Google launches monthly user-activity feature
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Recently the company that lets you use their website as a search engine "Google" has come out with a new way to track monthly user activity. The reports of how much the user uses google do not just tell you however, users need to sign up in order to track this information. Information such as your most popular search topics, number of emails and other account activity can be tracked with this new feature."Every day, we aim to make technology so simple and intuitive that you stop thinking about it -- we want Google to work so well it just blends into your life," Andreas Tuerk, a product manager for Google, wrote in the post. "But sometimes it's helpful to step back and take stock of what you're doing online."
Privacy advocates, including some in Congress, fear that puts too much personal information in the company's hands. But Google said it wouldn't be collecting any new information just collating what data it already had in a way that would be more clear and help create new products and features for its users. The new feature also allows you to track the different consoles you use to sign into google so even if your at someone else's computer it will still track the things you are doing on the internet at all times. Knowing about your own google account helps with a number of different things that the explained in the article including your passwords which adds a extra level of security and the computer can know based on your own personal user activity. Having your privacy can be a difficult thing to track on the internet. But having google track it for you sounds a little scary of an idea to me so I don't know if I would ever let it happen. My apple computer currently tracks all my history anyway so I personally don't find a need to have to sign up for the new feature that google is trying to sell.
This is a topic we have talked about several times now in sport marketing and I still have yet to come to a decision on how I feel about the new system. After learning about marketing and data analyzing I understand the company is just trying to figure out what their consumers are doing, but at the same time it feels as though they are invading privacy. The other day we did an experiment in class... we sent an e-mail from a G-mail account and entered key words in the message such as Disney or South West, after we sent it the next ad to pop up was all about Disney and right next to it was one for South West. Little scary to think that researchers can tell what you are typing then instantly advertise to you about the topics in your message. It is a very interesting concept but it makes you uneasy knowing someone is watching what you are doing and can look up your history at any given time.
ReplyDeleteJohnny, I do agree with you and Leah about feeling uneasy about the subject. I do feel that it is an ivasion of privacy and that is not right. I understand why they want to track what we do but why if our computers do it for us? Leah, that is a scary that it can tell exactly what your looking up and next thing you know they are having it pop up right in front of you. I do not think I would ever sign up for this system it just does not come off safe to me.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with all three of you. When other people try to invade other people's private lives and privacy i have a problem with that. Like Bryer said if we are using our own computers then why should they care what we are looking up, we are adults we can do it ourselves without someone monitoring us. I do not think i would ever sign up for this because it seems a little sketchy to me and unsafe to my life.
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