New Google privacy policies include logging specific phone call info

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Hello
New poster to the Lounge so please forgive any blunders I may make :rolleyes:

Just logged into Google today and got greeted by a new privacy policy. I may have been poorly informed and not aware of what personal info is kept in Google server logs, but having read the new version gives me pause to wonder why.

I reviewed the current policy regarding logging and retention of communications and found where Google has already told users that data regarding SMS texting including the actual message could be logged and retained. No surprise that SMS message are logged, at least to me.

However, in the new policy Google seems to keep a lot more information about the actual phone calls you make and receive. Read the following except from the policy:

Begin excerpt

Log information

When you use our services or view content provided by Google, we may
automatically collect and store certain information in server logs. This may include:

[*]details of how you used our service, such as your search queries.
[*]telephony log information like your phone number, calling-party number,
forwarding numbers, time and date of calls, duration of calls, SMS routing
information and types of calls.
[*]Internet protocol address.
[*]device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware
settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and
referral URL.
[*]cookies that may uniquely identify your browser or your Google Account.

End of excerpt

I followed a link regarding how to get personal info out of Google products but found no mention of a way to purge such data from server logs and I beleive only Google could do that anyway. So with one of the main points of the new policy being that it will apply to all Google products and also allow sharing of such information across all 61 major Google products. My paranoia meter is pegging out.

Am I overreacting?

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I think that is cause for concern, actually. I think they have come a long way from the “Do no evil” motto. I don’t really understand the need to keep that much info and I will think carefully before using any services, even search, to be honest. I think the principle is really what matters and they have no business saving identifiable information from any users.

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Am I overreacting?

That all depends on what you have to hide! 😆

Actually, welcome to the lounge as a new poster. :cheers:

{Disclaimer: What follows is MY and only MY opinion and in no way reflects on the Lounge or it’s other posters}

In this world of I want services for free you have to realize that “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH”! The only way to support these “Free” services is through advertising and advertisers want to know as much about the target audience as possible to make sure they are getting the most bang-for-the buck. So you basically have two choices.
1. Don’t use the service, then you have nothing to worry about.
2. Use the service and “Pay Their Price”, i.e. loss of some privacy.
As always in a democracy the Choice is YOURS! That said, have you read the privacy policies of some of the PAID directly sites/products you use…you’d be amazed at what you’re paying for believe me.

Again Welcome. :cheers:

I almost forgot, I saw on TV the other day an interview with the CTO of Ford and he was talking about their new electronics packages and how they will notify you about sales at stores as you pass by, etc. Of course he was selling this as a FEATURE for the car buyer “REALLY” he was. What I heard was FORD is entering the Advertising Game big time. And of course YOU know what a premium you pay for a builtin GPS in a car vs buying a windshield mounted unit. Ok, I’ll give it a rest.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Yes, it’s a lot of info to keep, but individually each piece of info is logged as a requirement of offering the service, or as part of system maintenance, monitoring and performance tuning.

The trick is how they will combine all that information into a profile of the user to offer services and features that the user may be interested in.

Personally, I have no real issue with that as they provide a service that I require.

Regarding the Do no Evil motto, there is often an assumption that data mining in order to profile the user and offer services is “evil”. I might ask at that point “how so?”. Are they out to use the data in a manner that harms the user or exposes embarrassing information? As long as they keep my data safe and secure and do not sell or give it to 3rd parties, I see it as a necessary function of providing the services that I use.

If I make a rational choice to expose some info and it comes back to bite me, that’s my problem. The difficulty in some cases is where the user does not have genuine informed choice – such as the case with Facebook that obfuscates privacy settings and requires unencrypted (non-https) connections to be used some services.

At least Google are open and up-front in telling the user about the new policies.

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I really detest that “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” bs. We should ALL safeguard and defend with tooth and claw our right to privacy. More information means more surveillance, means greater control = more power to the surveiller, and you are dreaming if you think that power will not be abused. Here’s another pithy aphorism; “power corrupts”. Capitalism was meant to be ‘user pays’ and where there’s advertising, THAT’S supposed to pay for the thing we read/use; NOT control of the user through surveillance. The advsertisers in newspapers took their chances with the demographic and I’m not giving up my ID to give some marketing firm more opportunity to profit.
Apropos of this gathering of info, Google has me pegged as a certain age and gender and so I’m plagued by hundreds of ads designed to play on the supposed insecurities of that age/gender. It’s extremely ugly and intrusive, this profiling.
If i use youtube or gmail, I do not multitask, and I sign out. They want phone numbers now, supposedly to make it easier for us idiots to be reminded of our forgotten login details. Google can go to hell!! They are never getting my phone number.
I do not use the google search engine any longer. Use google one more time to search this term “private search engine” and then quit them if you know what’s good for you.
Now the utilities companies are also jumping on the bandwagon. Never give them an email address!
The net, the big bad anarchic net, has been fabulous. Don’t be naive and complacent and let the likes of google and whoever take that away.

