Returning to old Gmail

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by Garak
Originally Posted by alarmguy
But for others following this thread, as I said over and over, Im on a quest to deny Google or ANY email service I use and any internet provider I use and just plain ANYONE, the use of my private information to be sold at auction to the highest bidder. You have to start someplace and the easiest by far is to start with your email.

Heck, it's not even the highest bidder. They sell all over. Nonetheless, from a data collection standpoint, one's ISP email is the least thing to worry about, since, as I mentioned, the ISP already has your information. You're not giving them anything more by using their email service, particularly if you're not going to their ad based page and simply using an email client. The real issue is the security of the email in transit, and none of these services adequately addresses this, as I mentioned, except where all involved in the email are on the same service or versed in GPG.

I also use OpenDNS as mentioned by uc50ic4more.

Want to confuse Google? Use Gmail, but only send encrypted text.

I can see we have two different concerns, maybe better said "goals" and that is fine but lets respect each concern which we both are doing.
I am not in the least concerned about the security of my emails in transit as there is nothing in there for anyone. ) Though thats a good one on the encrypted text!
YET, if I want to, with Proton Mail I can send an encrypted email to a family member (for example a medical record) that can only be opened with a one time password that I set up at the time of writing the email AND I can have that email destruct at anytime I wish IF I choose to. Lets say your worried that your personal information is laying around a family members computer that YOU KNOW is completely clueless about internet security *LOL* ... you can have it destruct. But again, I dont care, I just do not want my ifnormation being sold to 3rd parties and private email companies do not.

I do not use an ISP email service either.
As I said I only wish to campaign against google (and others) by not using their services as much as possible, if everyone did this things would change faster.
duckduckgo instead of google, proton mail instead of google, firefox, opera instead of google, its also a known fact that the google has been selling identifiable information in their packets on people, youll have to research it, just heard it on the news while driving.

I am also on the "cusp" of possibly for the first time buying an iphone, as much as I like Android, iphone might be my next consideration.

BTW I do have lifetime end to end encryption (VPN Secure) but I dont use it as it cuts my speed down to around 30 Mbps on my 100 Mbps service.
Like I say, one thing at a time, Im not hiding from anyone, not working on secret projects, just going to slowly plugs all the holes to hinder companies from making profits off selling my families information for profit. The people in this country have the power to crash googles stock price, if they got together and did it.
It would send SHOCKWAVES thought the industry and change would happen over night, but that is a dream, we are far, far to lazy and stupid ...

Garak - well isnt this a surprise, for the heck of it, I just connected to my Secure VPN, did some speed tests and for the first time ever download speeds were the same as what I get with it,
Hopefully, maybe they have beefed up their network but its still early in the mourning, will try tonight. Just pulled over 85Mbps down through the VPN, of course I checked my IP address and is showing the correct location I chose for VPN. )

BTW- (side note) there is or I think there is something changing about google scanning emails, has receieved too much press for them and I THINK, stress THINK that is changing but it DOESNT matter, if you use ANYTHING connected to google in anyway, your information is being SOLD. )

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Originally Posted by StevieC
Folks should be changing their passwords regularly anyway. I use LastPass and it makes it super easy for changing the passwords to long cryptic passwords with special characters and most sites it can change it for you with 1 click.

My e-mail password is something like 14 characters long full of numbers, letters, upper/lower case, special characters and it gets changed every so many days because it's a 1 click process. Good luck to those trying to hack my account.



Financial account passwords should change..... but nothing else for me.
For instance: My email password has changed only once since 1999. Still use seven letters and three numbers 19 years later.

 

[Garak]

I look at email encryption this way. I do understand the notion of not sending anything sensitive by email, but there still is the [dated] point that when one writes letters, one usually uses an envelope and not a postcard. Proton's handling of email for ordinarily unencrypted recipients is similar to what you can do with Hushmail. Of course, from an encryption standpoint, that's still fairly imperfect, because the password has to be transmitted somehow, and anyone with access to the password has technical access to the data. With a GPG encrypted block of text, you need to have physical access to the private key and the passphrase.

As for Gmail scanning email content to target ads, I'm not sure if that's change or not. I do use Gmail on occasion, but use an ad block, so have no idea what they want me to see. Incidentally, a relatively secure use of Gmail would involve using an email client to access it and send encrypted text only. That way, there are no ads, no cookies, and the content isn't vulnerable.

