[lbo-talk] A feast of Google math

knowknot at mindspring.com knowknot at mindspring.com
Mon Oct 1 13:34:25 PDT 2012


On 9/30/2012, Eleutherios replied:


> Google Ads (and analytics), for starters.*
>

> ---------------------------------------
> * knowknot at mindspring.com wrote:
>
>>> * * * [Trying to achieve some degree of anonymity]
>> > I mostly use https://duckduckgo.com/ * * *
>>

>>
>> Look at
>> http://www.startpage.com or https://startpage.com
>> or/and
>> http://ixquick.com or https://ixquick.com

For starters, apart from my long time preference to remain in lurker and so not poster mode, I hesitate to respond -- all the more so here, since this is basically a chacun à son goût kind of Thing and, in addition, I don't want to appear to be making any kind of pitch for [This] or [That] enterprise. HOWEVER:

While Google almost certainly collects and does data analysis of search queries processed internally through its servers even when received from "anonymized" proxies, one who believes the ixquick.com and startpage.com representations ought conclude, probably correctly, that Google Analytics, as such, is essentially disabled for searches done via those web sites because, among their other privacy maintenance attempts, they by default encrypt search queries transmitted from their proxy sites, do not collect or transmit via their encrypted queries the user's IP address, do not record or transmit from what operating system the user makes a query, do not record or transmit what browser or other query enabling software is used, do not record the search terms or results of the search, incidentally also do not display paid/advertising responses to a search query that Google would display for an identical search via that source, and (as far as I and colleagues have been able to determine) the Google Analytics js detritus stored on a user's computer when GA is used does not appear when either/both these search facilities are used. But, as I say, chacun à son goût . . . .



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