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That all depends on what you have to hide! 😆

Typical Liberal Big Government type reply. One need NOT have ANYTHING to Hide in order to Expect Privacy. Airport so called Security is a good example. It is not about security, it is about Control and Unconstitutional Forcing people to SUBMIT. Same goes for Google, a Monopoly with the same attitude.

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Just look at how many apparently reliable companies, even some of them working on the computer security market, have been hacked, with their customers data being compromised. The more data they collect, the more valuable it becomes, the greater the risks are if it gets compromised.
Google is not different, appart from the fact that you probably use more and more of their services. Remember the China hacking episode?

I am not a paranoid person and my views on this have grown increasingly suspicious of this data gathering. I guess I will be using more services from other providers, which at least will mean less info stored by a single provider.

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However, in the new policy Google seems to keep a lot more information about the actual phone calls you make and receive. Read the following except from the policy:

Begin excerpt

Log information

When you use our services or view content provided by Google, we may
automatically collect and store certain information in server logs. This may include:

[*]details of how you used our service, such as your search queries.
[*]telephony log information like your phone number, calling-party number,
forwarding numbers, time and date of calls, duration of calls, SMS routing
information and types of calls.
[*]Internet protocol address.
[*]device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware
settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and
referral URL.
[*]cookies that may uniquely identify your browser or your Google Account.

End of excerpt

I wonder if recording the data in bold above is a legal requirement for your locality?

This Wiki page on Telecomms Data Retention indicates that there are many different policies in force worldwide.

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I think this is a version of the Golden Rule. The man with the gold makes the rules.

I only use Google for search function so I wonder where I fit in to this scheme of things.

Barbara

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Hello all

RetiredGeek
Thaaaanks for the welcome! Truth is I don’t know what I have to hide and I am not sure anyone else does either because I don’t know how far “social engineering” has gotten or where or how all our data can and will be used in the future. I see your point and agree that some information “surrender” if you will is just part of the internet, but I am still uncomfortable with a privacy policy that tells me Google is collecting very specific phone usage information and doesn’t address exactly how Google will use or share it with 3rd parties. the policy says it will only share personal info if i give specific permission or under certain circumstances such as for external processing. The following is another quote directly from the new policy;

begin except

For external processing
We provide personal information to our affiliates or other trusted businesses
or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance
with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security
measures.

End except

I also agree that one choice is to not use Google services, but both my wife and I just switched to Android phones in December…..

Browni
Sorry about the bold, guess I just wanted to highlight the part I found so contentious. It is not highlighted in the web document. If you would like to see the original documents the link is below. Website says it will be one policy for over 60 Google Services and will be effective 1 Mar 2012.

http://www.google.com/policies/

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netjunkibrs,

No need to apologise! In fact the part you’ve highlighted matches very closely some of the legal requirements listed in the Wiki document I linked to.

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My test for privacy law is to consider the theoretical “If Mr Hitler were president (CEO, the big cheese or whatever) – would I still be comfortable that he knew this much about me and my habits”. Sadly, under US law many three letter agencies already do – so, what the heck – let’s just assume that it is all OK and they have our best interests at heart.

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There is a Firefox add on, “Customized Google”, that allows the personal identifier to be turned off. There are some other toggles that can, supposedly,improve your privacy. However, when you try to install other (free or paid) security (or other) apps you get the message “the app is not compatible with Customized Google”. My system tells me that Customized Google has not beenupdatedin a very long time. I suspect that it will never be made compatible so I stay with the older versions of other apps when I can. It would not surprise me if that app is now owned by or controlled by Google.

There is another FF add on, “Hide My Ass Proxy Extension“, that you can use before going to Google search. I really don’t have anything to hide and no money to steal but I love to play the game with corporate clowns. That being said, however, they probably have found a way to get what they want. They usually do.

Although others knowing everything you do online seems benign at this time, you must consider the future. If the spooks in black helicopters put pressure on any company or individual, it is easy to believe they can get anything they want from whomever they want.

BTW most of the apps mentioned here were found by reading “Windows Secrets”. Someone with more time should look into Customized Google to find out what is going on.

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One way of trying to keep your personal info (reasonably) private when using Google is to delete the USER PROFILE and do away with Google+. Also ensure that you log out of your Google account as the info gathered is (supposedly) only gathered when you are logged into you account and a lot of folks never actually sign out. Another way is to start using another search engine. I have started using searchpage and this is based on Google.

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Another way is to start using another search engine. I have started using searchpage and this is based on Google.

