PC Mag: “A judge has ruled that Google has a monopoly on online search because it paid partners to make its search engine the default on phones and mobile browsers. But you don’t have to use Google, and there are many reasons not to. Alternative search engines often give you more privacy and sometimes come… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Search Engines
Most Adults are Not Confident They Can Tell Whether Information from AI Chatbots Is True or False
KFF: “…Most U.S. adults are not confident that they can tell what is true versus what is false when it comes to information from AI chatbots, such as Chat-GPT and Microsoft Copilot. Fewer than half say they are either “very confident” (9%) or “somewhat confident” (33%) that they can tell the difference between true and… Continue Reading
Google’s AI Search Gives Sites Dire Choice: Share Data or Die
Bloomberg [unpaywalled] – Publishers say blocking the company’s AI bot could also prevent their sites from showing up in search. Google now displays convenient artificial intelligence-based answers at the top of its search pages — meaning users may never click through to the websites whose data is being used to power those results. But many… Continue Reading
What Elected Officials Say and Do
Polarization Research Lab – America’s Political Pulse – Resources and data to understand and halt the growth of partisan animosity. What Elected Officials Say and Do – Explore data on the speech, effectiveness, and campaign support for elected U.S. legislators. Using AI to assess the rhetoric of all 535 legislators in the House and Senate.… Continue Reading
Western Water Rights
Data is Plural: Western water rights. Matthew D. Lisk et al. have compiled and standardized a dataset of water rights records — key documents in the allocation of the scarce resource — in the Western United States. Drawing on raw data collected from 11 states, the harmonized dataset “provides consistent unique identifiers for each spatial… Continue Reading
De-Google your life: How to delete all photos from Google Photos
Proton Blog: “Using Google Photos to store and share your pictures means allowing the company to see, analyze, and process them. Many people concerned about their privacy have taken steps to move away from the Google ecosystem, despite the company’s efforts to hide its surveillance-based business model. Apart from privacy concerns, Google made promises about… Continue Reading
The mining of the public domain
Jessamyn West, Librarian.net – “Public.work is a search engine for public domain content.” The site claims to have over 100,000 public domain images. This in and of itself is not that special, but the interface is. It’s gorgeous, a fun and engaging discovery layer where every search becomes a URL that can be shared [example]… Continue Reading
Evaluating People Search Site Removal Services
New Report: Data Defense: Evaluating People-Search Site Removal Services – “Seven years ago, I typed my own name into a search engine and was horrified to learn that my name, age, home address, and phone number were publicly posted by multiple people-search sites without my knowledge, let alone consent. Shortly after finding my own data… Continue Reading
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 9, 2024
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 9, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex… Continue Reading
It’s not worth paying to be removed from people-finder sites
Ars Technica: “If you’ve searched your name online in the last few years, you know what’s out there, and it’s bad. Alternately, you’ve seen the lowest-common-denominator ads begging you to search out people from your past to see what crimes are on their record. People-search sites are a gross loophole in the public records system,… Continue Reading
Why you should use a VPN on your mobile device
ProtonVPN: “Growing public awareness about the threat posed to our fundamental right to privacy by online trackers has fueled a surge(new window) in VPN adoption, a trend that has been boosted thanks to people spending more time online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although VPN use is at an all-time high, many people still associate… Continue Reading
Google is finally taking action to curb non-consensual deepfakes
MIT Technology Review [unpaywalled]: “…Last week Google said it is taking steps to keep explicit deepfakes from appearing in search results. The tech giant is making it easier for victims to request that nonconsensual fake explicit imagery be removed. It will also filter all explicit results on similar searches and remove duplicate images. This will prevent… Continue Reading
