Someone here was looking into data science resources and I got interested in it too. I had a few weeks to burn through and I figured it might be a good idea to try this field too. Most of the projects that a friend involved me in required me to be constantly hopping from one Google Search to another. One thing I noticed is how Google’s search engine is getting better at personalizing my search. For example: Say I’m looking into the biography of Meria and in one of the many many pages there’s mention of his clandestine squeeze Mutheu. I kid you not, the moment I start typing into the search bar: M the very first suggestion would be Mutheu albeit her being completely unpopular online or with little to no social media impact.
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Sasa hapa ndio shida yangu inakujia. Canvas finger printing. This is more or less, when a company such as Google lay out invisible canvas(es) on your browser and start identifying you from the browser you normally use, type of sites you visit, how long you stay there, the content, types of OS you use and the general physical location of your devices. It sounds bad but not that scary right?
This is until you dig deeper and you find out that going incognito won’t help you at all(DuckDuckGo released this outdated info jana ama juzi). You’ll still be tracked all through regarded of browser or type of device you use. This info is used to identify you at a greater detail so much that they can comprehensively tell you the number of devices you have and from what time you’re most active. Consequences
Personalized searches doesn’t seem like a bad idea. I mean, it’s nice to have all the relative data and information ready, just waiting for me. Gets more work done at a shorter period of time. But this also means that the more people get immersed in personalized searches, the more society starts to fall back into cocoons of self justification.
Watu wenye wako against pineapples on pizza watazidi kuona results that favour this notion and vice versa. This makes it hard to have any discourse because the moment you and I both look into a subject, we may or may not see the same thing. My whole internet experience would be on things that make me happy and same case for you. Very subjective.
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This makes it hard if you’re into SEO, I’ve been trying to look into how my sites rank on the pages. I always see the same position on my tab and something entirely different on someone else’s device.
I’ve started seeing video topics from one YouTube account leaking to another that has barely any activity in years.
Let’s see how this works out. Because there’s virtually no way to tackle this without being off the grid entirely.
tl;dr: 2009 tech showing it’s claws, personalized search results in a subjective view of what’s happening in the world. Distorted Perspective soon. Images for aesthetics.
In your browser temp folders you always have data stored there basically, cookies, caches(images etc). Some of these are helpful since they help you load website pages faster but naturally the potential of saving malicious data is also very high. The other way google goes about things is probably through google account creation. All your activity, for example on Youtube, is stored server end and co-related to your gmail account. That is why when you use the same youtube account on mobile and desktop you get the same content being recommended to you.
Frankly, on Youtube that pisses me off because it limits the scope of the things that you can watch or gets recommended to you for viewing. If I watch football videos that will be the main thing being recommended to me 90% of the time. But my tastes are always changing which means I have to resort to using the search bar to find content. You will rarely discover content you have never thought about searching for.
The freaky part is that this is not limited to any account you may have created. Huu mwaka ukianza nilikuwa napata suggestions za Messi videos. Never in my life have I ever searched for this anywhere and I just figured ni kitu inatrend mahali. Looking back, this happened around the time I had a guest over for a week, big football fanatic.
Cache, fosho, help. But kuna sites zingine huchukuwa unbelievably large amounts of RAM na load times juu ya chini-ya-maji scripts.
That’s why I always change the country and never sign in on YouTube because it places you in a cocoon of things that only you like or what’s being pushed to you, meaning your mind can never explore and find an opinion different from yours.
@NeverForget Google ‘reinforcement theory’ in communication.
Not enough. You also have to give up gmail, yahoo, ios, Mac, Android, windows and the internet. You cannot win. Abandon all hope and live a simple life like the rest of us.