Pale Moon forum

I have a couple of questions related to privacy and accessing YouTube in Palemoon.

Context:
I am trying to prevent Google from data-mining my whole life and creating a personal profile. I recently purchased a new pc and it will never see Chrome, Google search, a gmail account, or any other Google related account or application, such as maps, phones, etc. Those will be replaced by Palemoon, DuckDuckGo and Protonmail. All that said, I am quite dependent on YouTube for viewing videos for various research and study.

FYI, my settings in Pale Moon are: “no tracking” turned on, Add-on extensions: Canvas Blocker, Decentraleyes, Eclipsed Moon, and Cookies Exterminator, and in DDG: generally the default settings in DDG, except Video Playback: Always play in DDG, HTTPS: Use encrypted version of the site, GET requests turned on (default), and when using Bing: default (prompt for Video Playback: in Bing or in source site).

Now the questions:
If I am using Palemoon to open videos from YouTube through DuckDuckGo, or Bing, and not leaving those search engines, not actually going to the YouTube website and not signed into YouTube (heaven forbid!), will YouTube (Google) be able to collect data about my YouTube searches and build a profile linked to the user or fingerprint of my IP? If, as far as Palemoon is concerned, my YouTube searching and playing of videos is private, is it possible that Google could/can surreptitiously data-mine a personal search profile? Are there any other privacy concerns I should be aware of?

One Final Note:
What you at Palemoon and other like-minded organizations are doing is providing us “cyber salvation”, against incessant and arrogant corporate abuse and control. Your service is a great benefit to society, even humanity. In case your clients and users do not sufficiently voice their gratitude for the work you do, please consider this as an expression of deep appreciation on behalf of humanity, hats off to the white hats!

quasitech wrote:If I am using Palemoon to open videos from YouTube through DuckDuckGo, or Bing, and not leaving those search engines, not actually going to the YouTube website and not signed into YouTube (heaven forbid!), will YouTube (Google) be able to collect data about my YouTube searches and build a profile linked to the user or fingerprint of my IP?

Unfortunately, yes. You are still using their service and streaming from their servers, so your presence for getting content from them is known, will be known, and can be used to create a usage profile based on IP, data storage, networking characteristics and other factors. The only way to not give them any data to mine is to not use YouTube.

quasitech wrote: If, as far as Palemoon is concerned, my YouTube searching and playing of videos is private, is it possible that Google could/can surreptitiously data-mine a personal search profile? Are there any other privacy concerns I should be aware of?

Using Private Browsing mode will ensure "local privacy", meaning the computer you use Pale Moon on will not have a record of your visit(s), but it does not, in any way, prevent servers from collecting data about your visit (that is impossible).

That all being said, using private browsing will prevent some cross-session data from being retained that can help Google in profiling your visits, and not using their site directly will also prevent some data from being recorded or known, although that protection is marginal at best. If you are reliant on YouTube for your video streaming needs, then it is inevitable that Google knows about you -- in howfar a limited profiling possible from the way you use their service is useful for them or not, I don't know.

Keeping your research/video session separated from your normal browsing will help, since Google is pretty much everywhere on the web -- using a portable Pale Moon for the dedicated task of using YouTube will prevent the privacy risk of your normal web browsing being linked to your YT visits, although your IP may still link them together. Using a proxy for YT might add another layer of protection in that case but even that won't be water tight.

As said above, the only real way to prevent any data mining would be to not use their service at all.