PC Mechanic, New Article |
- Does Google Sell Your Personal Information?
- It’s Still A 32-Bit World For Some DVD Burners
- You’re Not Alone: An Example Of Failed Customer Service
| Does Google Sell Your Personal Information? Posted: 21 Jan 2011 03:30 AM PST How does Google know everything about you? They don’t. Google only knows your public information (are you listed in the phone book?), what you put out there on the internet publicly, and what you tell Google directly via means of using one of Google’s products (YouTube, Panoramio, Gmail, etc.) This means that for whatever you put out there on the public internet, Google can index indefinitely as long as it exists. The Big Question however is: Does Google sell the data it indexes about you? Short answer: No (mostly). Long answer: The best way I can explain this is by citing two specific Google products, Gmail and YouTube. GMAIL All emails you send and receive are machine-read in order to deliver what’s called "relevant advertising" while using the Gmail product in the browser (meaning not IMAP or POP3). When the machine-reading reads specific words, be they in the subject line or body of the message, ads are displayed relevant to those words. For example, if you received an email with the word Florida in it, you’d probably see an ad about Disney World in Gmail. That’s not coincidence. YOUTUBE When you sign up for YouTube you are prompted to enter in some demographic information (age, location, etc.) If you do this, the video ads you see on YouTube on specific videos may be specific to your demographic. THE REAL BIG QUESTION The Real Big Question is: Does showing relevant ads per your email content and/or demographic information count as your personal information being sold? If you want to get really technical about it, yes – but barely, and I mean barely. Your information was indirectly (keyword there) given to advertisers by means of Google’s advertising system to deliver relevant advertising to you. However it is very important to point out that only Google knows what you gave them, and furthermore the advertisers that use Google’s advertising system do not know you as a person unless you actually buy something from start to finish from click-through of the ad (ex: Click ad, hit is tracked, you buy product, you give company your info to buy the whatever-it-is, that data is recorded by the company you bought the product from). Put in much simpler terms: Unless you actually clicked through the ad and bought something, you are nothing more than a demographic statistic. Google still knows what you gave them for personal info, but the advertisers that use the Google advertising system do not. It also should be noted that if you don’t click the ad, not even your demographic information is given out and are merely counted as a faceless, nameless "ad impression", and that’s where the ‘just barely’ comes in concerning the sale of your personal information. If you consider the fact you are counted as an ad impression by using Google products, then by all means, wear that tin foil hat proudly because your personal info was sold and the fuzz is going to kick in your door any day now for illegally downloading that copy of Smokey and The Bandit. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.       |
| It’s Still A 32-Bit World For Some DVD Burners Posted: 21 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST Yesterday I ordered a new DVD Burner for my PC from NewEgg. It’s a simple drive and nothing special, however the choice of drive I had to go with directly related to the OS I was running: I’m running Windows 7 64-bit. Originally I was going to buy one brand – which had a lot of positive reviews mind you – but something in my head said "You’d better check the low-rated reviews, just in case", so I did. It turned out the DVD burner didn’t work for some that had Win7 64-bit, and there was no firmware update for that particular drive at present to fix the problem. What I had to do was go with another brand that was about 10 dollars more and didn’t have free shipping to avoid this problem – however the cash was well spent to know that optical drive will work when I install it. If you happen to be running 64-bit Windows, the next time you go to buy hardware like a DVD burner, make sure to read the low-rated comments (as in those who gave the device a low rating) and/or specifically search for "windows 64". You can do this by viewing any product, clicking the "Feedback" tab on the product page and there will be a search box to search reviews. Any specific Win7 64-bit issues will be mentioned, should any exist. If you’re wondering if the same applies to 32-bit, no it doesn’t – unless you plan on switching out the motherboard to house a 64-bit architecture later using the same peripheral hardware. I won’t say what brand I passed up on because many did say it worked in Win7 64-bit, but I take no chances when it comes to that stuff. I will however link the one I did buy: this one. A simple basic optical drive with just about all mentions of Win7 64-bit saying it detected automatically with no issues whatsoever – and that’s exactly what I was looking for. Note to those who would follow through on this purchase, it’s an OEM meaning no cables and no screws included. All you get is a drive in bubble-wrap. If you want the cables/screws/software, you need to buy boxed which costs around 5 to 10 bucks more. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
| You’re Not Alone: An Example Of Failed Customer Service Posted: 20 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST The above video is an example of how some companies still don’t get it when it comes to customer service in the United States – in this case, Toshiba. Currently, there are still way too many companies who sell tech products that farm out the entire consumer (but not enterprise) support center offshore. The result of this is no matter how good customer service is trained, the end result is that the consumer (you) gets screwed at the end of it all. What happens is a classic scenario of "left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing" when dealing with offshore customer support. You bought the whatever-it-is in the United States, but in order to service it must call a distant land for return authorization number which may or may not fix your problem completely. Incidentally, this is why I still tell people that for major OEM Windows PC’s, buy Dell. What happened on the phone as described in the video above does not happen with Dell Support, as they would have sent him a disc on their dime even if you were connected to an offshore support center. It would have been a Dell-branded disc, but at least you get one if the unit is still within the warranty period. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
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