How you are being tracked Part-1

In this series of blog posts, I will inform you about how mega corporations track you Starting with google

When we fire up our computers the first thing we do is fire up our web browser. This is the story for the majority of personal computer users and for the most part we don't even pay attention to the sinister events that play out behind our monitors. 

The most prefered browser is chrome which over 60% of users use regularly. It's fast and returns whatever you want to know about for free.

However, have you ever wondered why Larry Page and Sundar Pichai are richer than some countries while the services that they provide are free? Where do they get the money from? 

The answer to the question is as short as a word- Advertisers. Advertisers are willing to pay entire banks worth of money to them just to show users advertisements. There is still nothing sinister about this until Google announced it is going to start targeted advertisements in 2005.

 Before we go any further, let's get 3 things clear in detail

IP address- IP is the acronym for Internet Protocol. It looks like 192.0.2.1. This address uniquely identifies a device on the internet. It can give away a general location of a person. It is used to connect to any and every website. 

Targeted Advertising- Targeted advertisements are a form of advertisement in which advertisers can target specific people from the entire market to show them ads. By this method, the probability that this audience is interested in the product is far higher than showing advertisements to everyone. In essence, the advertisers get far higher right on investment from posting ads. For example- a car company is expected to get more calls by showing ads to all adults above the age of 25 than to show the ads to a 12 year old.

 There are many types of targeted adverts but let us stick to the topic of search engine marketing. Google collects everything you search and logs your IP address, purchase history, cookies, and Chrome window's dimensions.

Cookies- This is a tiny text file that is used to identify people. Whenever you open a website, you send a request to the server the website is hosted on. This server then gives you permission to view and interact with the site, it also sends a text file called a cookie. This file helps the server identify you once you are on the same website again. How does it know you? This cookie contains all the preferences you have selected on the website

Fun fact- Cookies last for 30 years. This means that if you never log on to the same site with the same browsers for another 30 years, it will still remember you

There are types of cookies. It is very important to be clear about these-

First Party- This is the most basic type of cookie and they are necessary to access the site. You cannot turn this off. It is used for purposes like calculating page views, sessions, and the number of users.

there is nothing called second party cookies

Third-Party-  These cookies are used for targeted advertisements. How can advertisers see my cookies when only the website can read the cookies? Have you ever read an article and seen ads on the left side of your screen or in the middle of the article itself? Those videos and images are items from a different server and that server consumes those 3rd party cookies. If this advertiser gets their ads over multiple websites, they can essentially know so much about you, virtually endless.

However, the EU responded by making the cookie law which made it compulsory for every website to let the user, only EU member country citizens, know what cookies are being used while using they use the site. And that's how you often see "We are using cookies on this site to personalise your experience" or something similar. But since you are in a hurry to read the article, you ignore it and don't care about it and click "Accept all cookies", making this law useless. Many times websites make it difficult for you to say no.

Fingerprints-  Not it's not what you are thinking. These bytes of data are harmless when looked at individually. Digital fingerprints include:

-The version of the browser you browse on

-your operating system info

-fonts currently used

-browser extensions and plugins

-screen resolution

These are used by websites to understand which version of operating and browser version face what problems. But how is it meant to track you?

Let's assume there are 1 Billion chrome v70 users. Out of these only 100 Million browse it on Windows 7, out of these only 100,000 users are reading in Times New Roman font and out of these, only 10 users have a monitor resolution of 1809X10000. Websites share information with other websites as well. Which websites you visit all without cookies.

That's the reason they are many times referred to as cookie-less monsters.

So, Google collects everything you search, logs your IP address, purchase history, cookies, Chrome window's dimensions

"Google track literally everything"

Here is another example. Let's say Arun has an android phone and he likes football, One direction and his favourite creator is Pewdiepie. He looks up news on the Euro cup, watches the latest pewdiepie video and listens to an old song by One Direction from his phone and Laptop both at different times. Since this activity is tracked by Google and giant advertising companies and they have his IP address pointing to the same general location, it is easy to link both devices to the same person. Learning about these habits is what makes google a magnet for advertisers. Now Arun will get ads related to Barcelona jerseys at sale, vintage vinyl records of One Direction songs and YouTuber merch

"The more unique your browser history is, the easier it is to track you"

The better you stand out, the more they know about you. The more you use their service, the better they know you. The more specific adverts they can give you and the more you will be likely to buy.

This is scary considering that it knows you more than some of your close family members. Don't believe me? Prepare to be shocked!

An angry man rushed to the nearest target regarding a complaint he wanted to file. Recently his daughter had been getting personalised booklets and coupons related to baby strollers, diapers and rattles. Which he thought was extremely inappropriate as she was expecting. Weeks later, he learnt that indeed she was pregnant. Target found out about his daughter's secrets before he did. The question is, nevertheless, how? Based on the purchase history and search history, Target was able to give her the "pregnancy prediction" score. She ordered and searched about lotions, calcium supplements and vitamin tablets which pregnant women frequently consume. They could even predict the delivery date!

