt the same about all of this before I joined Google so I honestly don't think that affects my opinions much.)

i stopped reading there. you're a hopeless moron

First, I never asserted that Google doesn't know about the data that it collects. That would be to deny a tautology. Second, you seem to be asserting that Google sells the data, which isn't true, as I explained in more detail in my first post in this thread. Third, the advertiser may well know you by name, etc., but not because Google told them anything about you. The fact that your IP may be linked to your identity in various ways is true, but not Google's fault, and Google doesn't participate in spreading information about you.

If you don't want an advertiser to get your IP, I suppose you should avoid clicking on ads.

To the degree that it is cross-referenced, yes. And Google Analytics gives Google perhaps more of this sort of information than any other entity -- unless, of course, you opt out of analytics tracking, in which case Google doesn't track you.

Well, then, don't give your permission. I think that's the key; opt out of the services you find too intrusive. That doesn't completely solve the problem, because of the cross-referencing issue. I think we'll need to deal with that legislatively, to bar companies from cross-referencing the data they have about individuals, and to give individuals access to the information held about them, and the opportunity to request that it be deleted... with, of course, serious consequences for failing to comply with such requests.

seizure in the usa is already way out of control

the recent federal review of asset seizure laws is welcome, but weak:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

worrying about banks seizing funds is the least of your problems

call it zuckerbucks

it's for zuckers

so you're ok with child porn and death threats?

can i take photos of you having sex with your significant other and put it on a billboard in your hometown? it's just free speech dude

everything has limits. including free speech. not because i say so, but because of simple logic and reason: it ends where it impinges on the freedoms of others. classic example: yelling fire in a crowded theatre

the fact that i recognize that freedoms are not boundless, but logically constrained by other people's freedoms, does not make me an authoritarian, it just makes me smarter than you

go to google news

type in "shooting"

and let's dip into the ocean today

http://www.newsday.com/news/ne...

http://www.post-gazette.com/lo...

http://www.ketv.com/news/omaha...

http://www.twincities.com/crim...

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015...

http://www.whsv.com/home/headl...

etc.

etc.

tomorrow it will be another collection of dozens of shootings

every fucking day in the usa. oh it happens in other countries. at a much lower rate. because they make guns harder for douchebags to get

the usa enjoys no amazing lower rate of rape, robbery, assault, etc., because of owning lots of guns, as compared to our social and economic peers, we are no crime free paradise. so owning a gun doesn't confer magic anti-crime properties. it does confer something though: a massive increase in homicide. pointlessly. needlessly. every little confusion or altercation in the usa has to lead to death. and this is somehow better

completely unnecessary, completely fucking stupid, and completely ok according to my fellow countrymen who are fucking braindead douchebags

we need gun control in the usa badly

and we are going to get it

you can't ward off logic and common sense with stupidity, lies, and propaganda forever

if i read something, i expect it to have a fucking point. your post, for example, has a point. but if it's a meandering brain diarrhea dump, i'm going to complain. i don't have the right to do that?

I'm really not sure what you're on about.

Yes, Google knows you clicked, because they use that to track advertising effectiveness statistics, and, I assume, as a signal that the ad is for something you're interested in. Normally, of course, a web site doesn't know about clicks on links to other sites. When you click a search result or an ad, you're actually hitting a link to Google, which then redirects you to the destination. This is done so that Google knows you clicked. For both search results and ads, that's an important signal to Google that lets them know they ranked results/ads well and showed you what you were looking for.

Yes, the advertiser's web site knows you clicked, just like any web site you visit. Slashdot knows you viewed this article, and posted, and what you posted, etc. If you use a site, the system and therefore its operators know you did.

I don't see what about all of this upsets you, or what you think someone is trying to hide from you.

But do you want a computer where someone else can replace your OS with three minutes and a screwdriver without you being able to tell that they did so?

Yes, if you click a link that takes you to the advertiser's site, they know you did so. It's no different than if you typed in their URL, except that they see a referer header from Google, and find out what search terms you used to find them. Google didn't give them any of that information, though, YOU did.

If you opt out of personalized ads, there's no value to Google in tracking you.

in London, you get in a fight and you get a broken arm or a broken nose

in New York City, you get in a fight and you get a body bag

whenever the homicide rate of the USA is compared to other Western countries, NRA propagandized morons change the subject and counter about *violence*. as if *violence* is the same as *homicide*

frankly, i'd love the violence rate in the usa to go up and the homicide rate to go down. because a broken arm is not a body bag

and you get that with better gun control

but too many of my fellow americans of the low iq and propagandized variety believe for some fucking ignorant reason that every little misunderstanding or conflict has to escalate to death

and that's exactly what we get:

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/...

rape? robbery? violence? about the same as our social and economic peers

easy guns do not protect us from those things. they just mean tens of thousands of extra body bags every year

if anything, owning a gun increases the chance of mortality for you and your loved ones, because you've raised the stakes in every little act of confusion/ misunderstanding/ anger/ accident/ etc. to death

like what? child porn? incitement to murder? sure. i live in the West and i support suppression of that

like political criticism? religious satire? no. i do not support that

the country that limits a few vicious topics is not at all like the country that locks down all political speech threatening the political status quo

the former is very much a free country, the latter very much not a free country, and the difference is substantive and real and very serious

if you think a country that censors child porn is exactly the same as one that censors political speech, you're only announcing yourself as a moron who doesn't understand the topic

no, ask most english speakers what 50 cents means and they think Curtis James Jackson III born July 6, 1975

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5...

you really do have to spread the word about astroturfers paid by the chinese government to vomit propaganda on social media, most english speakers really are not aware of them