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Activists back Google’s appeal against Canadian order to censor search results:

The case is being watched closely by human rights and civil liberty groups across North America. Much of the attention, said Gregg Leslie of the Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, focuses on the question at the heart of the precedent-setting case: if one country can control what you see on the internet, what is to prevent other countries from doing the same?

“It’s a worrisome trend, where we see individual countries trying to regulate the internet worldwide,” said Leslie. “And of course the consequences of that would mean that even countries like Russia and China could do the same thing and that will really affect the content available on the internet.”

Here’s how to stop Google from tracking you:

Google offers one of the most expansive set of free online services to its users. And the more you use those services, the better they get. But Google also tracks you—in a sometimes creepy manner—and collects data in copious amounts on things such as search queries, location history, and voice commands.

The data you produce is used by the tech giant’s huge and mysterious computation rigs to fulfill a number of purposes such as making its applications smarter, quicker and more responsive. But it also uses it to enhance its ad-delivery engine, one of its main sources of revenue.

On the surface, it all sounds good-natured and innocent. However, if you’re suffering from post-Snowden paranoia of big corporations collecting your data and sending it off to clandestine recipients, or if you’re trying to avoid some of the embarrassing episodes that others have endured, the good news is that you have control over what kind of information Google does and doesn’t collect.

Google Will Mark Unencrypted Websites “Insecure”:

Not too long ago, the standard for a secure website was to not offer gaping holes for hackers to exploit or infect visitors with malware. Now even plain-old HTTP itself, that venerable web protocol, is about to be considered insecure. Google has announced that its web browser Chrome will soon take a more aggressive stance on web encryption, marking any site as insecure if it doesn’t use HTTPS, a protocol that encrypts web pages with the encryption schemes SSL or TLS, and putting a red “X” over a padlock in the corner of the address bar. The rollout will begin in January by applying the rule to any site that asks for a password or credit card information. It will later expand to all sites when the user is browsing in Chrome’s incognito mode. Eventually, Chrome will label all HTTP sites as insecure. In other words, the web giant is taking a giant step toward a fully encrypted web and putting anyone who isn’t taking HTTPS seriously on notice: If your website isn’t already encrypted, start working on it or become the subject of shaming messages in millions of users’ browsers.

Google Tests New Crypto in Chrome to Fend Off Quantum Attacks:

The concern: hackers and intelligence agencies could use advanced quantum attacks to crack current encryption techniques and learn, well, anything they want.

Now Google is starting the slow, hard work of preparing for that future, beginning with a web browser designed to keep your secrets even when they’re attacked by a quantum computer more powerful than any the world has seen.

Google Is Transforming NYC’s Payphones Into a ‘Personalized Propaganda Engine’:

That LinkNYC is, ultimately, underwritten by Google should tell you a lot about why New York got so very lucky as to receive an unprecedentedly fast network of citywide public Wi-Fi — for “free.” Not only is CityBridge going to lay miles of new fiber and operate, maintain, and upgrade the network at no cost to you the consumer, it’s going to kick the city at least half a billion dollars over the next twelve years to boot.

The whole thing is financed by advertising. Each kiosk’s twin 55-inch displays will carry targeted ads based on an audience profile algorithmically derived from the information the kiosks collect from their users. But as the old internet saw goes: If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. And that should give New Yorkers pause, says Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Uh Oh: Google Expands Its Ad Tracking. But, Yay: It’s Opt-In:

IF YOU’RE A Google user—and who isn’t these days—you’ll soon get a notification suggesting you check in on your security settings. You definitely want to do this, because there’s a major change in there. Even more major? That Google has made it opt-in.