[HN Gopher] Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep t...
___________________________________________________________________
Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location
private
Author : CapitalistCartr
Score : 501 points
Date : 2021-05-29 12:14 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.businessinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.businessinsider.com)
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You can't even use most of the new Chromecast's features without
| enabling Web & App Activity tracking on your Google account.
|
| Web & App Activity tracking keeps detailed logs of every search
| term you use, every time you install or open an app, the sites
| you visit, etc.
| oblib wrote:
| Oddly, when loaded Google News this afternoon and clicked on
| "Local News" it showed me news for New York. I live in SW
| Missouri. I'm using Firefox with FB Container and Privacy Badger
| on a Mac mini (Late 2009).
| tomohawk wrote:
| the only way to fix this is to make it so that any information
| about a person is owned by that person, regardless of who is
| storing it or how it was collected. companies should have to pay
| rent to the data owners every year.
|
| the only exception should be information collected by the
| government with a court issued warrant.
| takker wrote:
| Google dropped the "don't be evil" motto in 2015 -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
| JCM9 wrote:
| There's a huge privacy battle on the horizon in tech. The initial
| scuffles are just the beginning. Google and Facebook's business
| models depend deeply on being able to track information that
| consumers are increasingly unhappy to share. Both companies
| attempts to diversify their dependency on such info for their
| revenue have been broadly unsuccessful (Google fiber or a Google
| car anyone?).
|
| Meanwhile the likes of Apple and others are taking a stance of
| making it increasingly hard for Google and Facebook to do what
| they want to via updates now advertised as "features" that
| protect consumers. As these documents highlight Google knows
| consumers want this privacy and it scares the $&!& out of them.
| Interesting days ahead.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| as an American skilled in computer science, I am literally
| aghast at what the mobile phone has done in barely fifteen
| years, degrading decades and in fact centuries of individual
| rights mores.
|
| Meanwhile, as far as I can tell, in East Asia, there was a
| completely different series of social evolutions, such that a
| large majority of people are not bothered and in fact expect
| services tied to identity tied to finance. This conveniently is
| expressed by a government issued ID tied to a smart phone
| number tied to banking. There are exceptions but not the
| majority. This simple formula is repugnant to my US Western
| sense of social boundaries.
|
| Investors are the ones that seem to have no problem with
| individuals giving up their privacy, while the people in
| question cross the gamut of social condition.
| dv_dt wrote:
| In a way it seems pragmatic. You say all the boundaries are
| being violated, you might as well get something out of it.
| Also I'm not sure there's a lot of difference in loss of
| privacy and tapping or swiping a credit card.
| vageli wrote:
| > Also I'm not sure there's a lot of difference in loss of
| privacy and tapping or swiping a credit card.
|
| Well for one thing, at least in my experience, most credit
| card transaction data does not include granular information
| about the transaction (like the list of groceries you
| bought).
| dv_dt wrote:
| I was ambiguous in my comment, but in my mind I was
| thinking about the loss of privacy from newer electronic
| transaction standards vs credit cards transactions. I
| suspect itemized data is generally not transmitted with
| the newer standards but I could be wrong.
| amelius wrote:
| I would like to know if this is still true.
| izacus wrote:
| > Well for one thing, at least in my experience, most
| credit card transaction data does not include granular
| information about the transaction (like the list of
| groceries you bought).
|
| No, that information is collected as part of the "points"
| discount card and then sold to advertisers together with
| your credit card transation data.
| Tarragon wrote:
| You don't have to give them the points card.
|
| Also, I know an engineer that was inside a monstrous
| grocery chain many years back. Back then the payment and
| loyalty systems were separated by technical measures and
| firing level policies. If you used a CC without a points
| card they were not able to associate it to any kind of
| account.
|
| Obviously the CC processor could but they didn't get a
| list of purchases.