For some time I have used EveryClick , which gives money to charity. It is now based on Yahoo, and I find it good for most searches, although occasionally I do have to resort to Google.:(

I have tried to find a search engine called “searchpage” using both EveryClick and Google without success – could you post a link please, but if it is based on Google there is a good chance that Google still get your information.

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One way of trying to keep your personal info (reasonably) private when using Google is to delete the USER PROFILE and do away with Google+. Also ensure that you log out of your Google account as the info gathered is (supposedly) only gathered when you are logged into you account and a lot of folks never actually sign out. Another way is to start using another search engine. I have started using searchpage and this is based on Google.

That’s the first thing I did after scrutinizing the new policy. There was nothing much in my gmail user profile anyway, but that’s a good place to start. Lots of good tips here from all of you, and I agree with another one – forget giving Google my phone number! 😡

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As long as they don’t start spamming me, I’m not overly worried about this change. Much of it they have been doing all along. As well as most other places. I use FF almost exclusively and control cookies through it, I make them ask every time. And if I am just passing by, I just say no. I don’t see this as a huge change, they are consolidating 60 plus privacy policies into one. I’m not likely to start with Bing, I will still use you tube and I don’t use gmail for anything but a throwaway address. Not worried. Big Brother is out there but his name isn’t Google. :^) gene

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It isn’t just google users who should be concerned. If you send an email to someone with a google email account, this email is stored by google forever. If you sent something in the past or in the future to a Google mail user, even if they deleted it several years ago, google still has a copy. With the crazy laws like SOPA/PIPA and NDAA, statements made on a google account that may seem harmless at the time you made the comment could come back to haunt you. For example, a comment you made that criticises the Government could be seen by the Government as serious branding you a threat to national security and be detained under NDAA. Yes the Government can always gather information like this but Google makes it much easier. The YouTube videos that you watch could easily be used against you even if the videos you viewed were nothing that would concern the Government. It should also be noted that sites like Yahoo and Microsoft Hotmail are already doing this but I’m unsure if they are keeping archives of every email you send or receive. I personally don’t like sharing personal information from emails, what I do online (sites I visit), and what I’ve searched for. Even if I’m doing nothing illegal my searches are on topics I would rather not sharing with anyone. There isn’t really any privacy anymore. You can try other search engines such as duckduckgo.com and ixquick.com and use TOR (http://www.torproject.org) to give you some privacy.

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My first post to the Lounge !

This is so simple. If you like Google products, then use them and stop worrying about the never ending list of things to worry about. Do I really think someone is zeroing in on my personal info to do harm? Nah. I am more worried about John Ashcroft in some 3rd subbasement somewhere, and what he is up to.

If we get all paranoid, the only answer is to disconnect from the grid. I’ll tell you one thing, I am never going back to IE, except for those few-and-far-between requirements of some Websites. IE scares the crap out of me.

If I commit some horrendous crime, I deserve to be tracked, and so do the rest of you. Don’t worry. Be happy!

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My first post to the Lounge !

This is so simple. If you like Google products, then use them and stop worrying about the never ending list of things to worry about. Do I really think someone is zeroing in on my personal info to do harm? Nah. I am more worried about John Ashcroft in some 3rd subbasement somewhere, and what he is up to.

If we get all paranoid, the only answer is to disconnect from the grid. I’ll tell you one thing, I am never going back to IE, except for those few-and-far-between requirements of some Websites. IE scares the crap out of me.

If I commit some horrendous crime, I deserve to be tracked, and so do the rest of you. Don’t worry. Be happy!

footsportsdoc,

You never have to use IE. Try Avant or Maxthon, instead. They will work anywhere (that I’ve found, at least) that IE is required. Both use the IE core engine, but are better, faster and more secure.

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You never have to use IE. Try Avant or Maxthon, instead. They will work anywhere (that I’ve found, at least) that IE is required. Both use the IE core engine, but are better, faster and more secure.

What makes Avant or Maxthon more secure than IE9?

Bruce

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

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What Google is collecting is mostly anonymous information. What should worry more people is that PayPal, Amazon, and others store and keep ALL of the credit card information, including the 3 digit security code on the back of the card. It is unnecessary that they store the security code, but they do. I have had my credit card compromised by paypal , but never again.

Should someone hack into their database, the hacker could make charges on anyone’s card whose info is stored. Shame, Shame, Shame.

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What should worry more people is that PayPal, Amazon, and others store and keep ALL of the credit card information, including the 3 digit security code on the back of the card. It is unnecessary that they store the security code, but they do.

