Google Toolbar Tracks Your Browsing, Even When Off 118
garg0yle writes "Google's Toolbar is supposed to allow the user to disable it. However, it was discovered by a researcher that it was still sending information even when disabled. A patch is now available, and Google claims this was just a bug, not a feature."
Considering that it only worked in certain version (Score:1, Interesting)
It probably was a bug.
A note to the pious believers (Score:1, Interesting)
$542.42. That was GOOG's closing price yesterday. Just what do they have to support that price? Nothing. Nothing except your data, and they're going to sell it Buster, as much as they can, before investors begin to notice the markup on that $135.00 stock of theirs. Oh sure, The Market says it's worth $500+ and it's never wrong, right? Just like what The Market said about your house. Of course, your house didn't have hip coolness did it. Google Goggles! Google Goggles! Google Goggles! It's even fun to say!
Re:No toolbar here (Score:4, Interesting)
the main issue is the way they are making money out of it (e.g. they profit from farming your browsing habits).
If it bothers you that much then install CustomizeGoogle [customizegoogle.com] and block their click tracking and cookies. That's a free solution that will prevent them from building up much of a profile on you. If you want to spend a little bit of money you can use an Anonymous web proxy to go a step further and keep them from associating your IP address to your search queries.
Point being, there are ways around Google's invasive data mining for those who are willing to invest a small amount of effort.