Use a VPN or Your Google Searches Are Public
Privacy is at risk more than ever before and the times are such that you need to use a VPN every day. Our research and development team recently stumbled onto something which puts the AOL search debacle to shame. The discovery we’ll describe should serve as a serious and urgent warning. If Google searches are not conducted through a VPN or Tor, you are running the risk that those searches are made public and linked to your IP address. You’ll be safe if you buy a VPN. It’s well known that many companies track netizens across the web.
Such tracking has become an enormous internet industry, resulting in massive amounts of personal data being mined and then sold or used in retargeting. In general, most people have been unconcerned with this tracking, as it has been kept very low key and, thus, out of view from most of society. However, we’ve just discovered something which serves as living proof that our online privacy and thus real life privacy is in serious jeopardy. At least one website has been identified which makes your search traffic publicly available to the internet in its entirety, including Google’s web crawlers. This is not some rogue company, but instead, a website tracking service which is used in a wide variety of internet sectors.
DISCLAIMER: We will not name or link the website as we truly believe doing so will potentially damage the lives of many people. We will, however, provide screenshots to exemplify the harm that can be caused. This particular website tracks URLs, referring URLs, and Google search queries for each site on which it is enabled. Then, it creates pages which list each of the search queries or referrers along with the visitor’s IP address. Google then indexes these pages, making it simple for anyone to search for an IP and connect it to a specific website visit or a search query. Shown below is an example of some of the privacy violations this has caused. Most people will agree that, while some of these searches are harmless, some were definitely conducted with the expectation of privacy. While viewing this image, imagine you did a google search of your IP address, and these records appeared. Then, imagine someone else did a google search of your IP address. As Lil Flip said, “Game over.”
Seriously, Use a VPN or your Google Searches will be public
Search engine queries and referring URLs are listed. This can be used to show what you were looking for or what sites you visited. A common misconception is that the solution is to attack or attempt to shut down the tracking site in question. However, this is only one site. There could be many more that operate the same way, operating under many different jurisdictions. Furthermore, there are countless other tracking sites that have the exact same data but have not made it public. But just because it isn’t public today, doesn’t mean it won’t be public tomorrow. Hackers could break in and release the data, or it could be sold en masse to other companies whose motives are unknown. Shutting down one site does not protect anyone. Even using your browser’s private or incognito mode will not hide your IP. The only way to protect yourself is to be truly private by making your IP address invisible to these tracking sites in the first place. So next time you Google, please, use a no log VPN.
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34 Comments
The article is incorrect that the specific tracking company can reveal your “search history in its entirety.” It can only track the searches you perform in which you click a link to a site that has opted to include this company’s tracking code.
Every webmaster is able to see the search queries and IPs that led to the pages within his own site. The issue with the service you mention is that the webmasters are part of a network which shares your results (only the ones that end up with you hitting their sites!) with the world. So let’s discuss how to avoid this, and help ensure that your search will likely remain only visible to you, Google, and the site you’re visiting.
There may be no way to know in advance which links you should avoid in Google results — that is, which pages will contain this tracking network code. Your best bet for a basic level of security is to install a browser plugin that stops this type of tracking code from working. Search for “DoNotTrackMe” or “Ghostery” and install the version of either plugin that is appropriate for your browser.
You can also choose to go the extra mile and instead of clicking a link on a Google search, copy the listed address of the result (the green text under the link) and then paste it into a new window or tab. Going directly to the address will prevent the site owner from seeing the page you came from, including your search term, if you were coming from Google or another search engine.
If, in the above case, the address in a search result is too long and Google does not display it in full, right-click and copy Google’s blue link to the site, paste it somewhere, delete everything up to and including the “url=” , delete everything after the first ampersand following “url=”, and convert it to plain text using a URL decoder: Search for blooberry url encoding, find the one at blooberry dot com, click the second radio button — “URL Safe Encoding”, paste the newly edited address in the text box, and click the button. The URL is converted. Copy the new URL, and paste it into a new browser window or tab.
Yes, this is not a guarantee of privacy, but it does avoid most vulnerabilities of the sort mentioned in this article. You can go further and read about how to avoid tracking cookies, and also read about the steps mentioned in this article for additional security measures.
You are completely wrong. Yes a website can see what searches led to a link through, but a search engine..i.e google or yahoo will see your every query. actually with the instant results business, they can see everything you type not just what you hit send on. THOSE are the scary things that can be done. Regardless of anything else or any tracking company Google knows all. These will show up in results google makes available for search, as they do, and you can see your searches in your own google history if you are logged in when you search.
guys, whether or not you use a VPN is not going to stop some companies from logging. If you are on a VPN (or not) and signed into Gmail or some kind of google service (and this applies to android phones – booting your phone = signing into google) your web searches are saved by DEFAULT.
and click “Go to my activity” – it will show you all the searches you’ve done. If you have a phone it will have maps of where you’ve been, also. (Unless you have the phone in aeroplane mode or something) and you CAN turn this off – which you should do.. First, erase all the history – click “delete activity by” and set the date back as far as you can see there is history. – the first date box is the start date – set that back a couple of years – it won’t let you click on a date that there isn’t any data. The dates will not be in bold. Click on the dates as far back as you can that are in bold, then click delete and keep doing it until you can go back to the history page and it says “No activity”
Then you should DISABLE this. Click on “activity controls” on left side and and in this “activity controls” page slide all the sliders to OFF (slide to left) – you can see how much is being stored – even you voice commands (!). Delete and disable it all. Of course Google will still have this data, sure, but if your account is hacked, the stuff people search for is a glimpse into how people think – some of it is very private, some of it may be very personal or embarassing. Not enough people know about this, and Google sure don’t like to tell people you can disable the crap they log from you.
Best policy: Don’t log into a google service while on VPN or even if you’re not – it is being tracked. Use tracker blockers too. Facebook do the same thing – don’t have that logged in either.
I use a vpn and incognito mode.
So what? Maybe you were suppose to see?
What would be interesting is the “how” of this leak. Is it a toolbar? Is it the ISP? We know the source is the keyboard and the destination is this site but what is in between to allow the information get there?
Referrer-URLs.
Yeah, nothing new to see here really.
VPN won’t stop those from showing up. It just will stop them from being associated with you.
Easier solution would be use DuckDuckGo or Ixquick instead of Google.
Nevertheless I suggest using a VPN for all browsing, not just private browsing.
Seems lame that I should have to use a VPN just in order for my searches and IP address to not be compiled in a list like this… If I was doing something illegal then yes I could see the need, however, I find it extremely irrating that I should have to buy into a VPN service in order to simply do ’embarrassing searches’
wtf googl?