I’ve now had confirmation from the Network Advertising Initiative that Google has, indeed, been dodgy about its Ads Preferences Manager. Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We were able to reproduce the issues you saw and have been working with Google for the last week to address them. I am happy […]
Read More… from Google Ads Preferences Manager issue confirmed by NAI
Not only does Google Ads Preferences Manager reset on a regular basis and bugger what your preferences are, Facebook has today reset (at least for myself and one other friend) email settings. ‘Set emails to spam.’ Why Facebook does this regularly, I have no idea—but this is relatively minor compared to their removal of […]
Read More… from Facebook resets email preferences, after it removes gay photo as ‘abusive’
The troubles with Google that I’ve faced—privacy breaches, Ads Preferences Manager not honouring its claims, fighting for six months on behalf of a friend over a deleted Blogger blog, Chrome being buggy (but not nearly as badly as IE9), phantom entries in my Google dashboard, unanswered messages—would suggest, to anyone studying business or a graduate […]
Read More… from Someone’s doing something right inside Google
I know you’re sick of reading three of these blog entries on three consecutive days but here’s what my Google Ads Preferences Manager has shown me today. I’m sick of writing about it, but Google’s being so damned predictable. First, the cookie is back, though it hasn’t picked up preferences yet this morning: […]
Read More… from Three out of three: Google’s Ads Preferences Manager does not work
Yesterday, I wrote about Google’s Ads Preferences Manager. I mentioned that I had opted out before, but had found myself having to repeat the exercise. I did, however, stop short at levelling blame at Google for another privacy gaffe, despite its behaviour with Web History, Buzz, Reader, Notes, etc., just in case I had fiddled […]
Read More… from Google advertising doesn’t understand that opting out means opting out
I have opted out of Google’s Doubleclick (and others’) advertising cookies many times. In theory, you only need to do it once, but I have been to Google’s opt-out page many times to find that the company has set another new cookie on my system. I fiddle around with my cookies a lot, so […]
Read More… from Check that your Google ad opt-out has been honoured
Above I’d mention the war, but Honda was founded after the surrender. I despise fax-spam, and under my reading of the Telecommunications Act, these come under nuisance calls. But regardless of the legality, it seems rather hypocritical for Honda to have sent me one for its Insight hybrid car. Think about it: a lot […]
After all the hassles surrounding Buzz and privacy last year, you’d think Google would have learned. Maybe not. Buzz has been reintroduced to my Google account for the third time without my consent, just over a year after a part of the the internet community expressed its anger. Google has probably figured that we have […]
Read More… from Google Buzz is back, whether I like it or not
I was glad that Larry Page has now taken the reins at Google again. Maybe we can bring back a bit of the pioneering spirit rather than the MBA-heavy, establishment-thinking, netizen-offending, privacy-breaching culture of recent years. If there’s one thing that’s helped raise Google’s stock in my mind, it’s this appointment. Meanwhile, it doesn’t […]
A hypothetical situation here, between two Gmail users (I don’t use Gmail, so you know this is hypothetical). User 1 is in to some sick stuff and has been watching it on YouTube, using an alias for his YouTube account name. However, his account is linked to his Google account. User 2 is […]
Read More… from One danger of linking your YouTube and Google accounts?