Of course, as I mentioned, email encryption is, for the most part, very daunting to people, even technical people. The only way to make it catch on would be for operating systems to have GPG installed by default, enforce a user to set up a key pair, use some sort of public key sharing (either a new sharing arrangement or one of the current key servers), and at the same time discourage people from using webmail. All in all, it's a pretty perfect storm that isn't going to happen in the desktop/laptop world and would open people up to spam emails. It would be more feasible on a cell phone, but the current email app producers have absolutely no incentive to (and many disincentives against) providing secure, private email, and the danger of spam would still be there. After all, directories of public keys are no different than a public telephone directory, which was always a gold mine to telemarketers.

 

[alarmguy]

ProtonMail has a free app.
Again not as much worried about encryption vs the company selling my personal information for profit which Proton and some other private email service doesn't do.

 

[Garak]

I still maintain one should be cautious about separating encryption from privacy. Now, with something like Proton, it does appear to be functionally similar to Hushmail, which encrypts on its servers and claims (or at least it certainly did; I haven't looked lately) to be unable to retrieve your password for you or convert your encrypted emails to plain text for anyone. The content of any email, however, is at risk anytime it's transmitted somewhere in an unencrypted fashion, which will be the case unless you're sending to another Proton user or GPG users. Whether or not the email is sensitive isn't relevant with respect to targetted ads, which we've all experienced. Encryption is also useful against certain aspects of traffic analysis, not to mention general snooping. You're using a VPN for a reason, and I gather you're using HTTPS whenever you can. Heck, I'm using HTTPS here at BITOG. It's not about hiding what I post, but my ISP and no one in the middle needs to read what I'm sending, unless they want to go on BITOG and read it the same way everyone else does.

Of course, I don't encrypt all my mails by any stretch of the imagination, for reasons I've already covered. I use DuckDuckGo, but am not totally afraid of Google. Sometimes, targetted ads and ads in search results are a good thing, particularly if I'm actually looking to spend money.

Look at what Google does all over, with YouTube, in particular. A lot of browsing habits can be mined there.

With respect to Proton having a free app, that unfortunately still doesn't remedy the general roadblocks to widespread encryption of emails. I am perfectly comfortable using a service like that, or using GPG to encode a text file and insert it into a browser window for a web mail (even Gmail), or into an email editor in an email client, or use an email client encryption plugin. Many are not, and the problem is that 99.9% of one's recipients hasn't a clue about encryption and won't be set up either through Proton (or its competition) or GPG.

Generally speaking, I'd prefer using GPG, which doesn't tie me to any specific service. If Proton goes under tomorrow or gets raided by the government, I'm still in physical possession of my own private GPG key, and brute forcing user passwords at the email servers would be of no use. There is a strength (and a weakness, since responsibility goes with it) to having sole physical custody of the private key. Services like Proton and Hush do have physical custody of the private keys, which is a vulnerability on its own.

The main strength I see with something like Hush (and I assume Proton offers a similar service) is that they can administer emails for your business. So, you have a handful of employees, you can all have them given email addresses at your own domain, but administered by Hush, and the resulting secure email, allowing for things like pay statements and so forth to be distributed safely in a paperless fashion.

 

[Y_K]

You probably knew this, but just in case: you can use Duck as a proxy while searching Google only by gee bang instruction, preceding your search string, e.g. "g! 'search string' ".

There are many more scripting hacks there.

 

[Garak]

I do recall reading something about doing that. I haven't experimented with it yet, though.

As an aside, I was going through some "tech" articles on encryption tonight, and boy, some of these writers really miss the mark, and where they do get things right, just state the obvious. Over a few articles, the main complaint about GPG is that it's 1990s technology, as if that's somehow a problem all on its own. Email, text files, and keyboards are all far older than that. So what? Some had brought up how Gmail (and apparently Yahoo) do encryption, but it only works within each company's own little world (i.e. Gmail to Gmail and Yahoo to Yahoo). That's the problem in a nutshell, and it's GPG isn't the problem, it's a symptom of the problem. For encryption to work seamlessly and virtually unnoticeably, all involved must be using exactly the same thing (i.e. Hush to Hush, Proton to Proton, Gmail to Gmail) where the encryption is kept out of the end users hands and the email provider is handling the key escrow and the encryption themselves, and doing so automatically, without the users seeing anything except perhaps a verification icon. They key verification is being handled by one entity on behalf of all the users, for all the good and bad that entails. To do it cross platform, or more accurately, to do it irrespective of platform or application, public keys will always have to be exchanged and recipients verified one way or another. This method also protects one from snooping by the company involved; security is always weakened when "someone else" has access to your private key. The writers don't like, and don't seem to understand, that the process is always going to have a cumbersome and complex element to it, and the date of original development of the software package isn't really the point. They also seem to forget that GPG is great for encrypting one's own data, either for storage on the cloud, or password lists, or financial information, that sort of thing, where you don't necessarily want to rely on another company and their ability to function as an ongoing concern. That's where the 1990s technology shines. You can encrypt a block of text that's used as an email, a block of text that's a password file, or some other file like a spreadsheet, or a tar, and you can encrypt it for your own use or for the use of whomever is on your chosen list.