For security purposes, merchants are prohibited from storing this number. Visa Security Program: 3-digit security code

It’s prohibited by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council Data Security Standard: PCI DSS Quick Reference Guide v2.0PDF

Bruce[/FONT]

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

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What Google is collecting is mostly anonymous information. What should worry more people is that PayPal, Amazon, and others store and keep ALL of the credit card information, including the 3 digit security code on the back of the card. It is unnecessary that they store the security code, but they do. I have had my credit card compromised by paypal , but never again.

Should someone hack into their database, the hacker could make charges on anyone’s card whose info is stored. Shame, Shame, Shame.

You do make a great point but it sounds like google will have these search results tied to an identifiable account. Several years ago, America Online had search results leaked but it didn’t have personally identifiable information such as an account associated with the searches. I personally don’t like the idea that Amazon, Paypal and other sites will keep your credit card on file and all someone has to do is know your username and password to make an unauthorized charge to your credit card and wish I could opt out. Unfortunately we can only trust that sites will protect our information. We trust that our bank encrypts the backups they make of our accounts just in case someone manages to steal the backups. Whether it is a bank, a local merchant, or an online merchant, we can only trust that they protect our information by encrypting backups, keeping our information such as credit card numbers safe from hackers and others who are not authorized to obtain this information, and shredding documents that contain information such as our social security number or credit card number before throwing the documents away.

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If you want to be extra sure that in the event of Amazon getting hacked you can make an order setup a credit card and then after payment is confirmed you can go back and deleteremove the card once again

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What Google is collecting is mostly anonymous information. What should worry more people is that PayPal, Amazon, and others store and keep ALL of the credit card information, including the 3 digit security code on the back of the card. It is unnecessary that they store the security code, but they do. I have had my credit card compromised by paypal , but never again.

Should someone hack into their database, the hacker could make charges on anyone’s card whose info is stored. Shame, Shame, Shame.

I do not know about paypal but within Amazon you can remove any credit card. See this link on how to do so:
https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/helpTab/Amazon-Flexible-Payments-Service/Creating-Managing-Your-Account/Adding-Managing-Credit-Cards

If you want to be extra sure that in the [unlikely] event of Amazon getting hacked you can make an order setup a credit card and then after payment is confirmed you can go back and deleteremove the card once again

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If you want to be extra sure that in the [unlikely] event of Amazon getting hacked you can make an order setup a credit card and then after payment is confirmed you can go back and deleteremove the card once again

That’s exactly what I used to do. But, after receiving a Kindle Fire I’ve discovered you must keep a credit card on Amazon. As I found out the hard way, you can’t get any free anything (books, apps, whatever) without one. Hm…
My previous and usual account on Amazon is now all intertwined with the Kindle Fire account! Not a good state of affairs.

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Went to the link given earlier in this thread for changing credit card info on Amazon.

When they asked for my whole social security number, I closed the page.

It is better to just find the place where you can delete the credit card info in your Account settings. I did that and now there are none on file.

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i use an email account provided to me by my phone company. about a year ago, they announced that they would use Gmail — so we all had to make up a Gmail addy. i still use my old address, but by going thru google, does this mean i am being ‘watched’ by google too?

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i use an email account provided to me by my phone company. about a year ago, they announced that they would use Gmail — so we all had to make up a Gmail addy. i still use my old address, but by going thru google, does this mean i am being ‘watched’ by google too?

It could be – Virgin Media (a UK cable company) started using Google Apps to manage its email service about 18 months ago, and all Virgin email addresses got the email about changes to the privacy policies. There has been an apology saying it was a mistake, and that “Google has no access to any personal, account or password information”, but there has not yet been any explanation of how or why the error occurred!

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I do not know about paypal but within Amazon you can remove any credit card. See this link on how to do so:
https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/helpTab/Amazon-Flexible-Payments-Service/Creating-Managing-Your-Account/Adding-Managing-Credit-Cards

If you want to be extra sure that in the [unlikely] event of Amazon getting hacked you can make an order setup a credit card and then after payment is confirmed you can go back and deleteremove the card once again

This link is to Amazon FPS which appears to be some kind of online payment business in competition with PayPal.I think most of the references in these posts are to regular Amazon accounts where you pay for purchases only made on Amazon.I believe that they are seperate entities.

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I use iGoogle extensively as I like the on-screen gadgets it allows me to display – but would never personally use Google+ (or, for that matter, any other Social networking site like Facebook et al). If you are worried about Google’s privacy policy and, in particular, are a Facebook user (or possibly a member of your family is a member using the same LAN and Internet gateway) you should really have a close look at Facebook’s data collection and privacy policy – I strongly suspect that very few people actually realise just how intrusive (and comprehensive!) it is!

In 2001 I purchased and installed Muuray Hurps’ Ad-Muncher (http://www.admuncher.com/ – when the licence included free updates for evcr) it has a been a purchase that i have never ever regretted as this excellentsoftware kills vitually every advert on the internet – including all Google adverts so I really don’t care if Google ‘targets’ me personally with adverts as I will never see them.

