Google, Privacy and Unsecured Wi-Fi: What You Should Know
Recent news stories about Google’s privacy rules have many people up in arms, but does the average person know that Google records all of your online activities, and has now been accused of monitoring and recording transmissions from public secured and unsecured Wi-Fi connections?
In today’s vernacular, most people use “Google” as a verb, a convenient open door to the information that we need online. I mean, why waste time searching through cumbersome phone books or sit in libraries for hours on end when a simple online search will get us to the stuff we need, RIGHT? And, since we are most assuredly a society on the move, accessing Google from secured and unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots has got to take my privacy into account, RIGHT?
WRONG! While Google and other search engines do provide a convenient way to get to the things we need, the repercussions to our privacy are mounting. And, if you are accessing the site from unsecured Wi-Fi in coffeehouses or airports, you could be in for a wide variety of intrusions. Nowadays, criminals sit in these types of locations trying to trick you into accessing malicious sites to watch your every move, including your account passwords and other things you wouldn’t want anyone to know. But we already know we need to protect ourselves from criminals, RIGHT? What about the other privacy intrusions Google are practicing right under our noses?
Google: Spying on a WiFi Network Near You?
The news headlines say it all, “Google’s Wi-Fi Spying: What Were They Thinking?” and “Google: Oops, We Spied on Your Wi-Fi”, but what does this all really mean to the average user? It means everyone should be afraid of the repercussions of these types of privacy intrusions.
The cats out of the bag, it’s no secret that Google’s cars were collecting Wi-Fi network names and MAC addresses (unique identifiers for devices like Wi-Fi routers) for location based services such as Google Maps, but did you know they were also invading your privacy? In late April, they finally owned up to “mistakenly” collecting samples of payload data from unsecured, open Wi-Fi networks while building their location services.
Although Google claims there were no breaches in privacy or customer information, this is just another reason why everyone should be weary of the information that you put online about yourself. Remember, Google and other search engines can gather this information to build profiles about our personal lives. So protect yourself with an online privacy product like Anonymizer Universal, a secure solution that that allows you to be private and anonymous whenever you want to be. Your Web searches, emails, chat sessions—everything you do online—completely private and anonymous.