{"id":46850,"date":"2019-06-24T06:11:17","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T11:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46850"},"modified":"2019-06-24T06:12:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T11:12:09","slug":"googles-chrome-web-browser-has-become-spy-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46850","title":{"rendered":"Google’s Chrome Web Browser “Has Become Spy Software”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Google’s Chrome Web Browser “Has Become Spy Software”<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Google’s Chrome is essentially spy software according to Washington Post<\/a> <\/em>tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler, who spent a week analyzing the popular browser and concluded that it “looks a lot like surveillance software.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fowler has since switched to Mozilla’s Firefox<\/strong> because of its default privacy settings, and says that it was easier than one might imagine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My tests of Chrome vs. Firefox unearthed a personal data caper of absurd proportions<\/strong>. In a week of Web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker \u201ccookies\u201d that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer but were automatically blocked by Firefox.<\/strong> These little files are the hooks that data firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles of your interests, income and personality.<\/p>

Chrome welcomed trackers even at websites you would think would be private<\/strong>. I watched Aetna and the Federal Student Aid website set cookies for Facebook and Google. They surreptitiously told the data giants every time I pulled up the insurance and loan service\u2019s log-in pages.<\/p>

And that\u2019s not the half of it.<\/p>

Look in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser. See a picture or a name in the circle? If so, you\u2019re logged in to the browser, and Google might be tapping into your Web activity to target ads<\/strong>. Don\u2019t recall signing in? I didn\u2019t, either. Chrome recently started doing that automatically when you use Gmail.<\/strong> –Washington Post<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
When you use Chrome, signing into Gmail automatically logs in the browser to your Google account. When \u201csync\u201d is also on, Google receives your browsing history. (Geoffrey Fowler\/The Washington Post)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Chrome is even worse when it comes to mobile devices – <\/strong>reporting the precise location of Android users unless location sharing is turned off, in which case it will send out your rough coordinates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cookie monsters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google’s Chrome Web Browser “Has Become Spy Software” Google’s Chrome is essentially spy software according to Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler, who spent a week analyzing the popular browser and concluded that it “looks a lot like surveillance software.”  Fowler has since switched to Mozilla’s Firefox because of its default privacy settings, and says that it was easier than one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26128,26127,378,26124,26129,765,26125,4318],"class_list":["post-46850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-chrome","tag-firefox","tag-google","tag-google-chrome","tag-spy-software","tag-surveillance","tag-surveillance-software","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46851,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46850\/revisions\/46851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}