So far with no compatibility issues whatsoever having moved it successivly from Win98 to Win Millenium to XP Pro to Win7 Ultimate 64 with nary a problem.

Since I purchased a licence Murray has changed the licencing policy so it is rather more expensive than it was but, to my mind, Ad-Muncher is worth every penny!

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I use iGoogle extensively as I like the on-screen gadgets it allows me to display – but would never personally use Google+ (or, for that matter, any other Social networking site like Facebook et al). If you are worried about Google’s privacy policy and, in particular, are a Facebook user (or possibly a member of your family is a member using the same LAN and Internet gateway) you should really have a close look at Facebook’s data collection and privacy policy – I strongly suspect that very few people actually realise just how intrusive (and comprehensive!) it is!

In 2001 I purchased and installed Muuray Hurps’ Ad-Muncher (http://www.admuncher.com/ – when the licence included free updates for evcr) it has a been a purchase that i have never ever regretted as this excellentsoftware kills vitually every advert on the internet – including all Google adverts so I really don’t care if Google ‘targets’ me personally with adverts as I will never see them.

So far with no compatibility issues whatsoever having moved it successivly from Win98 to Win Millenium to XP Pro to Win7 Ultimate 64 with nary a problem.

Since I purchased a licence Murray has changed the licencing policy so it is rather more expensive than it was but, to my mind, Ad-Muncher is worth every penny!

I posted earlier that I use Do Not Track Plus – but I went to the link you provided and look what I found. 2 companies, 1 social network and 1 ad network tried to grab my information from that site itself. :^)

Do Not Track PlusSpread the word

On at http://www.admuncher.com

1 social button tracking you:1 blocked

1 ad network tracking you: 1 blocked

2 companies tracking you: 2 blocked

Ingenious! Your all-time total is:
2,859 blocked

Abine.com | the Online Privacy Company

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Saw the recommendation on Ghacks this morning for Duck Duck Go. Has anyone tried it or know anything about it??

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Another private search engine can be found at https://www.ixquick.com/.

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I now use ixquick to search. I have uninstalled all google products. I am slowly changing my preferred email on newsletters and other accounts to other than gmail.

I also use Firefox with Adblock Plus Extension. Facebook also tracks you web use to sites not Facebook. I use the Opera browser for Facebook and nothing else.

Every few days I delete cookies that have google or facebook in them.

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mtonkin222,

While all you say is possible, it is highly unlikely that anything the average person transmits will be picked up by some sort of “sniffer”. Lets face it, the government does have many things it has to worry about. We are mostly likely not on their target list.

But, for those of you who do have something to hide, please tell us what it is:o:

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I now use ixquick to search. I have uninstalled all google products. I am slowly changing my preferred email on newsletters and other accounts to other than gmail.

I also use Firefox with Adblock Plus Extension. Facebook also tracks you web use to sites not Facebook. I use the Opera browser for Facebook and nothing else.

Every few days I delete cookies that have google or facebook in them.

Having an android phone pretty much leaves you at the mercy of Google until your contract runs out, but somehow I don’t think Apple is any less voracious in terms of information they keep about you and how you use their products. I am a new android user, though I immediately turned off and uninstalled as much as I could, even sometimes I wish I had stayed with my old flip phone, lol. I got my first spam text message ever a couple weeks ago, got in touch with my carrier and they recommended an app I find most useful, Mr. Number, which allows you to block numbers and a lot more. That is one of 2 apps I run on my phone.

I do have a nifty add on for FireFox that I’d not used before but really like, it comes in versions for other browsers as well, Do Not Track +. I like it better than No Script which seemed to get in my way more often than not.

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I now use ixquick to search. I have uninstalled all google products. I am slowly changing my preferred email on newsletters and other accounts to other than gmail.I also use Firefox with Adblock Plus Extension. Facebook also tracks you web use to sites not Facebook. I use the Opera browser for Facebook and nothing else. Every few days I delete cookies that have google or facebook in them.

I gotta tell you I LOVE Ixquick. I’ve replaced Google search on all my browsers with it – their advanced version (https) is every bit as good as Googles. I even made it the default in Chrome, lol. I did try a FF addon called SocialFixer which was supposed to allow greater control over Facebook, and did, until an update came out and it quit working with FF 11.0.

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OK, so how does all of this affect users whose cell phones run Android. Does anyone know if Google is constantly polling Android devices as well? If so, is there a way to keep Google out of your cell phone usage?