The aftermath of this was even scarier.

 “Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawnmower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wine glasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance. And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”~ Andrew pole, Manager at Target
They started to hide the fact that these people were being spied on!
And that's the story of how Target lived up to its name. Imagine this was 10 years ago as of 2022
The worst part about all of this is that a company like Google has many partners. Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and others are its passwords. It has acquired over 100 companies and is trying to make every single service out there from google pay to a photo editor so that you use it the most so that it learns your habits faster and gives you better, more targeted advertisements. 

A piece of dangerous news I heard a few days ago about Google's acquisition of FitBit which makes smartwatches. Now it can track all the way from your heart rate to how much exercise you do weekly, targeting you much more than you previously thought. It even had its own version of Facebook which miserably failed.
Google has been accused of logging users' cursor movements every time they have to prove they are not human.

"But device recognition company AdTruth believes it has found evidence Google's CAPTCHA killer is collecting far more information than mouse coordinates alone, and that it could use the security tool to inform its advertising services too. The new tool isn't overtly labeled as a Google service, yet anyone clicking through it "consents" to be tracked by Google's cookies, AdTruth found. And while the service is intended to do only one thing - determine whether you are a human or not - it is also able to identify a lot more information about which specific human you are."     ~ Bussiness Insider

Google has your phone number and can track where you are regardless of whether you have an android device or not. You provided them with your phone number whenever you set up a new Gmail account. On the topic of Gmail, Google has been scanning your emails for keywords that can be used for better targeting. This was however taken over by its third-party partners. Many times they Manually read those emails for better results. Deleting your Gmail account does not help because everything you do from any google service is logged and backed up in big servers rooms. It is these third-party partners that are the most dangerous since not much information is readily available to us general public. Literally, anyone could be reading what you sent to someone without your knowledge. And that's your problem. It is because of your ignorance towards the big Terms of Service you skipped without reading and agreed hurriedly. I am ashamed to admit that I too skipped these 80-page documents when I was 12.
Google enjoys the power of having your phone number ready, sitting in a database even though you never set up a Gmail account. It gets your phone number by buying it from its offline databases.
How do they know your location just from your phone number? Let's look at this interesting piece of information.

In 2017, Google had been accused of lying about not tracking you even why you have location services and history turned off on android phones. Using your IP address and geo-location tracking, they know where you were last night, which Supermarket you last visited and whatever you bought regardless of how you paid, ie, if you used google pay or not.
“In January of this year, we began looking into using Cell ID codes as an additional signal to further improve the speed and performance of message delivery,” the Google spokesperson said in an email.
It is with these Cell IDs that Google knows where you are. They never incorporated this Cell ID into their services. However,
"The findings are surprising, given that cell tower data is usually held by carrier networks and only shared with outside companies under extreme circumstances. Through Google’s practices this year, an individual’s particular location within a quarter-mile radius or less could be determined with the addresses of multiple cell towers. This has particular security implications for individuals who wish to not be tracked, meaning that the safest way to avoid being tracked at all is probably to stick to burner phones. It could also create a bigger target for hackers looking to obtain personal information." ~ The Verge
They use triangulation from multiple cell towers. 

 Alternatives to google services: I will go a lot more in-depth about this but for now these are the alternatives i use everyday

1. google.com startpage.com. You get the same results as google because it uses google's method of indexing results without the cost of privacy

2. Chrome Chromium. Open sourced and consumes less memory than chrome. You can import the passwords and bookmarks and just forget about it

3. Android Calyx OS. Difficult to install but it gives you the same control as android and most android apps while respecting privacy

4. Gmail Proton Mail. End to End encryption, open sourced and has all the features a general user needs

5. Google docs/calc etc Cryptpad. Open sourced, E2E encryption and this is also the software used by Greta Thunberg during Farmers protest

6. Google hangouts Signal. E2E, open sourced and collects nothing but your name and time of creating account

If you still want to use google services then go ahead and install google containers addon

In part 2 I will analyze how exactly other mega corporations exploit your data, which you willingly give them. Hopefully this is enough to reconsider using google services

bibliography-
'The most preferred browser is chrome over 60% of users use it regularly'
https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/browser-market-share
targeted advertisements - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_advertising
Target's adverts-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/?sh=680eb89a6668
Google's acquisitions-

https://www.cbinsights.com/research-google-acquisitions
CAPTCHA
https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/googles-new-captcha-security-
login-raises-legitimate-privacy-concerns/articleshow/46316338.cms

Google track your phone number-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-privacy-lawsuit/lawsuit-says-google-tracks-phone-users-regardless-of-privacy-settings-idUSKCN1L51M3
https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/
https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684818/google-location-tracking-cell-tower-data-android-os-firebase-privacy
https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/13/17684660/google-turn-off-location-history-data