All the writers have to do is look around. Proper security is challenging for experts and even the fancy James Bond type lettered agencies. If they can lose data and have breaches and make mistakes, of course it's not going to be easy for the everyday person. I can't even envision a theoretical solution, much less a practical algorithm, to securely encrypt a block of text and just get it to someone I name at random, having only their email address, all the while having it readable by them and them alone. It's always going to take a password or a public-private key pair, both of which introduce complexities and risks of their own. Not even retinal scans, fingerprints, or instant DNA tests are going to change this. At best, those can preclude one from having to memorize a terribly difficult, secure password.

The average user just doesn't understand. Me sending out financial statement electronically, with them being encrypted to the public keys of a half dozen recipients plus myself is a much more robust method than using a password protected rar file and then having to disseminate the password. Anyone reading this knows the real problem though. Find five friends or business associates that use email and spreadsheets and so forth a lot but are otherwise limited in tech. They're not going to be able to handle the freaking .rar file, let alone get GPG going. I can't count how many times I've had to hand deliver surveillance footage on CD or DVD because they have about as much chance of handling a multi-part rar file as they would reading an ancient Egyptian tablet. then the physical media has to have the video in, at the very least, .mov and .mp4 formats, unless I want to be making another trip for tech support.

I remember telling one of the recipients one time that I have no idea why I have thousands of dollars in IP cameras, not to mention desktops and burners and email programs and internet, all so I can drive across town and hand over footage, when it's clear that what I should really be doing is having it converted to Super 8 film.

Yes, everyone, I've had a fun day dealing with technical incompetence.

Rant over, for now.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Google can peak into my privacy all they want. They won;t find anything interesting / resourceful.
Google search is 10X better than any other. The amount of information they produce on your search suggestions proves it,,,,,, including pics that places like Duck never produce.

The Duck is such a distant 2nd Place, that the race was called off a few years ago.

 

[Garak]

For me, it depends upon what I'm trying to do. Sometimes, a search engine that gives me ads and pays attention to where I am is useful, if I'm trying to buy something. The rest of the time, not so much. If the information collection doesn't enhance my experience, then they simply don't need it.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
Google can peak into my privacy all they want. They won;t find anything interesting / resourceful.
Google search is 10X better than any other. The amount of information they produce on your search suggestions proves it,,,,,, including pics that places like Duck never produce.

The Duck is such a distant 2nd Place, that the race was called off a few years ago.


Exactly, you don't mind google selling your personal information for profit and give you free services in exchange.
Me, I can find anything anytime and not have to support google.

But all is good with what you are doing, not everyone feels the same. )

I don't do things to the extreme, but more of a middle ground, I will deny the big tech companies all the profits and information about my family as I can, if everyone did, things will change but Congress will change them first since Europe is ahead of us.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Originally Posted by alarmguy
Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
Google can peak into my privacy all they want. They won;t find anything interesting / resourceful.
Google search is 10X better than any other. The amount of information they produce on your search suggestions proves it,,,,,, including pics that places like Duck never produce.

The Duck is such a distant 2nd Place, that the race was called off a few years ago.


Exactly, you don't mind google selling your personal information for profit and give you free services in exchange.
Me, I can find anything anytime and not have to support google.

But all is good with what you are doing, not everyone feels the same. )

I don't do things to the extreme, but more of a middle ground, I will deny the big tech companies all the profits and information about my family as I can, if everyone did, things will change but Congress will change them first since Europe is ahead of us.


I have NOTHING that Google wants, from me or my wife. What exactly does Google steal from us-2 that's important? Please name something that I might regret stolen?
Also, I do not care that they track my buying activities and show me ads from hearing aid companies - jock itch companies and dog food companies...... to name three examples. I've had ad blockers on my computer for over 10 years now anyways.