| twhb wrote:
| If you use the same credit card at walmart.com and in a
| physical Walmart store, then your itemized in-store
| purchases will show up as orders in your walmart.com
| account. This is without providing any other form of ID.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| But to what benefit? I use a discount card at my local
| supermarket. It also saves me anywhere from $0.10 -
| $0.40/gallon on gasoline. Beyond getting lower prices, I
| don't see any personalized marketing tied to my use of
| the card.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| But the supermarkets gather that data, for sure. Several
| times I've bought a brand name item, then reverted to
| generic, then got offers related to that brand (just
| because I was buying based on value). I assume if they
| can establish a buying pattern with a few offers then
| often that will convert someone to the brand goods. (It's
| way easier just to pick the packet that looks like the
| one you got before than it is to look for the best
| offer).
|
| One thing about returning to relative wealth is how much
| stress it removes from 'weekly' shopping.
| ipython wrote:
| Using a credit card still has an easily recognizable
| physical interaction element that's easy for most people to
| understand. "I swipe my card, so my card company and maybe
| others know what I bought and where".
|
| The pervasive passive collection on a mobile phone is
| harder to internalize. "I carry a persistent, always on
| radio beacon that can record and transmit to arbitrary
| third parties all of my actions, searches, continual
| location, contacts both electronically and in person, and
| is tied directly to my identity (many countries require ID
| to obtain a SIM card)" is not how most non tech people
| would describe their mobile phone.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Sorry I was ambiguous in my comment. The smartphone
| itself is a different privacy question, but is the
| digital transaction interface losing anything more than a
| credit card swipe?
| deadmutex wrote:
| > is not how most non tech people would describe their
| mobile phone.
|
| Yeah, being in tech, I wouldn't describe it like that
| either. It seems like so overboard that I would describe
| your post as misinformation/FUD.
| 0800LUCAS wrote:
| > Both companies attempts to diversify their dependency on such
| info for their revenue have been broadly unsuccessful (Google
| fiber or a Google car anyone?)
|
| IMO, you're wrong on this one. Things like Google fiber/car are
| not ways to diversify Google's revenue.
|
| They are just more tools in their arsenal to keep collecting
| more data on users and improving their ads.
|
| By offering things like Google fiber, they ensure more people
| get online and that's more data they can collect.
|
| Same with FB. Terragraph and Aquila are/were just ways to get
| people online so more data can be collected and fed into "the
| machine"
| Closi wrote:
| I think there are three categories of projects at Google:
|
| 1) Working out how they can milk even more money out of their
| magic cash cow of online advertising by providing more
| opportunities to serve ads (YouTube, Gmail, Maps)
|
| 2) Protecting their magic cash cow (ads) from external
| threats, the main threat being a loss of tracking (Chrome,
| Android, Fibre, Google Analytics, Ok Google, Maps). _(As an
| aside, if you use Chrome and want to avoid this kind of
| behaviour, please consider swapping to a truly open source
| non-tracking browser)_
|
| 3) Trying to find another magic cash cow before the first one
| runs out of milk (Eg Google Cloud, YouTube Red)
|
| Some things will fall into multiple buckets, for example
| Google Maps and Gmail offers both an opportunity to further
| track users and serve them ads - double whammy!
|
| I suspect Google Cars are more about category 3, although
| have no doubt that they will be mined for data as much as
| possible to serve categories 1 & 2. Agree with your point on
| fibre - it looks like that is an attempt to own even more of
| the tech stack to provide even more methods to track.
| croes wrote:
| The best part is, that it's not proven that all this tailored
| ads really have the desired effect. Especially if many buy
| those ads. Most of them are useless because the targeted
| customer only choose one to buy from for a wanted product, if
| he is choice is based on ads at all.
| graphtrader wrote:
| This is the real rub to me.
|
| It would be one thing if you rip off all my data but I am
| constantly seeing ads for cool things I would never have
| found otherwise and can't wait to buy. Instead the ads are
| always shit that I never even consider.
