When you download the Google Toolbar and select the “enhanced features” option you are giving consent for Google to monitor and log all the web pages you visit. That’s always been fairly clear but apparently Google is being a bit more sneaky – the toolbar will continue to track your visitors even after you disable it.
Pretty clever way for Google to get data.
Another story this morning shows graphically how Google is reducing the share of money they give to AdSense publishers. Not a good day for Google.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
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My adsense income dropped a tiny bit, but I wasn’t really trying to make a bunch of money with it anyway.
I was of the opinion that if our efforts (serving Google ads on our sites/blogs) resulted in a click thru, we got paid a pittance, if our efforts (providing content) resulted in a sale being made for Google’s paying advertiser, we could make a buck, or two or more depending on how much the keyword was worth.
Is that still accurate do you know?
and I believe you about Google being sneaky about data mining us:
a security geek I did some SEO for likened Google’s activeX to a really nasty virus!
He had to wipe his hard drive and do a clean install to get Google’s prying eyes from peering into his computer!
And this was coming from a US defense dept trained coder who could write active X himself
(so I’m deferring to him that he knows more about it than I do)
As marketers we have to allow Google a certain latitude, it’s their do jo, and we need them to ply our trade, but I agree with your sentiment re: “sneaky Google”
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I think that is a bit overly sneaky of Google. You would hope that when you remove something from your computer it would be gone for good. Just one more thing secretly running on your computer to slow it down just that bit more.
If anything I would of hoped they would increase what they pay out to their adsense publishers. Without them their network would be worthless. Hope they start stepping up their game on that front in 2010.
More comments from seansuppleePffff… reduce it to what? It’s already zero for me anyway. Reduce it from zero, hmmm… what’s the difference?
I hate it when something you support from its start bites you later on. Hate toolbars anyway and never install them.
Wrong side of the bed this morning. Sorry.
you may have interested to read this post,
http://techie-buzz.com/adsense/google-adsense-reducing-revenue-share.html
I’ve not downloaded the Google toolbar previously but I do run on Google Chrome browser – does that mean the code is watching me also? I guess it must do?
I’m not the slightest bit surprised. If the average person found out how much personal data they were really sharing with Google, they would be appalled.
Google isn’t going away anytime soon, but I am 100% certain that they will start hemorrhaging market share soon.
Didn’t know about that. The only thing I have noticed is when you are logged into iGoogle the search results are different.
Big Google is watching…
Wow this is a good giveaway. I so need this lol. What a great knowledge you have provided here. I really like it. Thanks for this knowledgeable post
This is quite a disturbing read covering the power that Google now has and is going to continue to hold. Having the Google Toolbar installed on my computer is something that I haven’t really thought about the implications of, so reading this comes as quite a surprise.
With the ongoing development of many open source softwares and usage of these becoming ever more widespread, I wonder how many people actually realise what you are agreeing to and signing up to in the installation screen.
I will be interested to see if Google addresses this issue or if they choose to ignore the fact their software appears to be permanently installed. Maybe we will see more cases like this from similar companies in the near future.
I have always felt Google is sneaky. And I’m not surprised that Adsense is paying less. So what’s a good alternative to Adsense? They are the only onese I can find that will pay for impressions… which seems to be the majority of what I get. Any ideas?
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