Lastly, I don't care if they know where I talk guns, oils or major league baseball. My emails have nothing that needs to be secret. I get three cellphone calls a week and make 5-6. Does Google care that I call my wife and two daughters too?

So how has Google disrupted my personal life? Please share with me this information.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
So how has Google disrupted my personal life? Please share with me this information.


In your post it seems like you have a good understanding of how this data is used in the most common way: effective advertising. eg. If I head on over to Amazon and search for SOME COOL WIDGET and then minutes later I visit ESPN or Facebook or anywhere else that cooperates with Amazon I will very likely see an ad for SOME COOL WIDGET or similar. Advertisers have been optimizing how focused they can be with their resources ever since there has been advertising in the world. Data about what you type, what teams you like, what your interests and shopping and surfing habits are is extremely valuable to them.

I run some Facebook and Google ads for my web site clients and it is *frightening* how specific I can get about who sees these ads. In five minutes I can target people with:

a certain zip or postal code
a certain income
a certain age
a certain martial and parental status
certain identified and declared interests ("identified" would refer to that data that Facebook and Google have mined from your online habits; "declared" would be those you offer up in your profile, etc.)

... And those are just the criteria that I as an armchair marketer know how to leverage. Better marketers with deeper pockets can access a whole lot more data.

This data can be used, of course, for more nefarious purposes by malicious parties; and this data is also kept safe by these service providers *we trust and hope*. It's a trade-off, much like over-the-air radio and TV being free in exchange for us having to sit through advertising. Some people have zero issue with getting the compliment of Google's services at no cost in exchange for their data (although things could be said about how upfront these providers are about what they collect and how they use it!) while others take issue with the whole model.

It's a free market in a free country and these providers are free to generate a business by means of their choosing; and customers are free to engage with these products and services. I applaud people like alarmguy who, in communicating his disdain for this revenue model might educate those unaware of the implicit relationship they're in with a service provider; and I applaud you, too, for taking measures to safeguard your important data, which is increasingly of "value" today.

 

[Mr Nice]

Originally Posted by madRiver
Unless you are a paying customer and have a little clout supporting the older format makes no sense from an application standpoint.

Email is email to me. Been a gmail user since 2004 and have used for corporate for 8 years. Does the job but much prefer messaging apps over email.


I agree.

But sometimes the older version is more user friendly with less glitter and glam.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

I applaud you UC50 for taking the time to add subject depth.

I worry more about hackers intent on our financial and password info, versus-that of Google's snoop-dog peeping eyes and their compilations of what will eventually be seven billion storage files on each and every individual on our planet.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by uc50ic4more
Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
So how has Google disrupted my personal life? Please share with me this information.


In your post it seems like you have a good understanding of how this data is used in the most common way: effective advertising. eg. If I head on over to Amazon and search for SOME COOL WIDGET and then minutes later I visit ESPN or Facebook or anywhere else that cooperates with Amazon I will very likely see an ad for SOME COOL WIDGET or similar. Advertisers have been optimizing how focused they can be with their resources ever since there has been advertising in the world. Data about what you type, what teams you like, what your interests and shopping and surfing habits are is extremely valuable to them.

I run some Facebook and Google ads for my web site clients and it is *frightening* how specific I can get about who sees these ads. In five minutes I can target people with:

a certain zip or postal code
a certain income
a certain age
a certain martial and parental status
certain identified and declared interests ("identified" would refer to that data that Facebook and Google have mined from your online habits; "declared" would be those you offer up in your profile, etc.)

... And those are just the criteria that I as an armchair marketer know how to leverage. Better marketers with deeper pockets can access a whole lot more data.

This data can be used, of course, for more nefarious purposes by malicious parties; and this data is also kept safe by these service providers *we trust and hope*. It's a trade-off, much like over-the-air radio and TV being free in exchange for us having to sit through advertising. Some people have zero issue with getting the compliment of Google's services at no cost in exchange for their data (although things could be said about how upfront these providers are about what they collect and how they use it!) while others take issue with the whole model.

It's a free market in a free country and these providers are free to generate a business by means of their choosing; and customers are free to engage with these products and services. I applaud people like alarmguy who, in communicating his disdain for this revenue model might educate those unaware of the implicit relationship they're in with a service provider; and I applaud you, too, for taking measures to safeguard your important data, which is increasingly of "value" today.