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pfvincent (and everyone else)
Please forgive me I should have startpage follow the link and set your preferences and they guarantee privacy. Once agin forgive my slovenly actions. I should have double checked my post :o:

https://startpage.com/eng/

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You can have a PayPal account without a credit card. All this means is that you cannot send money to someone unless you have a balance in your PayPal account. Generally it takes about 5 days to transfer money into PayPal from a bank account so this means without a balance in your PayPal account, the payee will have to wait about a week before receiving payment. The credit card allows you to pay instantly without a balance in your PayPal account. I believe PayPal has made advances in their systems to protect their users personal information, including their credit card information. I have had a PayPal account for many years with a credit card listed without any problems. I have recently removed that credit card to see if there was any other affect on my PayPal account and there is not.

I do not believe PayPal is any more susceptible than other companies to nefarious use of their systems. In fact, because of a past problem, perhaps they are safer. If you are concerned, many credit card companies have the ability to issue one time use only numbers to use for online purchases.

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You can have a PayPal account without a credit card. All this means is that you cannot send money to someone unless you have a balance in your PayPal account. Generally it takes about 5 days to transfer money into PayPal from a bank account so this means without a balance in your PayPal account, the payee will have to wait about a week before receiving payment. The credit card allows you to pay instantly without a balance in your PayPal account.

I believe the payee will receive payment immediately, even without a balance in your PayPal account, with an instant transfer from a verified bank account:

PayPal’s instant transfer sends funds instantaneously to the designated recipient as soon as you click “Send Money.” Once you complete the transaction, PayPal initiates an electronics fund transfer (EFT) from your bank account. This process typically takes three to five business days but ultimately depends on how quickly your bank processes EFT transfers.
How Soon After an Instant Payment Does PayPal Deduct From Your Bank Account?

Everything I’ve bought this way for years always gets an instant receipt from the seller.

Bruce

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

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I think I would rather have my credit card stolen from paypal than my banking account number. It’s like a Debit card, once the transactions is made, the money is gone and they could drain your account before you find out that someone is using your bank account number or debit card. With a credit card, you can contest the charges and you don’t immediately have money taken directly from your bank account giving you the option of contesting the charges and still have money in your bank account while they conduct an investigation and change your bank account or debit card number to prevent them from making further transactions. I always use a credit card when doing transactions for this reason since a debit card or bank account transfer can be used by someone to drain your account but with a credit card, you still have money in your account, you are just contesting the charges that you didn’t authorize and only have to pay if you really did authorize these charges.

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In this modern world I find all this concern about “privacy” to be a bit humorous. Not that I’m dismissing the concerns, because they are certainly valid ones, but because we as consumers lost our ability to be anonymous long before using the Internet became a common household thing.

Do you now, or have you ever had an account with the local phone company? They keep boatloads of data about you and your phone calls. No, they don’t formally share that data. However, phone companies were some of the earliest businesses to have their computer systems hacked.

Do you have a grocery store or department store rewards card? They’ve been around long before most people even heard of the internet. Those cards get you some nice deals from time to time. They are also one of the best marketing tools ever to hit retail. They know your buying habits and they use that data to compile demographics, and share it with other marketers to build even bigger databases.

Do you have a credit card? Look at your itemized statement. Your movements and habits can actually be tracked by following the “cookie trail” left by your credit card usage.

There is tons of publicly accessible data about each and every one of us. Data that used to take a visit to a municipal building is increasingly available online.

There is enough data out there that if someone took the time, they could re-assemble the known data with the anonymized data. Don’t believe me? It’s been done.More here.

So Google isn’t really doing anything new. Just what everyone else has been doing all along. The only way I know of to remain truly anonymous is to cut up the credit cards, drop the ISP, quit your job, lock the door and never let anyone in. Its like the old joke, the only secure computer is the one that’s turned off and in a brick room with no doors or windows.

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Bruce,

I was talking about a situation where you do not have a credit card on file. From the site you linked to:

How It Works

[*]PayPal’s instant transfer sends funds instantaneously to the designated recipient as soon as you click “Send Money.” Once you complete the transaction, PayPal initiates an electronics fund transfer (EFT) from your bank account. This process typically takes three to five business days but ultimately depends on how quickly your bank processes EFT transfers. PayPal requires a credit card to backup the instant transfer in case your bank declines the EFT transaction. Typically, banks decline EFT transactions if insufficient funds exist in the account. If your bank declines the EFT transaction, PayPal will automatically bill the credit card linked to your account.

Without a credit card on file the instantaneous payment will not be honored. I have also done thousands of transactions on PayPal (I ran an online part time business on eBay for several years). I always felt very safe in doing so, and still do.

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Bruce,

I was talking about a situation where you do not have a credit card on file.

Ah, OK. I understand now, thanks.

Bruce

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

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In a slightly different twist, not wanting to use my bank account at paypal I always switch to credit card before paying somebody. It’s amusing to see that the payment is backed up by the same credit card.