|
| If things were not tailored I would probably randomly run
| across products that are just outside my current taste but at
| least spark some interest.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The one who pays the most is the one who gets the spot.
| Tailored to make the most profit and you are part of a
| group of people who buy 'x' product. The group might be
| males, 20-25 year olds, sailors from Malta. You would
| expect ads for sailing equipment or vacations or beer. This
| group get's an ads for Corn Flakes instead. Why because
| Kellogg want to attract more young males and they may
| target a spot like sailing where they will sponser races
| and buy as many digital ads in that category as they can.
| You seeing cereal ads makes it seem very untargeted but in
| reality your data has been highly targetted to give you the
| unwanted ad.
| trulyme wrote:
| This! Customer is served, except the customer is not the
| site visitor, it is the advertiser.
| cookiengineer wrote:
| I think in the future in order to stay private online, there's
| no way unless web traffic is decentralized off their servers.
|
| That is the real power behind a peer-to-peer system in my
| opinion: Offloading, and therefore removing the capabilities to
| track anything as a single node in the system.
|
| The only issue is peer-to-peer transport encryption, which can
| be solved if done correctly.
|
| Something like "statistically correct" DNS, or assets, or
| contents should've been the norm a long time ago. That's
| exactly what I'm striving for with my Tholian Stealth Browser
| [1]
|
| (to clarify: I mean peer-to-peer as a networking concept,
| specifically as the opposite concept of a decentralized
| blockchain)
|
| [1] https://github.com/tholian-network/stealth
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| If a peer to peer system of interest caught on, I'm sure
| google would be glad to run 90% of the nodes (incognito) to
| have some view of what's happening therein.
| petters wrote:
| Google would be able to get a ton of revenue without tracking
| users at all. Selling ads based on search keywords would still
| work very well
| joe_fishfish wrote:
| Indeed, that's DuckDuckGo's main monetisation strategy right
| now, and it's working very well for them.
| ColinHayhurst wrote:
| True and for others perhaps. But they still rely on the ad
| networks of, and passing data on to Microsoft (DDG,
| Ecosia....) or Google (Startpage).
|
| Apologies for the self-promotion but there is another way:
| https://www.mojeek.com/support/ads/
| Vespasian wrote:
| Google even managed to incur heavy losses from offering cloud
| infrastructure services. A business which usually is a
| guaranteed golden goose.
|
| They are really bad at making money with anything that isn't
| advertising.
| readams wrote:
| Google cloud has huge year over year growth, and does really
| well especially in retail sectors. The losses are an
| investment.
|
| Also, not sure where you get that is a guaranteed golden
| goose. Most companies that are in this space don't do well.
| tomrod wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they're doing that to draw folks from AWS and
| similar.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Yeah, but you'd have to be a fool to go.
|
| Google has proven over and over again that they don't value
| customer support or long term maintenance. They will get
| bored and sunset services you depend on, or switch off your
| entire business because some employee sent suspicious email
| on his gmail.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| GCP is very different than the consumer services.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| So they claim. Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/googlecloud/comments/gbh7p6/gcp_
| sus...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26252533
| quotemstr wrote:
| > Google and Facebook's business models depend deeply on being
| able to track information that consumers are increasingly
| unhappy to share
|
| I see no evidence that regular people are particularly unhappy
| with sharing their information. While it's true that on the
| internet there's a loud privacy activist movement that's grown
| over the past few years, I don't think this movement reflects
| the true preferences of the silent majority. I think it's a
| self-serving moral panic.
|
| Users benefit from the services that their information funds.
| It would be a mistake to incinerate trillions of dollars of
| institutional value on the say-so of a few strident and
| unrepresentative activist voices.
| swader999 wrote:
| 75 million in the USA that voted for the Red team saw close
| up the stifling censorship and deplatforming. Awareness is
| growing but I do agree behavior will be slow to change.