Thank you for taking the time to write this well thought out post. Excellent.
Agree 100% we are free to chose whatever "free" services we want but most people do not understand what they are agreeing to when it comes to "free" and sometimes paid services.

Most have no idea how capable these huge data companies are at acquiring every intimate detail of their lives. If they make an informed decision, then that is fine but Im not sure everyone would accept the "free" service if they fully understood that it is not free, the free service they are using is making boatloads of money selling their families information.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
I have NOTHING that Google wants, from me or my wife. What exactly does Google steal from us-2 that's important? Please name something that I might regret stolen?
Also, I do not care that they track my buying activities and show me ads from hearing aid companies - jock itch companies and dog food companies...... to name three examples. I've had ad blockers on my computer for over 10 years now anyways.

Lastly, I don't care if they know where I talk guns, oils or major league baseball. My emails have nothing that needs to be secret. I get three cellphone calls a week and make 5-6. Does Google care that I call my wife and two daughters too?

So how has Google disrupted my personal life? Please share with me this information.

I have a couple things to add to this in addition to what others have said. As it stands, I agree about certain points; if a Google staffer is enthralled with reading my emails, good on him. However, and without opening a political rabbit hole here, Google and others have quite readily and without hesitation thrown people under the bus in other countries where they don't enjoy the freedoms that we do. More to the point, to even show that this is decidedly not political, it's up to me to protect my freedom and privacy, not up to Google or someone else. They simply won't do it, have no incentive to, and little sanction if they don't, so I have to, as it should be.

Further, it's not even necessarily what Google or whomever will do with the data themselves. Google wants to optimise their search engine? Have at it. However, whenever anything is stored, it can be accessed and even stolen. I highly doubt it bothered you and me that Sony had their servers hacked and had movie scripts stolen. The general public was, however, a little more directly affected when all those credit card numbers were stolen from Sony.

Google isn't trying to find a way to blackmail me with my private information or have the CEO drop in for coffee unannounced. Sony isn't trying to use my credit card numbers to fund the staff Christmas dinner. However, where data exists, it can be misused.

Richard Stallman said some time ago, to just imagine if he went back in time say 30 years ago and suggested that you carry around a tracking and listening device at all times; he'd be told where to go and how to get there. Fast forward to 2018, and people are doing so willingly, paying Apple et all hundreds of dollars for the hardware, and their cell providers tens of dollars per month for the privilege of doing so.

 

[alarmguy]

Wow Garak, great prospective. Lets just add going back 30 years to today, as more and more people become complacent regarding their privacy, what will happen in the next 10 years ... not only do the people pay for these devices (including me) but then those very companies sell the information for more money.
But regarding APPLE they are one of the least offenders, Android far worse.

I never been an "Apple" person, we use Android devices in our family but my work does supply me with Iphone and Ipad.
Ever since this speech I am now thinking of throwing my support behind Apple, even though I am not a big fan of their devices, I am thinking of switching to an Iphone.

Think about this speech, here we have one of the biggest Tech companies in the world warning of the dangers we are posting about and yet, people still do not listen and will make excuses ect ... that is OK as long as they understand what they are allowing companies to collect on them. Your right, its up to people to protect themselves, if jsut everyone read this, then made a decision, that would be great.
Why arent schools teaching kids to read and think anymore? People do not understand that even the way they vote, behave or buy things are being controlled because they know more about you then you do and how to make you act in certain ways. People do not even know they are being manipulated.

A MUST READ BY TIM COOK (APPLE) _Click !

...
"This crisis is real. It is not imagined, or exaggerated, or crazy." (Tim Cook)

 

[CKN]

Originally Posted by alarmguy
Originally Posted by uc50ic4more
Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
So how has Google disrupted my personal life? Please share with me this information.


In your post it seems like you have a good understanding of how this data is used in the most common way: effective advertising. eg. If I head on over to Amazon and search for SOME COOL WIDGET and then minutes later I visit ESPN or Facebook or anywhere else that cooperates with Amazon I will very likely see an ad for SOME COOL WIDGET or similar. Advertisers have been optimizing how focused they can be with their resources ever since there has been advertising in the world. Data about what you type, what teams you like, what your interests and shopping and surfing habits are is extremely valuable to them.

