By BYRON ACOHIDO, USA TODAY

The coolest free stuff on the Internet actually comes at a notable price: your privacy.

For more than a decade, tracking systems have been taking note of where you go and what you search for on the Web — without your permission. And today many of the personal details you voluntarily divulge on popular websites and social networks are being similarly tracked and analyzed.

The purpose for all of this online snooping is singular: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook and others are intent on delivering more relevant online ads to each and every one of us — and bagging that advertising money.

by EYDER PERALTA  January 25, 2012  for npr

Yesterday afternoon Google announced it was making sweeping changes to its privacy policy beginning March 1. Users can’t opt out, so Google is beginning to send notice to its users via email and even on its homepage.

The big change is that Google will now track you across its services. In other words, Google will now, for example, be able to pair information it collects on its email service with information it collects on its search service to really target its advertising. In a blog post explaining the changes, Google says it will make the experience across its suite of products “more intuitive.”

But here’s how Danny Sullivan, a search expert, explains it for Marketing Land:

“It sounds like the Miranda warning so familiar to those who watch US cop shows: ‘Anything you can and do will be held against you in a court of law.’ On March 1, Google has a new privacy policy and terms of service that goes into effect. Anything you do on Google, under these new agreements, can and may be used to target you in a court of Google, so to speak.

In many ways, this is Google growing up into the new portal it has become. Rather than people signing up for individual products, Gmail, YouTube and so on, they’re now signing-up for Google — or at least a single set of terms (in most cases) for all the company’s products. It’s similar to how you sign-up for Facebook, rather than individual products within Facebook.”

Simplifying is good, said Sullivan. But then, he adds, you start thinking about what information Google can now use. In a Gmail account, Google can use your personal details, your contact list and your actual emails.

“We’re used to that being used to show us ads within Gmail,” he writes. “But does this now mean that information can be used to show us ads in regular web search? Or at YouTube? Or as we surf the web?”

In its story, The Washington Post answers yes to all those questions. They say this would mean that Google for example could surmise you are a basketball fan by all those YouTube videos you watch and then pair that with the Miami location you’ve set in Gmail. They would then serve ads for the Miami Heat.

“Google’s new privacy announcement is frustrating and a little frightening,” Common Sense Media chief executive James Steyer told the Post. “Even if the company believes that tracking users across all platforms improves their services, consumers should still have the option to opt out — especially the kids and teens who are avid users of YouTube, Gmail and Google Search.”

While Google is not providing a way for users to opt out of its new privacy policy, this tracking only happens when you are logged in.

Still Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) told USA Today that the move opens questions about how much control users have over personal information. The paper adds:

“Critics worry the tech giants will open fresh opportunities for cybercrooks to prey on users of the sites.

“‘Both are racing to monetize our private information and in doing so creating collateral damage,’ says Alisdair Faulkner, chief product officer at security firm ThreatMetrix. ‘They are essentially indexing more and more private information and, in doing so, serving it up on a platter to cybercriminals.’”

WHY 308,127,404 AMERICANS ARE GOING TO GET HOSED

by SIMON BLACK  January 11, 2012

Last week, the US government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), an agency of the US Treasury Department, published its 2011 annual report. There are a few numbers that are pretty startling.

We’ve discussed before that FinCEN is the executive agency tasked with ensuring that every US banker is an unpaid government spy through Suspicious Activity Reports.

A Suspicious Activity Report, or SAR, includes details of any transaction that may be deemed ‘suspicious’. Naturally, there’s no clear guidance on what is/is not considered suspicious. Banks, brokerages, money service businesses, precious metals dealers… even casinos are required by law to fill them out.

If you withdraw an unusual amount of cash from your bank account, that could be deemed suspicious. If you set up a new payee in your billpay service, that could be deemed suspicious. Anything and everything is fair game.

Banks and other businesses who do not fill out SARs face hefty penalties, including imprisonment. If they disclose to a customer that s/he is the subject of a SAR, they have hefty penalties, including imprisonment.

When push comes to shove and they have to choose between a nasty penalty, or submitting a SAR about your unusual cash withdrawal, which option do you think they’ll pick?

Unsurprisingly, nearly 1.5 million ‘suspicious activity reports’ were filed across the US banking system in 2011, well over twice the number reported in 2004. On top of this, there were an additional -14.8 million- ‘currency transaction reports’ filed in 2011, a 6% jump over last year.

It’s an unfortunate trend which highlights not only the end of financial privacy, but also the massive amount of data being collected by the government to keep tabs on its citizens.

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