Should you believe Google has created an error do you try and get them to correct it?
Situation: I put in my doctors name and Google uses my zip code and pulls up a map on the right of my screen conveniently showing his location. I put in the name of a former doctor who moved out of state and the map Google creates on the right of my screen is out of date, obsolete, wrong!
Do I care? Does anyone care?
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Albert_136
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thanrose
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I try not to worry about google too much, but I value my privacy way too much to correct them in any way. Well, I may change a zip code once in a while to something more generally my area. When google asks me if I am this person or that person or if I want to log in under a particular name that I never gave them, I almost always quit whatever application rather than confirming or denying the connection.
A dozen years ago or so, an online friend was blithely saying she didn't worry about all the stuff that gets picked up from your IP address and applications or programs, because it still was about her. I posted a response to her name on a countercultural board, asked her if she had found some music she had been seeking on another under yet another name, and told her one of her friends said hello. Then I posted again, telling her how simple it was to find and connect all that stuff in literally seconds. I alluded to ways that could be misused without spelling anything out. This was on a membership only board and we deleted that thread within a day, but it made several more people aware of how invasive all this stuff is.
I don't want youtube to know what Amazon and Ebay purchases I have made or Pinterest to suggest I check out someone from my LinkedIn. The more we allow, the more Big Brother will do. I do have reason to be paranoid, btw. This isn't why I'm paranoid, but a fellow contacted someone on an old message board trying to get in touch with me about an essay I'd written on domestic abuse posted back last century. Creepy.
Some people are successful at keeping their online profile on the downlow. I think I am pretty hard to find, save by avocation. I just came back to this board because on another board I started wondering where lorax had gotten to. Yes, I did find her in a way, at least her photographs, but I don't know how to contact her which is a good thing.
Oh, I suppose this is way more than you wanted to know, but I, for one, prefer the mistakes Google makes. In any search, it's a good idea to be aware of other search engines and other mapping or translating or what have you. Just as you wouldn't rely on Wikipedia for complete accuracy, don't trust a mapping result unless it confirms what you already know in general.
A dozen years ago or so, an online friend was blithely saying she didn't worry about all the stuff that gets picked up from your IP address and applications or programs, because it still was about her. I posted a response to her name on a countercultural board, asked her if she had found some music she had been seeking on another under yet another name, and told her one of her friends said hello. Then I posted again, telling her how simple it was to find and connect all that stuff in literally seconds. I alluded to ways that could be misused without spelling anything out. This was on a membership only board and we deleted that thread within a day, but it made several more people aware of how invasive all this stuff is.
I don't want youtube to know what Amazon and Ebay purchases I have made or Pinterest to suggest I check out someone from my LinkedIn. The more we allow, the more Big Brother will do. I do have reason to be paranoid, btw. This isn't why I'm paranoid, but a fellow contacted someone on an old message board trying to get in touch with me about an essay I'd written on domestic abuse posted back last century. Creepy.
Some people are successful at keeping their online profile on the downlow. I think I am pretty hard to find, save by avocation. I just came back to this board because on another board I started wondering where lorax had gotten to. Yes, I did find her in a way, at least her photographs, but I don't know how to contact her which is a good thing.
Oh, I suppose this is way more than you wanted to know, but I, for one, prefer the mistakes Google makes. In any search, it's a good idea to be aware of other search engines and other mapping or translating or what have you. Just as you wouldn't rely on Wikipedia for complete accuracy, don't trust a mapping result unless it confirms what you already know in general.
Albert, I have not had anything to do with the management of a local business for nearly 12 years.
The other day a letter arrived in my mailbox addressed to someone at that business who had left about 15 years ago. My home address was used with the other, long-ago business associate's name.
I see the current manager often and took her that letter. We had a chuckle about it
. I told her if it is a credit card application to not even bother with it. 'Cause I've already tapped out the company's credit using earlier credit card applications. We laughed some more.
Within a week, she brought me a business credit card application with my name on the envelope. The business address, different than it was 12 years ago, but my name -- she said that they show up all the time.
My wife's primary care doctor's address on Google has not been her office in at least 4 years. In fact, the building was vacant last year and demolished this spring. I suppose that the address will be used for the new building and that it is still listed as her doctor's location seems likely.
Steve
The other day a letter arrived in my mailbox addressed to someone at that business who had left about 15 years ago. My home address was used with the other, long-ago business associate's name.
I see the current manager often and took her that letter. We had a chuckle about it
. I told her if it is a credit card application to not even bother with it. 'Cause I've already tapped out the company's credit using earlier credit card applications. We laughed some more.Within a week, she brought me a business credit card application with my name on the envelope. The business address, different than it was 12 years ago, but my name -- she said that they show up all the time.