| JCM9 wrote:
| A key point if the article is that consumer sentiment is
| shifting, Google knows it, and isn't happy about that.
| croes wrote:
| Because most users do not know what consequences their data
| can have. The whole business is completely opaque. A few
| years ago, it turned out that Apple users were shown higher
| prices in online shops just because they had used an Apple
| browser. I doubt they were happy about it, but as long as
| they didn't know, they had seen no problem in sharing this
| information.
| anoncake wrote:
| > I see no evidence that regular people are particularly
| unhappy with sharing their information.
|
| Then why trick Google and Facebook them into doing that
| instead of making it opt-in?
| nojito wrote:
| >I see no evidence that regular people are particularly
| unhappy with sharing their information.
|
| There's actually a pretty cool graph from Google from the
| court docs that says the opposite.
|
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2f1tSEWYAAVHGY?format=jpg&name=.
| ..
| joshuamorton wrote:
| That graph didn't have a scale. It could be that 97% of
| users disabled the feature, or less than 1%. You just don't
| know.
| nojito wrote:
| If the scale didn't matter, Google would not have called
| it a "Problem"
| joshuamorton wrote:
| I think what it comes down to is that a small number of
| people coughs be "a problem", while still not being
| evidence that the median regular person or whatever
| cares.
| clairity wrote:
| personal data should be 2-party consent for every data sale
| transaction by law, not this 'opted-in by corporate mandate and
| backed by regulatory capture and monopolistic power' we have
| now. people should be able to negotiate a rate at which they're
| willing to allow the corporation to sell their data, including
| not allowing it at all ever.
| amelius wrote:
| Can't we have a smart contract system where every company in
| possession of some user data can be asked to provide a
| machine-verifiable proof that it legally obtained that
| information?
| foobiekr wrote:
| There is no technical solution to this problem. First
| parties can just lie or use dark patterns to gain
| permission.
| amelius wrote:
| Look, if some authority finds your personal information
| on some server, and they can't produce your digital
| signature on a contract which says that the company can
| keep the information from some date to some other date,
| then they are in violation. It is simply not possible to
| lie about it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signature
| clairity wrote:
| sure, but it's essentially a social/legal problem, not a
| technical one. the onus is on the company holding data to
| show the chain of consent, which doesn't require anything
| fancy outside a purpose-built database.
| amelius wrote:
| So how does that work then? How does Google prove that I
| clicked that accept-EULA button? Or that I approve of
| them keeping track of my information? I never put my
| signature anywhere and still there are companies holding
| or even trading my information.
|
| > it's essentially a social/legal problem, not a
| technical one
|
| And ironically, it's the tech companies who are getting
| away with it.
| clairity wrote:
| right, that's the social/legal problem, that consent is
| assumed, and i'd argue, coerced. bundling like this is
| actually an anti-trust concern, because it's using power
| in one market (for instance, search) to exert control in
| another (data brokerage), but we've collectively lost
| sight of this being a problem.
|
| but yes, they should be required to get your unambiguous
| consent for data sharing separate from any other
| transaction, otherwise it shouldn't be considered
| consent.
| nofunsir wrote:
| The Google fiber project was very much a aligned with their
| regular business model.
|
| Google fiber is dead because deep packet inspection is dead.
|
| The preemptive bad PR around snoopvertising and AT&T trying to
| compete made Google go, "oh yeah man ... we totally will not
| engage in deep packet inspection. Psh, stupid AT&T, what
| creeeps (ok guys shut it down!)"
| azalemeth wrote:
| One thing I've been meaning to do for a while is try to use a
| 'hardcore' AOSP 'de-googled' Android rom, like ParanoidAndroid.
| I've no idea how much of a pain in the arse this will be. Heck,
| being rooted causes enough unexpected "why do you not work"
| moments for me. If anything, I feel Google has got more hostile
| to the privacy-conscious user over time.
