Two free browser add-ins to protect you against Google data gathering
- TAGS:cookies google analytics, Google, privacy
- IT TOPICS:Applications, E-Business, Internet, Operating Systems, Privacy, Security, Web Apps, Windows
Several days ago, CEO Eric Schmidt outlined a future in which Google would know so much about you, it would know what you think before you know it yourself. He may well be right. But there are free add-ins that can help protect you against Google data gathering. Here are two good ones I recently rounded up.
Google collects information about you in countless ways, many of them not particularly obvious. Take Google Analytics, for example. It's used by Web sites to track and analyze traffic, and they then use that information to deliver ads, marketing material, and so on.
When you visit a site that uses Google Analytics (and plenty of them do), a cookie is placed on your hard disk, and it's used to track information about your visit to the Web site. That information is sent to Google, and then from Google to the Web site.
Google claims the information is gathered about you anonymously, but if you don't believe it, or if you simply don't want Google Analytics to gather the information, there's a way out. Get the beta of the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, which works with (nternet Explorer (versions 7 and 8), Google Chrome (4.x and higher), and Mozilla Firefox (3.5 and higher). Install it, and information about your visit to the Web site using Google Analytics won't be sent to Google.
If you're an Internet Explorer user, by the way, there's another way to opt out of Google Analytics. For details, head to this post from Microsoft's IEBlog.
Of course, there are many other ways that Google gathers information about you. If you would like to be informed every time information is sent to Google check out the Google Alarm Firefox add-in. Every time information about you is sent to Google, an alarm like an air raid siren sounds. The add-in doesn't actually stop the information from being sent. Instead, it just lets you know when it happens, under the theory that forewarned is forearmed.
For more details, check out my review here. If the alarm noise bothers you, by the way, you can find a noiseless alarm on the add-in's Web site.
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