Sometimes, I feel like these websites should probably just have a "do not track" setting. That should appease all these pitchforks. In the end, I'm pretty convinced that tracking is really to make your life better since Google offers to delete all your data if you wanted anyway.
Heck, now people are making a profit out of this whole misunderstood privacy fiasco.
Google does allow you to delete some stored data. They don't offer easy options to delete everything (though they do give advice on how to remove information from third-party sites), but it's better than nothing.
I think the bigger misunderstanding is people screaming that it's better for Google customer if they delete the data. People forget with all google does it's still a business. Forgetting that businesses aren't good nor are they evil. Businesses are greedy which they should be. Google being the worlds largest advertiser uses your data to make the money that their businesses is built on. So why would they delete the core functionality.
This seems similar to Ghostery [1] for Firefox. It currently blocks 852 3rd part elements (371 advertising and 207 analytics) and 434 specific cookies. It also allows you to delete flash and silverlight cookies on exit.
On Firefox? We’ve been working on more obvious UI for Firefox, which isn’t in Disconnect yet but you can get in our newer add-ons (Facebook Disconnect, Google Disconnect, and Twitter Disconnect) now:
Yes, I'm on Firefox. I have installed the all-inclusive add-on. I now see Disconnect drop down icon next to my address bar, but when I login to Faccebook, it doesn't show me anything that is blocked. When I login to Gmail, the dropdown doesn't even work (I keep on clicking and it doesn't drop).
When you’re on first-party sites like Facebook and Google, the add-on isn’t meant to block anything. The blocking kicks in when you’re on third-party sites that otherwise send your browsing history to Facebook, Google, et al.
Give our new Firefox add-ons a try <https://disconnect.me/tools>; — I think they have our best extension UI, but I’d love to know what you think.
So I have now added Ghostry and disconnect.me to my single must have add-on (Adblock). I'd still prefer one add-on over three, but going to give this a try (disconnect.me has no options whatsoever and I can't tell what's it doing in the background).
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 47.5 ms ] threadHeck, now people are making a profit out of this whole misunderstood privacy fiasco.
They do not offer to delete either (though they do give you some controls, which is way more than most other tracking services). Prove me wrong.
https://www.google.com/dashboard
They also tell you what cannot be removed through the dashboard, and give a list of things that are not deletable (but also not tied to your account).
https://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...
Google doesn’t even mention either in the two links you gave.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery/
Edit: Also see http://www.ghostery.com/
Give our new Firefox add-ons a try <https://disconnect.me/tools>; — I think they have our best extension UI, but I’d love to know what you think.