Steve Ensley
Internet Safety Specialist
Google tricks Internet Explorer, foils privacy settings,
February 21st, 2012
Although this has been an issue for some time and was one of the first breaches by Google that got my attention, this fact again bares repeating. For those of you who are Safari, IE and Google users, this is not only annoying, it borders on criminal. Google is tracking you and spying on you without your knowledge or permission and in fact violating privacy settings that you have deliberately set to prevent such activity.
Not even the government can legally do what Google is doing without a warrant.
Once again Google is the 800 lb gorilla in the room that no one wants to confront. When will it stop? The answer is never, we have lost those freedoms!
My advice if you value your privacy and security – DON’T USE GOOGLE! There are lots of alternatives.
Posted in Internet Safety | Comments (8)
Whitney Houston scams flood Facebook and Twitter
February 18th, 2012
Regardless of how you might feel about Whitney Houston, these scams go beyond vulgar or crass and cross the line into criminal deceit. Although it isn’t technically illegal, the folks who do this kind of opportunistic scamming are the same folks who stalk your children, steal your identities and believe that breaking a law is only bad if you get caught!
Why is this an Internet safety issue? It should concern you because often these scam sites have viruses, tracking code, redirects to porn sites and identity theft schemes. Facebook is great for staying in contact with real friends and family, but because it is so open, it also has a dark side, a very dark side. I do not propose limits on Facebook, I only want you to be aware of what your are dealing with when you use Facebook.
I think you should be free to use it, I just also think it should come with a warning label like drain cleaner requires!
Posted in Internet Safety | Comments (0)
Google defensive after fresh privacy breach
February 18th, 2012
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/30ba3ece-5994-11e1-8d36-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1mkC1zMoH
It is good to see Google backpedaling on this privacy issue, but if you read the article I hope you caught two significant items. First you have to opt out in order to NOT be tracked and secondly DoubleClick is used for tracking on thousands of web sites, not just Google. We block DoubleClick with our suite of family Internet filters just for that reason. It tracks your activities WITHOUT permission.
The danger is self evident. If they are tracking all your Google activity (and others), they know where you and all your family are located, what you are doing and when you are doing it. So what is to stop predator employees of Google or hackers or the Government from using that information to harm you or your family.
Honest folks, I am not a conspiracy theory person nor am I paranoid about government, but this technology is a serious breach of privacy and SAFETY.
Posted in Internet Safety | Comments (0)
