Google Tracks You. Profits From You. Ignores Ethics. Time to Rethink.

Your Secret is Safe—Just not From Google

Think you are private in incognito mode? Think again. While it hides your browsing history from others using your device, it does nothing to stop Google from tracking your activity, collecting your data, and building a detailed profile on you behind the scenes.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of what google keeps tabs on: 

• Search queries (even in incognito mode)

• Websites visited via Chrome or linked through Google Search

• Clicks on search results and ads

• Time spent on pages

• Real-time and historical GPS data (via Google Maps and Android)

• IP address-based location

• Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth connections nearby

• Location history and routes traveled

• Ads clicked or ignored

• Topics of interest based on your browsing

• Personalized ad profile built from your activity

• Videos watched and liked

• Channels subscribed to

• Comments, searches, and watch time

And more! The list can go on and is consented through the privacy policy that you never bothered to read. 

Why should you care? Trusting the Blue Bug

Swift and efficient searches come at a cost: a significant invasion of your privacy and control over the information you access as a consumer. To give this much information and control to a company would constitute a lot of trust.

But Google has a history of questionable ethical grounds:

• Google has faced a class-action lawsuit in San Francisco that forced them to delete billions of data records they have collected through incognito mode. 

• Google has fired 4 employees on the grounds of speaking up against ethical violations in the company, a protected right under Google's code of conduct, rather than addressing their concerns.

• Google partnered up in Project Nimbus, a project that uses AI technology to help support the Israeli military conduct genocide. Their contract forbids the tech giant from denying services to any particular entity of the Israeli government and the goals of this project are secret and unclear to the public. 

• Geofence warrants: Google can track your location at any historical time, even when it is off. Geoface warrants are used to help police track all devices within a given area at a specific time. While this has been used to help detect criminals, it is still a little chilling to know that this company can track everything from your walk to the park to your favourite local coffee shop and more.

So maybe question how much trust, power, information, and money you are giving to a particular company that may or may not hold up to your ethical standards. The positive news is that you do not have to use Google and can make a switch to a more transparent and ethically rooted search engine. 

Take back your privacy—what else can I use besides Google?

Kagi:

• Considered a Public Benefit Corporation, not just a company aimed at maximizing profit shares.

• Committed to human-centric and sustainable web searching with no tracking.

• A small price for relevant, unbiased results with 100% privacy. 

• Free options available.

PeerTube

Can’t quite quit your YouTube addiction, try PeerTube!

• Developed by a French non-profit and public-funded

• Does not depend on advertising and tracking

• Over 600,000 videos to choose from on multi platforms

• Not subjected to any monopoly

Every click, every search, every "free" convenience comes with a cost, and too often, that cost is your privacy and autonomy. Companies like Google have shown time and again that their priority lies in data collection and profit, one that breaches the grounds of ethics. But it doesn't have to be this way. As consumers, we hold the power to choose platforms that align with our values. By switching to alternatives like Kagi, you can truly surf the web without a system tracking your activity or pushing content based on what it wants you to see.