|
| The trouble with privacy as a product is that it's _very_ hard
| to verify it. Apple has basically said "Trust us, We're Okay"
| and smaller fry are even harder to verify.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| now i wonder to what degree apple's public refusal to unlock
| a particular phone for the FBI was a publicity stunt...
| gruez wrote:
| >One thing I've been meaning to do for a while is try to use
| a 'hardcore' AOSP 'de-googled' Android rom, like
| ParanoidAndroid.
|
| I used paranoid android in the past and it definitely isn't
| privacy focused. The name makes it sound it's privacy focused
| but that's about it.
| yosamino wrote:
| I've never run, willing or knowlingly, an android phone that
| has not been de-googlified as my main phone (since my n900
| died in 2012 ... I miss it ).
|
| For my purposes, that works out well, there are, within
| reason, replacements for all the basics. And now that I have
| done it for so long, I don't really know how having an
| android phone _with_ google works. The niche is big enough
| that something like https://microg.org/ exists that
| implements some of the core libraries for using google,
| without using google code. This enable installing some things
| from the playstore if neccessary ( I have not had the need -
| but I understand I am in a tiny minority ) - and it made it
| possible to install some corona contact tracing apps without
| having to rely on the google implementation.
|
| I am sure though, and I see it around me, that things won't
| continue exactly as before just without google, because of
| how deeply ingrained tracking everyone and everything all the
| time is.
|
| I don't know how hardcore you wanna get, but you might also
| want to take a look here https://e.foundation/ , here
| https://lineageos.org and here https://f-droid.org
|
| There's like - _dozens_ of us
|
| ...and thank you for reminding me of ParanoidAndroid. I 've
| not tried them in a while.
| user-the-name wrote:
| This kind of stuff is not, in general, possible to verify.
| You will always be trusting someone to be doing what they say
| they are doing.
|
| This isn't a bad thing. Society is built on trust. All it
| means is that there needs to be consequences for breaking
| that trust, to keep everyone honest.
| Accacin wrote:
| Do it! I switched from iOS to a Google 4a last week, and have
| flashed my phone with CalyxOS. I was very tempted by
| GrapheneOS, but having microg built into Calyx has meant the
| very few apps I want that aren't on fdroid work perfectly
| fine for me (so far, these are my banking apps).
|
| CalyxOS turned out to be about perfect for my use case, and
| I've been incredibly happy with it.
|
| They have a flashing tool, which basically involved me
| plugging my phone into my laptop and running a script. Only
| thing I really needed to do was follow the prompts.
| foobiekr wrote:
| Google Fiber was about:
|
| threatening behavior of the carriers and net neutrality
|
| obtaining access rights to add fiber when new placement
| occurred
|
| ... not trying to build a viable new business.
|
| Waymo (and basically all of X) is there to make google look
| sexy and to provide an exec playground than actual businesses.
| The Waymo team is the most competent team in the space and they
| know there is no business there this decade.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Amusingly, I've shared my location permanently with a couple
| close friends on Google Maps, and Google will not shut up about
| it, reminding me every month about it.
|
| I get aggressive monthly warnings "Are you SURE you want to share
| your location with XX,YY,ZZ?". I wish there was a toggle where I
| could say "yes, I absolutely positively am OK with the privacy
| implications here, because I don't care very much; please forever
| stop bothering me."
| aforty wrote:
| This isn't the point of the article. The point is that you
| can't share your data with your friends without sharing that
| data with Google the company as well.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Going to have to say "duh" here. Short of an e2ee location
| sharing app, you have to send your location through an
| intermediary for your friend to see it.
| dzdt wrote:
| It is "duh" that google has access to the information as
| they relay it from your phone to another party. But you
| could imagine it being like the post office, where in the
| US it is a federal offense to read someone's mail en route.
| Google could convey the location information with a "sealed
| envelope" policy. But they don't.
| folmar wrote:
| > Short of an e2ee location sharing app
|
| Delta chat can do it for you.