My wife's primary care doctor's address on Google has not been her office in at least 4 years. In fact, the building was vacant last year and demolished this spring. I suppose that the address will be used for the new building and that it is still listed as her doctor's location seems likely.
Steve
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Allyn
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I don't and am happy with anonymity. I have my browsers set to ask me if a site wants to use my location and I usually tell it no. I use In Private browsing and clear cookies fairly frequently. The only thing I will correct is Google Maps when there is a malfunction of the recording device and a section of the map that I want to look at is black. I report it, but three years later, it is still black, so Google doesn't really care.Albert_136 wrote:...Does anyone care?
Maybe they need to know what I am not looking to buy, I do not want to meet any woman, I have a wife I love, My house is paid off so I do not need a loan, I do not want another credit card, I do not need blue pills or any other treatment, I have a full head of hair, the work from home add is a scam, and so one. Everything you have looked at thinking you want to buy or are interested in is shown to you at many of the sites you go to. There is no privacy anymore, my mom never goes on line and I Goggled her and a ton of information about her was there, she was shocked at what anyone could find out. As far as correcting things on the net it would take an army of people a lifetime.
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thanrose
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A lot of people not involved in health care think HIPAA https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/index.html is useless or annoying or not applicable to them. My experience with it, and explaining parts of the act to others, indicates we need even better control of that information about ourselves.
I remember way too many things and can synthesize and extrapolate from that data. Some of it is inference and speculation, but I can put together that you have military insurance, and use the VA for some health care, and have diabetes and poor vision and a suppurating wound on your buttocks, all of which I gleaned from various protected sources. Should I be talking about that to someone else on a crowded elevator? You might think you don't care, but you really have no right to know that your neighbor's son is schizophrenic, or daughter is on a Greenpeace ship in the Arctic, and the dog is on insulin. But advertisers and scam artists out there do know these things.
We need to assert more control over what information is collected about us. CCTV is great when it's available after a crime is committed, but I don't want to think that CCTV or a hidden nanny cam will capture me scratching my head or adjusting my bra. Unfortunately, they are tools that are increasingly necessary, and a little indignity for me is tolerable.
So Albert has googled two doctors, which I can assure you that Google now has record of that. If one of them only treats leprosy, they have record of that, too. If Albert googled prosthetic noses, they know that. If someone uses Albert's computer they might find out without trying, perhaps an inadvertent glimpse at email, or ads coming up on youtube.
For strange reasons and a life well-lived, I had to ask a lawyer friend of mine if I needed to call an alphabet agency about a trifling issue. He thought for a minute and said, "Don't ever contact them without understanding that you will now be on their radar. You can't put that cat back in the bag." If it was a bad situation, he recommended to go through my lawyer or my police department. That was twenty years ago, but it's still sound advice. Keep off of anyone's radar.
I remember way too many things and can synthesize and extrapolate from that data. Some of it is inference and speculation, but I can put together that you have military insurance, and use the VA for some health care, and have diabetes and poor vision and a suppurating wound on your buttocks, all of which I gleaned from various protected sources. Should I be talking about that to someone else on a crowded elevator? You might think you don't care, but you really have no right to know that your neighbor's son is schizophrenic, or daughter is on a Greenpeace ship in the Arctic, and the dog is on insulin. But advertisers and scam artists out there do know these things.
We need to assert more control over what information is collected about us. CCTV is great when it's available after a crime is committed, but I don't want to think that CCTV or a hidden nanny cam will capture me scratching my head or adjusting my bra. Unfortunately, they are tools that are increasingly necessary, and a little indignity for me is tolerable.
So Albert has googled two doctors, which I can assure you that Google now has record of that. If one of them only treats leprosy, they have record of that, too. If Albert googled prosthetic noses, they know that. If someone uses Albert's computer they might find out without trying, perhaps an inadvertent glimpse at email, or ads coming up on youtube.
For strange reasons and a life well-lived, I had to ask a lawyer friend of mine if I needed to call an alphabet agency about a trifling issue. He thought for a minute and said, "Don't ever contact them without understanding that you will now be on their radar. You can't put that cat back in the bag." If it was a bad situation, he recommended to go through my lawyer or my police department. That was twenty years ago, but it's still sound advice. Keep off of anyone's radar.
If Google can't find him, then he did not leave a digital footprint. Google only uses the information it has access to. I know of a business that moved. They don't advertise as they sell mostly to their regular customers and don't get a lot of street traffic. They moved to get cheaper rent. They had a website, but they took it down. Google still only shows their old location.
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Albert_136
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Thenrose you made some very good points. In the 70's when I was in the Army electronics school they had the technology to hear what you were saying through the wiring in your house, which was then. I have cameras on my house and ordered another set that puts the video on the cloud. I will be able to see what is going on at my house on my phone and if someone triggers the motion sensor it will alert me. I have some concerns but the protection is worth it.