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Hold on to your hats. Read This.

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In theory, the involvement of the EU Article 29 Working Party and invocation of the EU data protection laws is welcome – it certainly leans much more to protecting the privacy and rights of its citizens than laws in other parts of the world.

However, before we blindly accept that everything the EU data protection and privacy requirements gives us is good, please recall the ongoing fiasco that is the EU cookie directive…… From May this year it will be an offense for any website hosted within the EU to drop any cookies that are not critical for the operation of the website onto the user machine without informed consent. Cookie blocking settings in browsers is not deemed informed consent becasue this is inferred from the user settings and inferred consent is not acceptable, as this document explains. To see how this might work, take a look at the ICO website, which incidentally does not give opt-out option!

In short, hopefully the involvement of the Working Party will lead to an open examination, clarification and monitoring the proposed changes at Google, but the recent EU track record on detailed technical implementation has been somewhat less than inspiring.

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I think there are still some unanswered questions regarding google’s new security policy. I thank Google for making their security policy more simple than the privacy policies of other Internet sites which can be several pages long and would make great bedtime reading but there’s some questions I still have. BTW, sorry to drag on this thread with my questions. I think someone else brought up concerns about Android based phones. I currently own an Android based phone and have contacts that I don’t want shared with other parties because they (like myself) are trying to avoid having their Cell Phone number end up in the hands of Telemarketers. With an incident a few years back that I had with a telemarketer before I had an android based cell phone who called me repeatedly at least once every hour for most of the day even after I told them I wasn’t interested and to remove my number from their contact list, they continued to call and I used call blocking software to block their number but then they began calling from several other numbers to bypass my blocking and unidentified numbers. Long story short, for nearly a month I averaged 15 calls a day and they kept calling even though all the calls were sent straight to voicemail where they wouldn’t leave a message. I’m concerned that people on my contact list could find themselves targeted by telemarketers and if I were to call an android based phone, I can still end up on the list if I call someone who has an Android based phone.
Will my contacts and their numbers be shared with google and even if I buy a non-android based phone in the future but call someone who has an android based phone, will my number be shared with Google and third party sites?
In addition, I’ve used my Android phone to access other email accounts. Will Google be sharing my email accounts?

I also downloaded apps for my Android Phone that I didn’t even know Google was involved with including my Local Department of Transportation commuter app that I use to check on road conditions that I found out was created by Google. Will my search information be shared by google? I had to do some research to find out that this app happened to be created by google.

One of my email accounts uses Postini which happens to be owned by Google as their Spam filter. Does this mean that any email in this account could be archived by google even though this email account isn’t owned by google but incoming mail is scanned by Postini which is owned by google?

I’m not trying to be paranoid but a lot of the people I contact on my cell phone are confidential and the emails I receive often come from co-workers and we have a company policy requiring us to take actions to prevent work email addresses from becoming publically available information. So I’m required to do whatever I can to safeguard this information and after finding that one of my email accounts uses a google product to filter spam, it’s possible these emails could be shared by google and email addresses from my employer could be divulged to companies which is a violation of our companies privacy policy.

Also, regarding paypal, is there a way to remove a bank account and keep your credit card? As I mentioned in a previous post, I a little concerned that bank account information stored on Paypal could be stolen by a hacker and there is not much protection in the even someone obtains my bank account and runs up charges. They could continue to purchase items with my bank account number and drain my account and it would be hard to track them down since they probably wouldn’t be dumb enough to use my paypal account for these transactions. At least with a credit card, you don’t automatically have money withdrawn from your account that you may never see again.

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I think there are still some unanswered questions regarding google’s new security policy.

Perhaps a review of the new Google Privacy policy may give you some answers: for example there is a commitment never to divulge your data to a third party – So according to their T’s&C’s they won’t be selling your email or contacts to telemarketers.

Of course that doesn’t stop anybody hacking your account, but the same risk is present on any hosted environment. The only way to mitigate that is to spread your exposure over several services using one for spam filtering such as Postini, another for contacts, a third for calendar services etc…..

The Privacy Principles FAQ’s and your own Google Dashboard are excellent resources. If those still leave unanswered questions, try approaching Google themselves.

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I had been using scroogle.org as a search option to Google. Recently, Google has been making it impossible to do searches from scroogle. After getting the message numerous times that Google was blocking them I wound up making Yahoo my default.

Intentional? I don’t know.

Using different search providers will make it more difficult to track every search you make, no matter how innocuous it is.