| julianmarq wrote:
| I saw some people saying that this makes them want to switch
| towards iphones next.
|
| I'm not gonna lie, I considered it for a moment too, like a year
| ago... But apple is now engaging in its own share of dark
| patterns and is now collecting data too. There have been multiple
| articles on the matter shared _here_ even.
|
| Thinking that apple is better than google for privacy (or, even
| if it is _right now_ , that it will remain so for any reasonable
| amount of time) is... overly optimistic, _at best_.
|
| Unless it chances paths, of course, which I don't see likely.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Same exact thinking here, plus apple devices being way
| expensive for not much gain over cheaper devices + not being
| able to install apps not from the app store + fully closed
| source OS is keeping me on the android team as well.
| Drew_ wrote:
| I've considered switching to iPhone many many times mostly just
| for iMessage and Facetime. Every time I change my mind after
| just a few minutes of considering what switching to iOS
| entails.
| deadmutex wrote:
| Yeah, I am not a huge fan of company lock-in. Apple makes
| their money on hardware, so they try really hard to keep
| people locked in [1].
|
| "c. However, Craig Federighi, Apple's Senior Vice President
| of Software Engineering and the executive in charge of iOS,
| feared that "iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove
| [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android
| phones". (PX407, at '122.)"
|
| Yeah, Apple doesn't really seem very consumer friendly as
| people in this thread suggest.
|
| [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/09/epic-apple-no-
| imessage-...
| judge2020 wrote:
| They're consumer friendly In a different spot than the
| competition. It's pick your poison - privacy, or money.
| GoofballJones wrote:
| The difference is the "terms of service" on these
| things...something many, including many here, don't even bother
| reading. Apple specifically states they don't collect your
| data..which is why when there are times people find out that
| they have (like the time they were caught having real people
| listen in to Siri requests to see if they were accurate), all
| hell broke loose and there are several lawsuits about that very
| thing against Apple.
|
| Google says right up front, right in the open "hey, we're gonna
| look over your shoulder at EVERYTHING you do with your phone.
| Go ahead and switch off all those placebo buttons on the
| "privacy" tabs, but we'll still glean telemetry from you". Ok,
| they don't use those exact words, but they do state that's what
| they do. But even then, it's not enough for them so they dig
| more and more and more.
|
| Apple gets their feet held to the flames all the time,
| especially now that they're leaning into the privacy. Will the
| convince anyone here? I doubt it. Everyone here are "experts"
| and they're not gonna let Apple fool them! No-sir-re!
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _There have been multiple articles on the matter shared here
| even._
|
| Here are the threads I'm aware of off the top of my head. What
| other threads should I look into?
|
| - _Apple 's Cooperation with Authoritarian Governments_[1]
|
| - _Apple reportedly dropped plan for encrypting backups after
| FBI complained (2020)_ [2]
|
| - _Apple puts more adverts in App Store after ad-tracking ban_
| [3]
|
| - _Apple to boost ads business as iPhone changes hurt Facebook_
| [4]
|
| - _Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years
| to fully cut ties_ [5]
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26644216
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25777207
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27051736
|
| [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26901868
|
| [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25607386
| GoofballJones wrote:
| 1. Thanks..as it shows the article in question was full of
| holes, such as the Russians requiring an app be baked in and
| not being able to uninstall. This was false.
|
| 2. This is for iCLOUD backups. Yes, that's a problem. But you
| can turn off iCloud backups totally...and then use your
| computer to make the backup while tethered and THAT can be
| encrypted. If your security conscience, don't use iCloud
| back-up. Yes.
|
| 3. Adverts in the App Store aren't tracking you. They're
| adverts in the app store. I forget that when someone these
| days sees an ad, their face melts.
|
| 4. Again, Apple isn't sitting there looking over your
| shoulder watching everything you do for the ads. The ads are
| for the apps that are "free" and get revenue from the ads in
| their apps. Usually pushing people to pay the $1.99 for the
| app. Annoying, yes. On the level of Facebook or Google? Not
| even close. But keep an eye on this.
