On Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at 11:13 AM,
I don't know as much about this as I should, but these seem to be the basics:
- late 20th century google started data mining websites in a novel way. Everyone thought it was a good thing.
- around 2005 Google introduced gmail for free, but openly told everyone they were going to data mine the emails to see what kind of things the owner of the mailbox was interested in.
- since then Google has gotten more and more aggressive and now appears to mine gmail mailboxes to build a profile about non-gmail users as well. It also is scanning blogs, blog comments, LinkedIn and Twitter. Basically anything they can actually see they data mine. Along those lines they offer Google analytics as a free service that gives them great visibility into people's web browsing activity even if they somehow manage to avoid using any Google services themselves and also avoid interaction with anyone with a gmail account.
- as of yesterday(Aug 1), Microsoft has officially joined the game:
Microsoft Privacy Statement https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/default.aspx
Microsoft Services Agreement https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/servicesagreement/default.aspx
Hopefully using openSUSE reduces some of Microsoft's and Google's effectiveness, but all of us interact with users of Google and Microsoft services.
What steps can openSUSE as a project and as individuals do to reduce our Google and Microsoft visible footprint?
Is it too late to try?
Greg
The folks building the FreedomBox recognized this problem some time ago. Their box and a mesh network will get you as far away from being the product as you can get. The FreedomBox is a Debian project, https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox. This page suggests what you can do now to be less observed: https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/LeavingTheCloud This video set the tone of the project, "ISOC-NY Event: Eben Moglen ‘Freedom in the Cloud’ – 2/5/2010", http://isoc-ny.org/1338 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org