Well congrats on being a 100% public person. Most aren't.

I think at this point in 2013 its pretty naive to not assume that google "tracks" your search history. Anything I don't want showing up later in autocompletes etc I do a quick control shift n.

Incognito doesn't save local history. I imagine Google is still saving your searches though.

oddly enough there was a period where chrome kept trying to autocomplete www.two to a certain NSFW site involving girls and cups that I refuse to visit and I was wondering whether someone borrowed my computer or google was trolling me

I guess it depends on what kind of porn you searched for :P

I'm not sure how people wouldn't be embarrassed. For me, and I assume most people, every major and most minor problems I've had in life (medical, professional, personal, etc.) are probably reflected in my search history.

I figured they saved it, just in anonymized form. For whatever reason it never occurred to me that they would tie it to my gmail account which knows my real name, then shove it back in my face like that. (Let's just say I discovered google image search with safe search turned off a few years ago.)

Between Gmail, Android, forced-signup with Google+ (look at who you know!), search, gAnalytics, targeted ads, etc etc, I just sort of accept them as an evasive presence in my life that presumably collected and used all the data they could on me.

Someone I knew couldn't accept that Facebook got so large so fast, and he concluded that the company was backed by the CIA or some gov't ops. His theory that it was the perfect place for spying, since people gave their information away for free. I guess that if all these companies were getting paid under the programs, then the truth wasn't so far off after all.

***

Speaking of HN front-page stuff, I've always been tempted to link this video:

Also isn't DDG a US startup? Pretty naive to assume that the NSA can make Google cooperate but DDG will stand their ground.

I'll still switch to DDG for now because the duck logo is pretty elite.

www.startpage.com is where it's at.

"Startpage offers you Web search results from Google in complete privacy!

When you search with Startpage, we remove all identifying information from your query and submit it anonymously to Google ourselves. We get the results and return them to you in total privacy."

Bullet proof business model

Their claim is that while they'll comply with any government order they have to but they avoid the issue by not storing the data in the first place so they have nothing to give.

Well, at the very least you aren't logged into your google account anymore. But yeah they still have your IP address so probably not much difference.

AFAIK DDG claims that they aren't storing any info about you, so they wouldn't have any info to give to the NSA. Unless the NSA forced DDG to start secretly tracking info, you'd be ok.

Guys, per NSA's charter they don't need permission to spy on firms OUTSIDE the US. They only need a warrant or cooperation to look INSIDE the US.

Cuts both ways. They have to warrant inside the US but they can warrant inside the US. They don't have jurisdiction elsewhere so if you think the company in question can withstand other approaches (hacking or a US-loyal government that just cooperates) you're better off elsewhere.
If you're wrong though you're worse off because you have no extra protection.

Tbh I think the chances are slim. Most governments will either cooperate with the US in some way or it'll be countries that treat data even worse.
And even if that's not the case I trust the NSA to be at least 4:1 against to get any data they want. It would be more costly and you wouldn't have to worry about nontargeted mass collection as much.

ECHELON etc.

I've gotta say...project Loon sounds pretty crazy/great (just the combination i like). So I'm less mad at Google than I was just a couple of days ago.

That sounds like a front for James Bond villain.

sorry, I though we were evaluating on privacy and quality of search

the french are hilarious

That is really cool.

I bet there's some interesting engineering behind coordinating all the flights of those balloons.

Also it's great to see a company working towards a mission like that. Does make me feel good about them.

haven't tried cutting and pasting into gmail lately have you?

No I haven't. I attach all the time though.

Formatting transfer poorly?

Loon looks cool.

Internet access will be significantly cheaper than computers, and computers are currently too expensive for many third world countries, so I don't know who this technology is supposed to service.

Yes, they have those $100 computers, but you are trying to sell it to people who earn $3 a day?

loon could be a game changer in repressive regimes like North Korea