|
| 5. Apple took 3 years to fully cut ties with a supplier using
| child labor. Fully cut ties. They are no longer doing
| it...but took their sweet time. Again, hold their feet to the
| fire over this.
| lazyeye wrote:
| It used to be "don't be evil". Now its "hide, deny and obsfucate
| our evil".
| filterfish wrote:
| Or put more plainly we're just a bunch of cunts.
| sthnblllII wrote:
| No, the guy who takes your parking space is a cunt. Google is
| evil.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| I've internalised the adage "Don't listen to what
| people/corporations say, watch what they do" and found it very
| useful to see through these fancy statements.
|
| It's especially useful at workplace to observe what people do
| and understand the politics. And at a different level observing
| how Google was _acting_ more evil by the day made me completely
| switch over to the Apple ecosystem.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Corporations after a certain size become essentially AIs
| without moral values maximizing profit. It's funny how some
| fear the paper clip AI, when capitalism is exactly that. Any
| decision that seems to be in good moral is simply based on
| which direction is more profitable, eg, can Company get away
| in terms of public image with a non-moral decision, or would
| it then away more potential buyer?
| koheripbal wrote:
| I think a more useful life lesson is that an organization's
| motto is not a useful measure of its true internal or external
| ethics - regardless of what it says - regardless of the type of
| organization.
|
| A motto is, by definition, marketing.
|
| Even more generally, I worry about the trend on social media to
| value words so much more than actions.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Values are what you talk about.
|
| Culture is what you do.
| filterfish wrote:
| In the early days they did seem to follow that motto so there
| was at least some cause to believe them.
| bogwog wrote:
| Or better yet, that a large corporation and a mega
| corporation are two different beasts.
|
| The latter needs to be regulated.
|
| I disagree that a motto is just marketing fluff. Especially
| in smaller companies, a mission statement can provide
| guidance that, in practical terms, acts as a tool for
| decision making for every employee in the organization (and
| to some extent, partners and clients)
|
| But once they're large enough where they could collapse the
| world economy if the CEO snorts a bad batch one day and
| decides to fire everyone, then that type of stuff is
| meaningless.
| musingsole wrote:
| The old company motto was a very effective canary.
| [deleted]
| alexander_gold wrote:
| https://cannablazeweed.net
| causality0 wrote:
| To this day, if I scroll off screen on Google Maps and then hit
| the "center view" button I get nagged to allow Google to use my
| phone to wardrive even when wi-fi is turned off. It would be nice
| if I could use Google products without audibly wishing violent
| misfortune on their executives.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| At the same time, Google think allways I'm in germany on work,
| because our company has just one large internet connection for
| all company users from the whole world. And google does not even
| let me change the country.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Yes that's annoying. In the past you could use a country's
| domain to choose Google's localization but it's not the case
| anymore. And their "ncr" (no country redirect) feature doesn't
| work anymore.
|
| It's one of the main reason I've been using Duckduckgo more and
| more.
| JamesDeepDown wrote:
| Googles forced country localization is IMBECILICLY STUPID.
|
| I am currently in a foreign country. My English OS laptop with
| English browser has been logging in to gmail in English for
| years, and I ask Google search to show results in English for 5
| years and EVERY TIME it tries to show the local language. Going
| to google.com is IGNORED, why??
|
| Google engineers are paid $$$$$$$$ of dollars to implement THE
| MOST STUPID CODE I HAVE EVER HAD TO DEAL WITH AAAAARGH.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Funny, I've been using google since forever in an spanish
| speaker country and it always correctly (when logged in)
| shows me results in english (I have it set it to english).
| notdang wrote:
| Same for me, worse, I search for something in English and it
| shows me results in the local language. And if you think that
| SEO destroyed the English internet, try it in Spanish, there
| is literally nothing there, pure FB and Pinterest.
