Starting to hate Google. Can I keep android but escape google?

[jungleexplorer]

It's already been well documented that Google scans all the emails going through their servers. It's necessary for them to even deliver and serve the email to you. There's so much information being generated at any given point in time it would take the resources of a small nation state just to record every little bit. Even more resources are needed to build and maintain these extensive profiles you're scared of them having. It takes too much for 'them' to monitor everyone all at once. The NSA can't even do that. Now if they are interested in one single person in the noise then they can drill in and build a profile, but that's a different matter.

You make an excellent theoretical argument, but how else can you explain how google added dozens of names of stone age amazon Indians to my account? The facts are these; I did not add them, google did. They have no form of digital contact (i.e. email, facebook, twitter etc.) so there is no possible way for me to have sent them a digital comunication from which google could have extracted their names. Now, you can make all the theories about how I am not important enough to google for them to care, or how the data load google handles a daily basis is too massive for them to scan everything, but you have to included the facts of what I am saying into your theories.

 

[jungleexplorer]

I want to make it clear to everyone, just exactly what I am complaining about. I am not complaining that google is building a profile on me or that google has information about me. What I am complaining about is that they have information very specific and detailed about me that I did not willingly give them. The information they have about me itself is not really the question here. The question is, HOW did they get the information? The answer to this question is what worries me, because I can see no other way then NSA style information gathering techniques, which there is not a reason in the world google should be allowed to exercise this level of data gathering for advertising purposes.

Now, many here have argued that google does not do this or that they are actually glad google is doing this because it enables google to better serve them. Google's information gathering techniques are a well kept secret that is as well kept as the Cocacola recipe, so any comments about what google does or does not do are just theories. The rest are just opinions based on personal preference. What I am telling is fact.

These are the facts.

1. Google added over 200 names to my contacts under my google profile that I did not add.

2. Many of which are stoneage Amazon Indians that live out in jungle, have no form of digital footprint and that I have had no contact with for decades.

3. Many of these names come from a language that is spoken by less then 2000 people in the world and have no direct way to spell them in English, and I can tell by the way google spelled the names that they came from my own writings (they are spelled the way I spell them in English).

These are the facts. They are not theories or opinion. Now, it concerns me that google (however they are doing it) finds it necessary to delve this deep into my personal life history to extract information that I did not willingly give them. I don't like what google is doing and that is my personal opinion. Now, how they are doing it we can only theories about, but that fact that they are doing this is not up for opinionated disagreement..

 

[lunatic59]

You make an excellent theoretical argument, but how else can you explain how google added dozens of names of stone age amazon Indians to my account? The facts are these; I did not add them, google did. They have no form of digital contact (i.e. email, facebook, twitter etc.) so there is no possible way for me to have sent them a digital comunication from which google could have extracted their names. Now, you can make all the theories about how I am not important enough to google for them to care, or how the data load google handles a daily basis is too massive for them to scan everything, but you have to included the facts of what I am saying into your theories.

Just because these contacts are stored under your Google account, isn't it a bit presumptuous to assume that Google added them without your permission? There are many ways to add contacts to your phone and then sync back to Gmail. For example, any one of the Facebook "find friends" mechanisms could easily associate you with friends of friends of friends throwing unknown names into your contact list.

I was easily able to have gmail add "Parakan

 

[EarlyMon]

Amazon Indians dead since 1995 without any digital footprint were not added by Google.

They'd have needed a digital footprint connected to you for Google to do anything.

This sounds to me like someone else has your Google login credentials or access to a device or pc where you can auto-access that, is having you on, and lying to you about it if you've asked them.

Unless you believe that it's far more likely for Google to have hired spies and forensic archeologists for the sole purpose of making you the first reported victim of this nefarious act, with no profit motivation to them whatsoever.

I don't.

I think you've been hacked and someone is having you on.

Can we agree that it's time to discuss your account security and how to clean up your problem?

Because 1) it didn't go down as suggested and 2) this really doesn't need to be a soapbox for other theories.

Impossible things do NOT exist.

Your problem exists.

Your speculated reason is not possible.

My speculated reason is not only possible, it's very likely exactly the case.

 

[EarlyMon]

If I were in your shoes I would do the following in order -

Verify that your pc is clean. I'd start with MalwareBytes and seek further advice from others here with a good background in pc security if it turns up anything.

Go to the Play Store on your Android device and get Helium Backup for your device.

Get the other half of Helium for your pc. Back up your Android device, but not your contacts.

Log in to your Gmail on the web. Get 2 - stage authentication (2 passwords) if you don't already. Change passwords.

From there, navigate to your Contacts.

Edit them.

After that under other actions, export to a vCard file on your pc. If anything goofy happens again, you can clear your contacts and reload them by importing that vCard file.

Go to your phone. Clear contacts and set new passwords. Wait for contacts to sync.

If new, weird contacts reappear, clear the entire phone, usually by a factory data reset but check first, that varies by model. Now set up your phone with the new account information and restore your apps and data from your Helium backup.

Change the password on your pc.

Monitor the situation and report back on what happens.

Hope this helps.

 

[MLSS]

This isn't Google. I just don't think it is.........
Whatever it is I hope you get it straightened out

 

[jungleexplorer]

I appreciate everyone advice. I feel though that someone people are unnecessarily trying to defend Google by coming up with any alternative they can think of while at the same calling me unreasonable to blame google for what I have found. I am not sure why anyone on this forum would feel the need to defend google unless they are a paid blogger who job it is to play down any complaints people my post on forums (and yes, they are people that are paid to do this). I have tried to make it very clear what has happened and the continued ignorance of the simple facts I have presented here causes me to wonder why people have such a hard time with this.

