Google Toolbar Still Spies When Told Not To

[struggle4progress]

y Larry Seltzer

We have reported on Ben Edelman's research in the past, including the recent past. The spyware researcher and Harvard B-School professor has demonstrated that the Google Toolbar continues to track a user's searches even after the user has explicitly disabled it.

Edelman has plenty of other criticism for Google: He details tests which show that, even after the user disables "Google Toolbar" using the IE Manage Add-ons feature, it continues to report. The only possible explanation of this is that the monitoring components of Google Toolbar do not run as part of that Add-on. Perhaps there is a second add-on, not named as clearly, which Edelman didn't notice. I'd test it myself, but I long-ago swore never to install the Google Toolbar ever again.

Edelman also shows how it's too easy to enable the "Enhanced Features" which cause the transmission of full browsing details to Google, and it's not all that easy to disable them. Google forcefully urges you to activate them and tells you how important they are. At the same time they present the privacy policy in a way that's difficult to read ...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358406,00.asp

[hobbit709]

1. I don't install addon toolbars

[madokie]

2. Not after an earlier install of google toolbar will I ever again

I finally had to reformat to feel comfortable that I'd rid my machine of it.

Tried chrome once too but that won't happen again either.