I run some Facebook and Google ads for my web site clients and it is *frightening* how specific I can get about who sees these ads. In five minutes I can target people with:

a certain zip or postal code
a certain income
a certain age
a certain martial and parental status
certain identified and declared interests ("identified" would refer to that data that Facebook and Google have mined from your online habits; "declared" would be those you offer up in your profile, etc.)

... And those are just the criteria that I as an armchair marketer know how to leverage. Better marketers with deeper pockets can access a whole lot more data.

This data can be used, of course, for more nefarious purposes by malicious parties; and this data is also kept safe by these service providers *we trust and hope*. It's a trade-off, much like over-the-air radio and TV being free in exchange for us having to sit through advertising. Some people have zero issue with getting the compliment of Google's services at no cost in exchange for their data (although things could be said about how upfront these providers are about what they collect and how they use it!) while others take issue with the whole model.

It's a free market in a free country and these providers are free to generate a business by means of their choosing; and customers are free to engage with these products and services. I applaud people like alarmguy who, in communicating his disdain for this revenue model might educate those unaware of the implicit relationship they're in with a service provider; and I applaud you, too, for taking measures to safeguard your important data, which is increasingly of "value" today.


Thank you for taking the time to write this well thought out post. Excellent.
Agree 100% we are free to chose whatever "free" services we want but most people do not understand what they are agreeing to when it comes to "free" and sometimes paid services.

Most have no idea how capable these huge data companies are at acquiring every intimate detail of their lives. If they make an informed decision, then that is fine but Im not sure everyone would accept the "free" service if they fully understood that it is not free, the free service they are using is making boatloads of money selling their families information.




AS does Equifax and numerous other financial bureaus-assuming you never pay cash for everything. If you purchased a home or a new car (or new to you) and financed there is a file on you.

It's really funny where we want to "wage our battles" when it comes to privacy.

 

[Garak]

Of course, Equifax et al gather credit information for a very good purpose. And yes, we still have to protect our privacy with respect to them, too. I'm willing to have Equifax know things about me so my bank will let me have a house. Google and Apple don't need to know that, unless they're underwriting my mortgage.

And yes, we do have to pick our battles. Some people do not use credit cards or any of that sort of thing. I don't exactly plan on copying RMS's lifestyle or moving into the bush. Picking one's battles is one thing. Paying companies to eavesdrop, track, and annoy me simply isn't going to happen. I despise cell phones enough based on the nuisance factor that I won't use one. The rest is just gravy.

alarmguy: Apple is no better. Their vendor lock in model is atrocious. As far as that goes, I prefer even Microsoft, as much as I choke on those words.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by Garak
Of course, Equifax et al gather credit information for a very good purpose. And yes, we still have to protect our privacy with respect to them, too. I'm willing to have Equifax know things about me so my bank will let me have a house. Google and Apple don't need to know that, unless they're underwriting my mortgage.

And yes, we do have to pick our battles. Some people do not use credit cards or any of that sort of thing. I don't exactly plan on copying RMS's lifestyle or moving into the bush. Picking one's battles is one thing. Paying companies to eavesdrop, track, and annoy me simply isn't going to happen. I despise cell phones enough based on the nuisance factor that I won't use one. The rest is just gravy.

alarmguy: Apple is no better. Their vendor lock in model is atrocious. As far as that goes, I prefer even Microsoft, as much as I choke on those words.


Well no one agrees on everything Garak (we were doing pretty good for a while though!)

Your way off base on Apple and privacy. Apple is the world leader in privacy over all the big names. Also putting Google and Apple in the same category is incorrect.
Google's business model is data mining, Apple is not even close to being that.

Hey, Im no Apple fan, always hated Apple products but I am changing my tune. For goodness sakes, hopefully you watched Tim Cooks Speech.

Even when using the popular (and fantastic) Waze app on my work provided I-Phone if I close the Waze app on my Iphone, the phone warns me that Waze is still tracking me, I then learned (which almost NO one knows unless you have an Iphone) how to properly close the app so you no longer are tracked.

When using the Waze app on an Android phone you get no such warning, but because of my Iphone I know the trick to close the app now.

But bottom line Apple protects your privacy, however if you install free apps, then of course you are free to expose yourself.

Googles andriod phones track every single thing you do/every place you go and report it back to google.

As far as credit reporting agencies, in the USA you can "opt out" of the bureaus sharing your information, I like getting offers though so I dont opt out.
However, I do have a LOCK on all the credit bureau's where no one can pull my credit report without my passcode and it was all free ...