“When you are logged in to your Google Account, YouTube keeps a running list of everything you watch on the site for a few reasons,” J. D. Biersdorfer writes for The New York Times. “For one, YouTube uses your viewing history to suggest other videos it thinks you may like, similar to the way Netflix makes recommendations for its members.”
“Having a list of previously watched clips on hand also makes it easy for you to find a video again if you forgot what it was called — and even if you want to view it on a different device,” Biersdorfer writes. “When you are not signed in to a Google Account, YouTube may still keep track of the clips you watched on a specific computer or device.”
“If you would rather not have YouTube keeping track of your activity, you can ‘pause’ your Watch History,” Biersdorfer writes. “When you hit the pause button, videos you view will not be saved to the Watch History list or factored into recommendations for other clips to see. (You can reverse the decision later.)”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Depriving Google of data is a fun and rewarding pastime!
“When you are logged in to your Google Account…”
And the reason you would want to be?
Why would one need to have a Google account at all? 😮
Paused, or not, I bet they know anyway.
Can you subscribe to a channel without a google account? Teach me
Well I sure want one. Who in their right fuckin mind doesn’t watch YouTube on their iPads? Oh yeah dumb fuck faggits who would rather play Pokemon go and wank off instead!
I watch YouTube videos all the time and I don’t have a Google account. You don’t need one.
Was the faggot comment really necessary or are you still at school?
Now, now, get out of your Mom’s basement and go play Pokemon in some traffic
As the article indicates, even logged out of Google they are tracking your computer.
Solution: Toss your Google cookies. I do this constantly and they have no idea who I am until I log in again. I too have experienced the fun and rewards of depriving Google of my data. Either of the two best cookie control apps will perform this for you: Cookie (my fave) or Cookie Stumbler. OR you can toss your cookies with less selectivity from within your web browser.
The arms race continues: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/device-fingerprinting-can-track-you-without-cookies-your-knowledge-or-consent
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/browser-fingerprinting-and-the-onlinetracking-arms-race
*Nothing* is “free” on the Internet. If you have an account for a free service, YOU are the product, and you have just sold your online soul for well less than 30 pieces of silver.
The article is rather ironic as MDN’s advertisers drop dozens of cookies and beacons and are probably all using fingerprinting as well….
I count 20 beacons/catchers on this page alone.
Yes indeed! The website for checking out tracking, including fingerprinting, is Panopticlick over at EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), my heroes:
https://panopticlick.eff.org
Running the test in Safari can be surprising the first time as the test attempts to dump Canvas tracking images on you. Just ‘Cancel’ each one, which means to block it.
It is STUNNING what websites can read about us. It is remarkably difficult to pass the fingerprinting test. Here are biggest things that trip me up in the fingerprinting test:
• Massive metadata about my Internet Plugins.
• The list of my System fonts.
• My Time Zone.
• My screen size.
• My language.
• My computer platform.
• My web browser.
Most of the other factors are fairly generic.
There are ways to mitigate some of these factors, such as a browser anonymizer extension, manually screwing up your time zone and removing all your browser plugins.
But in general, if some website desperately wants to individualize each visitor, fingerprinting works. They don’t necessarily know who you actually are! But they can tell one visitor from another remarkably well.
Q: Is this important or meaningful?
A: That’s up to each person within their particular circumstances.
Q: Am I worried about my Mom being tracked across the Internet?
A: No. She has to put up with the resulting individualized advertising, like most other people. That’s the toll she pays for not playing the tech-savvy games of tracking avoidance. And no, she would not comprehend or put up with tracking avoidance methods.