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EPIC sues FTC over Google privacy plan

Court agrees to speed up case over Google’s privacy policies

Bruce

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

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Google is an excellent example of a company that gets itself into a near-monopoly position and then lowers its standards to make as much money as possible,which then move across the board by forcing its competitors to follow suit. Here is what Google has done recently:

1. – Made the first page of search results into a Google landing page with ads framing the search results and at the bottom, Google Maps results, Google Products, with may of the sites appearing in the ads also appearing in the search results or having more than one search result, pushing other sites further down than they used to be, losing them high percentages of their visitors and even higher percentages of their income.

2. – Merged its ads with the search results, making them as indistinguisable from them as possible. Placed its Google Products Shopping results, its price-comparison site, constantly in the middle of the page, showing images of the products, which the other price-comparison sites can’t do. Their search results come in all over the place, usually below Google Products and usually not on the first page of results.

3. – Now that up to the the first four positions for popular searches are ads, the organic search results have effectively been demoted. The loss of a few search positions can lose 30, 60, 75% of a sites number of vistors. To avoid the stink that this would have generated, Google came out with its Panda search algorithm which is supposed to be able to sniff out quality sites and demote rubbish sites, content farms, spammer sites and sites that copy their information from other sites (scraper sites). Many legitimate quality sites appeared to have been hit, but were really hit by the paid-for ad links coming in at the top. With Google now making most of its money from ads instead of from sites in the search results, it sent lower quality or lower-paying ads to the sites, losing them more income as a percentage of their income than their loss of visitors, making many quality sites non-viable. The Panda search algorithm is very inconsistent. It can actually return parked domains and sites that don’t contain the search keywords at all and returns many very low quality “Made For AdSense” sites on the first page of search results. Anyone can put that to the test. If it were a quality-driven algorithm, so many very poor quality sites would not be returned. What the algorithm appears to be doing is returning different search results for every searcher based on the personal user profile that Google has built up from information harvested from all of its services (Gmail, YouTube, G+, etc.) and products (Chrome browser, Android phones, etc.) In short, it is returning the best search results for Google.

3. – Google has recently been caught bypassing the default security setting in Apple’s Safari web browser used on iPhones and Microsoft’s Internet Explore browser in order to obtain the personal search information of the users of those browsers. Owners of smartphones that use Google’s Android operating system now have to log into their Google account in order to use the phone’s aps and features, obviously for tracking purposes.

4. – Google was forced to punish its Chrome web browser for buying paid links, which it forbids websites that use its Adsense ad system from doing.

5. – Google is using its AdSense ad system to advertise its Chrome browser and its Chromebook Internet-only laptop on third party websites. Website owners can block any ads that they don’t want appearing on their sites, such as the ads of competitors, but no one seems able to block the ads for Google’s own products, such as the two just mentioned. If you block them, they just keep appearing because their precise origins cannot be determined. Yo have to know preceisely where an ad is coming from in order to block it.

6. – The ads that Google used to deliver to a particular website were based on the site’s content (tech sites were delivered tech-related ads automatically, etc.) but now any kind of ad can appear on a site. The website owner can block up to a maximum of 50 advertisers in any number of categories. When that number is reached, the other categories are labelled “Too big to block”. So, instead of allowing website owners to opt in to the limited categories of ads that their sites content covers, they are effectively forced to allow any category of ad to appear. This is clearly because every web searcher’s search results are personal to that searcher, having been generated by that user’s personal profile that Google has built up from the use of its services and products.

If you want to use a company that operates in this kind of unprincipled, subterranean way to enrich itself, become ever richer and lower standards ever more, do so. You will be to blame for ever-lowering standards that could quite conceivably end in the loss of the freedoms that previous generations paid for with their lives.

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Google evil? Probably not yet, who really knows. Google endlessly greedy and personally invasive? Anybody with a working brain knows that already! I had one helluva time getting my Facebook account closed because of their endless invasion of my privacy without permission. Still believing that “No Evil” Google BS, I thought I’d try Google+. Within a few days, and without ever asking my permission, they took the very private personal image that I had set up as my Google search page background and posted it for all the world to see! Needless to say, Google offers absolutely no way for me to remove this image from my account. Given this sort of personal abuse, my only option is to close the account, a work in progress. Well, at least I had the sense not to sign up for their “free” phone service. Google’s new privacy policy clearly demonstrates the wisdom of that decision! I still use the outdated Firefox because of the many available plugins which attempt to protect you from Google’s prying intrusions into your life on the web. Some script blockers are appearing for Chrome, but who knows if they only work for “third parties”, but still allow Google unfettered access to your private data. I like Chrome, but I am withdrawing from it as the evidence mounts as to Google’s relentless invasion of my privacy. Like the man said, “No Free Lunch.”! Microsoft and Google are unwittingly becoming the biggest boosters of open source computing. It turns out that “Black Box” software is simply too much power to not abuse. Caveat emptor, you all!

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