Even if you have an evil ISP, and they're selling your data for $0.50/month, you're still paying them $50/month for service. A bunch of angry customers could change their policy quickly. Few ISPs would try to squeeze those extra quarters from you, given the potential blow-back (some do, and they'll get their comeuppance). However generally, ISPs incentives are to keep you as a customer and get your fitty beans every month.
However, with Google, it's not clear why they are giving DNS services away for free or what they're getting in return. It clearly costs them some money to do so, and they're not being paid for it directly. It's possible that they're doing it purely altruistically, but they also have an extremely long history of using data for advertising or other forms of monetization.
I'm not saying that if you use 8.8.8.8, you'll search ads will target you. But I would bet they use your anonymized browsing history to fight bots, test internet speeds at various locations, identify browser technology, and who knows what.
And regarding this bit:
> I'm not saying that if you use 8.8.8.8, you'll search ads will target you.
Hm, well others here have been suggesting this would be the case.
> But I would bet they use your anonymized browsing history to fight bots, test internet speeds at various locations, identify browser technology, and who knows what.
Even if I take this at face value, how are these things you listed bad things? If my DNS queries are going to fight bots, by all means, please fight bots! If they're going to help them improve internet speeds, by all means, they should do that! That's what data is good for. Everyone here is freaking out about privacy, not improved service. (!)
My own ISP already knows all the ips I connect to, so telling them what the domains are doesn't tell them much, especially as the trend towards ipv6 means that multiple-domains-on-one-ip has gotten less popular.
Cloudflare's main prerogative isn't to sell clicks the way google's is, which earns it points already. In addition, if you believe the official documents, they permanently log a lot less[1] than google[2].
I would also, needless to say, feel ok hosting my own dns.
Quad9 and opendns both filter content, and as such I don't trust them because the fact that they're willing to do that means that they are willing to censor content if they so choose.
I don't know any other dns servers off the top of my head.
1: https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/commitment-to-priv... 2: https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy
> I would also, needless to say, feel ok hosting my own dns.
Yeah let's avoid options that 99%+ of people wouldn't find realistic.
> Quad9 and opendns both filter content, and as such I don't trust them because the fact that they're willing to do that means that they are willing to censor content if they so choose.
Right, I think I agree on that.
> Cloudflare's main prerogative isn't to sell clicks the way google's is, which earns it points already.
Sure, some points there for the increased likelihood of hypothetical data mishandling due to their incentives.
OTOH, don't forget it was Google who found this issue in CloudFlare, which earned Google some points and earned CloudFlare /quite/ the demerits in my book... and note that this was an _actual_ massive security incident, not a hypothetical one: https://blog.cloudflare.com/incident-report-on-memory-leak-c...
> My own ISP already knows all the ips I connect to, so telling them what the domains are doesn't tell them much, especially as the trend towards ipv6 means that multiple-domains-on-one-ip has gotten less popular.
I find this to be quite the odd argument for most people (maybe you're in the 1% of people who uses unconventional ISPs or email/search/map/etc. sites). Not only do major ISPs (thinking e.g. Comcast, AT&T here) not exactly have a great reputation on the privacy or security front (wasn't it just a few days ago someone posted about your home address being linked to your IP on Comcast?) -- meaning whatever data they do collect is prone to being hacked even if you believe they're really honestly keeping it private, which I'm not sure I always would -- but for most people Google already knows pretty much their life. And on top of that, they do their own tracking with Google Analytics, so they already know what websites most people are visiting -- not just from home, but also from work and on the go. And unlike with your ISP, it's likely already linked to your personal identity, not just your household or work office.
Oh, and in case you would like your advice to apply to those who have, say, Comcast, may I point you to quotes like this [1]:
> Comcast today said it has "no plans" to sell its customers' individual Web browsing histories, but Comcast can still deliver personalized ads based on its customers' browsing history. Comcast, the nation's largest home Internet provider, said it will continue to offer customers a way to opt out of targeted ads.
I don't know about you, but I would be shocked if they did this solely based on IP and did not find DNS information to be important for this task.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/comcast-we-wont-...