But alas, my point in coming her was not to try to down google or anyone for defending google. The answer to my original question was answered in the first three post. I have been trying to decipher exactly how google did what they did and have had a barrage of answers ranging from, someone (for no explicable reason) intentionally hacked your account and added all of these name to, if you ain't doing anything wrong, what are you so worried about. Unfortunately, none of the answers have given even a reasonable theory on on how all of these unique names ended up being added to my google account. It seems to me most here are willing to accept any theory, no matter how far fetch, as long as it is not one where google had anything to do with it.

I have already stated multiple times the facts, but for those that have not read them, here there are again and in even more detail.

1. This is my first Android device. Which means there is no possibility of the names coming from a former back up.
2. I do not have a facebook or twitter account (or any other social sharing account for the matter). So there is not possibility that the names came from any other source like that.
3. The names I am talking about have no digital footprint (for those of you from Rio Linda, this means they do not have emails, facebook, twitter, cell phones or any other form of an online digital ID that you can possible think of in your wildest imaginations).
4. I am a Certified PC tech with 15 years of experience of providing computer tech support and security for consumers and professionals. I am probably the most security minded person you know and have never once had a virus infect any of my personal computers. Last week I was called in to a doctors office to rid that network of an aggressive virus that had taken their system hostage. the virus was so well written that I had to perform registry level edits from MS dos to paralyze the virus enough to boot their system up and run a virus scan (6 different virus Bootable CD virus scanner were unable to kill the virus). I said all this to let you know that I am not some snot nosed kid here.

5. Nobody has hacked my google account because google provides a way to see the login history for your account and if anyone else had access to my account I could see that. Besides, the idea that anyone would hack my account for the sole purpose of adding a bunch on anmes to my profile is absurd. And that is aside from the fact that there are only two people in this country that would even know that I have association to the people that have been added to my account.

Now if anyone wants to try to come up with some other explanation that does not include google, you are welcome to try, but please try to take into account all of the above factors before spewing out some crazy idea.

 

[EarlyMon]

The idea that we're defending Google - me especially - is misplaced.

Your scenario blaming Google doesn't make sense.

It's that simple.

If it did, I would personally mobilize staff to see to it that the warning was sounded in every corner here. I happen to be in the position to do that here so that's neither idle nor defensive - I've done it before.

Regardless of whether this is your first or tenth Android doesn't set aside that you're doing what you accuse us of - mind reading.

And my friend, you're reading us quite wrong.

Being a security expert, I'm sure that you can see the value in the steps I suggested regardless of whether my conjecture was right or not.

Sandbox the problem and re-acquire your observables.

I read every post here in detail before responding.

I'm not going to continue to extrapolate against a moving baseline.

You have come to an impossible conclusion and are placing the burden of proof on us.

That's the same logical fallacy of requiring us to prove that the moon was never made of cheese.

It's a logic issue.

Not a defensive one.

Sandbox and re-do, report back.

Thanks.

 

[EarlyMon]

And btw - according to your posting history, you've owned an A500 tablet and now a Skyrocket, so this isn't really your first Android device.

Did you have these contact issues on your tablet?

 

[SulkyAndroid17]

Google's motto is "One Account. All of Google."

Was this not solved in your other thread?

I found where all the extra contacts came from and it is kind of scary. All the extra contacts came from my Google account. I looked at my Google Dashboard and found all these extra contacts under the "other" category. What scares me is that most of these contacts that are in there were people that I have not seen for decades, never talk to, do not even have a computer, phone, email address, facebook etc, and some of which are dead. My question is now, how the heck did google get this information. I could understand if it were from my facebook contacts, but how did Google the name of a primitive amazon Indian that I talked to in the 1980s? Not only would I like to know how they got this info, but how they associated me with this guy and why they put him in my contacts list. I know google is an information gathering machine, but this is ridiculous!

So, did you accidentally sync your other Google apps with your contact list? You don't have to sync if you don't want too.

Maybe I don't understand.

 

[EarlyMon]

Google's motto is "One Account. All of Google."

Was this not solved in your other thread?

Not really, over there was where the "theory" started.

I found where all the extra contacts came from and it is kind of scary. All the extra contacts came from my Google account. I looked at my Google Dashboard and found all these extra contacts under the "other" category. What scares me is that most of these contacts that are in there were people that I have not seen for decades, never talk to, do not even have a computer, phone, email address, facebook etc, and some of which are dead. My question is now, how the heck did google get this information. I could understand if it were from my facebook contacts, but how did Google the name of a primitive amazon Indian that I talked to in the 1980s? Not only would I like to know how they got this info, but how they associated me with this guy and why they put him in my contacts list. I know google is an information gathering machine, but this is ridiculous!

I don't know.

I think the rest speaks for itself.

Google just "got the information" without those people ever having an e-presence.

From 1980.

 

[funkylogik]

Can i spin it in another direction.. junglexplorer, do you have a theory as to how google got hold of these amazonian names, what interest google would have in them, and what motive they would have for putting them in your contacts list?
Please believe that im not trying to defend google (they dont pay me enough lol) but im with Earlymon in looking at this logically and finding an explanation/solution with an open mind (but not open to magic)

 

[EarlyMon]

Can i spin it in another direction.. junglexplorer, do you have a theory as to how google got hold of these amazonian names, what interest google would have in them, and what motive they would have for putting them in your contacts list?

OP has already invented a way to blame Google.

Google had nothing to do with this.

OP doesn't want to hear it. And in the barrage of facts has already gotten wrong that this isn't his first Android.

Anything saying that Google didn't do it is a crackpot theory?

OP, if you come up with something to discuss here, drop me a line.

Meanwhile -

/thread closed