Privacy? Moi?

as my readers know, I am a retired doctor from Frostbite Falls Minnesota. But never mind: I just had to agree to Yahoo's privacy site to see my yahoo email so anyone who wants to find my private information just has to hack my emails.

I just learned that Yahoo  want to know everything but the kitchen sink

We collect information from your devices (computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.), including information about how you interact with our Services and those of our third-party partners and information that allows us to recognize and associate your activity across devices and Services.

This information includes device specific identifiers and information such as IP address, cookie information, mobile device and advertising identifiers, browser version, operating system type and version, mobile network information, device settings, and software data.

We may recognize your devices to provide you with personalized experiences and advertising across the devices you use. Location Information. We collect location information from a variety of sources.

You can learn more about and manage your location permissions on our Locations page and by visiting the location settings tool on your devices. Information from Cookies and Other Technologies.

We collect information when you access content, advertising, sites, interactive widgets, applications, and other products (both on and off of our Services) where Oath’s data collection technologies (such as web beacons, development tools, cookies and other technologies, etc.) are present.

These data collection technologies allow us to understand your activity on and off our Services and to collect and store information when you interact with Services we offer to partners. This information also includes the kind of content or ads served, viewed or clicked on; the frequency and duration of your activities; the sites or apps you used before accessing our Services and where you went next; whether you engaged with specific content or ads; and whether you went on to visit an advertiser's website, downloaded an advertiser’s app, purchased a product or service advertised, or took other actions. Information from Others.

We collect information about you when we receive it from other users, third-parties, and affiliates, such as: When you connect your account to third-party services or sign in using a third-party partner (like Facebook or Twitter). From publicly-available sources. From advertisers about your experiences or interactions...

lots more. see here.

and they keep nagging me to get my cellphone number. What could go wrong?

You know, everyone else collects it all too...

Google knows everything about you...our house is even easily found on Google Earth, and then I blog at Blogger, so they know a lot about my political opinions.

Ah but it works both ways:

For example, if you read my blog, I can find how you find my blog and where you live.

For example, for awhile I had someone in Ulan Batar reading me. Well, duh.

as for Facebook: well, that one just hit the news about their snooping.

But since my Federal Personnel file was hacked, presumably by Chinese hackers, I am a bit cynical about the whole matter.

How bad is it? It is so bad that both General Petreus and his chickie and the anti Trumpieboy FBI lovebirds had their emails hacked and released to the public.

now, the lawyer/client relationship is no longer a way to keep secrets. I'll have to remember that.

And of course, with Obamacare getting electronic medical records, and substituting the old fashioned family doc who could keep secrets with a nurse practitioner who fills all the information when she fills out the blanks, your medical records will be easily hacked too.

and the next step: the confessional box. Hello~ Most Catholic parishes don't have confession anymore, and I doubt many perverts and criminal actually go to confession, but never mind. Big Brother wants to know what you said... even though priests, docs, and cops know about people who make fake confessions to crimes or sins all the time.

Speaking of the FBI lovebirds, I am listening to Rush and he is mouthing off about all the folks in the Washington establishment who are related to others: the news/government/lobbyist nexus who are running the place. It's hilarious. I was sort of aware of this, but it doesn't get much publicity.

Heh. Sounds like the Philippines, where the oligarchy runs the place, and if you want to know the backstory, you have to know who is related to/married to/friends with/sleeping with/ the illegitamate kid of whom.

as for search engines: I use DuckDuckGo.  and Opera for a browser.