Welcome to Google Workspace

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I’ve almost completely switched over to Google G-Suite. Except, as of today, it’s known as Google Workspace. Google just announced the name change, gu
[See the full post at: Welcome to Google Workspace]

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Nathan Parker, GreatAndPowerfulTech, Myst

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sure they don’t (snoop on stuff in G-Suite/Workspace).  And all sides get equal, unbiased treatment in every news service.  What’s the keyboard emoji for an eyeroll?

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About two months ago, I created a simple one page Microsoft Works 9 spreadsheet and saved it to my hard disk which listed (with generic descriptions) the major expenditures that I anticipate that I may make over the next five years for home furnishings and equipment, with estimated costs for each item and a total cost at the bottom. The list included such things as sectional sofa seating for the living room, an area carpet for the dining room, bookshelves, a flat screen TV and TV stand, a new desktop computer, a chest of drawers for the bedroom and a new twin-size mattress and bedding. To my surprise, within just a couple of days I began seeing ads in various web pages that I frequently visit, both on the Chrome browser as well as the Chrome-based Edge browser, and both on Windows 7 as well as Windows 10, for those exact same items mentioned above. I even saw the ads in the “Chredge” homepage, which is the MSN homepage. And the mattress ads were specifically for twin-size mattresses! I have no way of knowing, of course, whether it was Microsoft or Google Chrome or some other snooping tool that harvested the information from that spreadsheet stored on my personal and private computer’s hard disk at home. But I think that sort of invasion is outrageous and ought to be illegal.

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RamRod, wdburt1

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No doubt you had looked up those items in your browser to fill in the spreadsheet.

cheers, Paul

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Nope. I had never searched in any browser for any of those items. All the information in the spreadsheet came from TV ads or print ads. The ads that I subsequently saw on websites with personalized ads had to have used information “mined” from that spreadsheet. There’s no other way to have gotten it. That sort of invasion of my private data stored on my hard drive at home is worse in my opinion than getting it from email snooping.

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So, perhaps, does Microsoft Works 9 ‘leak’ data?
Is there anyone here who has MSW9, who can test for telemetry?

A test? Create a TXT file (Notepad, WordPad, … ) with some different articles listed. And wait. This might see if it is the data file that is being shadowed.

I suppose that another possibility is that there is a keylogger lurking?

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I did not see how this could be possible. So I did create an Excel spreadsheet with 10 items that I got from a mailer (did not search for any of them on the internet). I also uploaded that file to my Google account. That was on October 7th, to date (October 12th) I have not seen a single ad for any of those items (ad blocker turned off in Chrome).   If Google or Microsoft can somehow ‘mine’ data from a spreadsheet or other document saved locally, then the only answer is to not connect to the internet.

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I trust Google much less than you trust Microsoft “to do the right thing”.

I don’t use Google search.

I don’t use Google Chrome.

I don’t use ChrEdge.

Nor will I.  Period.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Purg2

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@bbearren I couldn’t have put it better. Amen and pass the potatoes.

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Agreed, they are not to be trusted. I don’t use google search.  What browser are you using? I am looking for something other than FF bc I think it will become less and less secure over time.

 

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Nathan Parker

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I use Brave and it seems to suppress ads fairly well.

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Nathan Parker

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I wouldn’t touch Google with a 10 foot pole.

I use a “Don’t track me Google” extension on Firefox.

 

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Both are snooping. The only difference between them is that one is too stupid to make use of the data collected, while the other is able to turn the data into information and do good/bad things. There is really no free lunch.

 

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The data that G Suite organizations and users put into our systems is theirs, and we do not scan it for advertisements nor sell it to third parties.

Anything published on the internet must be true. Psi.

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anonymous wrote:

To my surprise, within just a couple of days I began seeing ads in various web pages that I frequently visit, both on the Chrome browser as well as the Chrome-based Edge browser, and both on Windows 7 as well as Windows 10, for those exact same items mentioned above

What are ads ? never saw one. /s

Add uBlock Origin to all your browsers.

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Because Google couldn’t let Microsoft have all the fun with the Office 365 to Microsoft 365 brand change. 🙂

I thought Google had legal action brought against them in the past due to G Suite for Education scanning some school’s content for advertising? Did I misunderstand that, or did anyone else hear about it?

I have a test G Suite (Google Workspace) account as well as a test Microsoft 365 account, although I don’t put anything into either that I’m not comfortable with storing in the cloud.

The creepiest thing that ever happened to me is when I started seeing ads for an item I bought in a grocery store that I never searched for on the Internet. I found out my credit card was selling my purchase history to advertisers.

Nathan Parker

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