| garbagetime wrote:
| It this point "used" is clearly a more accurate term than "user".
| intellaughs wrote:
| About two weeks ago I got an envelope in the mail from Google
| saying they were offering to pay $1000 per month to install a
| special router into your home that tracked everything regarding
| your internet usage. They disclosed everything they'd be tracking
| and said all the information recorded would be viewable by
| google. They even sent a $1 bill (I guess to prove they were
| serious). It was quite strange but really made me realize how
| invasive Google is planning to be in the future.
| judge2020 wrote:
| This could all be solved by breaking 'web & app activity' up into
| more granular permissions.
| nojito wrote:
| Disabling WAA isn't enough. Google is still able to capture
| precise location information
|
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2f1EcuWQAQYD8R?format=png
|
| And "breaking up toggles" was one strategy Google used to get
| people to share their location info
| [deleted]
| ttt0 wrote:
| We can also try to break up Google into something more granular
| and see if it helps.
| ppf wrote:
| I'm always amused by calls for the breakup of the "unbearable
| monopoly" of Google, when it is itself the epitome of the
| Silicon Valley "monopolies need disrupting!" business model.
| adamcstephens wrote:
| Except SV investors actively avoid competition with the
| monopolies. They will try and disrupt for sure, but there's
| a dead zone around monopolies.
| ppf wrote:
| Uber, Lyft, Air BnB, Paypal, etc etc, would beg to
| differ.
| adamcstephens wrote:
| Uber and Lyft tackled local monopolies, sure, but not
| national or international ones. They also took a strategy
| of actively flaunting and breaking of laws in their
| growth. Not sure that's a good form of disruption.
|
| What monopoly did AirBnB tackle?
|
| I'm guessing you're suggesting PayPal went after Western
| Union? There are plenty of ways to exchange money though.
|
| Would my point be better if I clarified the monopolies?
| Perhaps if we focus on national monopolies?
|
| What VC money is going to challenge Facebook, Amazon or
| Google, or any area close to them?
|
| https://financialpost.com/technology/inside-the-kill-
| zone-bi...
| ttt0 wrote:
| Got a better idea? I'd like to see them bankrupt and all
| their data being wiped, but I'm afraid that's just not
| going to happen. Breaking them up is the only option we
| realistically have as of right now.
| bogwog wrote:
| I think we should simply pass laws to make their business
| model illegal (at least the evil parts), and let them
| sort it out.
|
| If they go under because they can't adapt, well tough
| luck. There will be tons of smart businesses, investors,
| and individuals eager to chase all the new opportunities
| the death of Google would create.
|
| And since the evil business models are illegal, the ones
| that come next will (probably) not be evil like Google
| was. And if they are, more regulations!
| ppf wrote:
| Exactly which parts of their business model should be
| illegal? It's pretty standard Silicon Valley stuff - give
| away your product until there is no competition left,
| then you can do what you like.
| bogwog wrote:
| > Exactly which parts of their business model should be
| illegal?
|
| For starters, this part:
|
| > give away your product until there is no competition
| left, then you can do what you like.
|
| The free market doesn't work without competition, and
| that's a blatantly anti-competitive practice. Just
| because a lot of SV companies do it, doesn't mean it's
| right.
|
| But really I was referring to their data collection
| practices, and doing things like intentionally making it
| difficult for users to find privacy controls. No matter
| which way you look at it, that's harmful to consumers.
| rolph wrote:
| the dinosaurs ruled the earth for quite a long time,
| while mammals were squelched into a weasel-rodent
| protomammal skulking in the dark. after the extinction
| level event the mammals emerged from thier bunkers
| previously hidden from the purview of the dinosaurs. A
| new hope was born, the mammals were relieved of pressure
| and wandered the earth, and the day and diversified, then
| bought a penthouse in manhattan and took a job as a day
| trader investing in a large advertizing corporation,,,,
| [dejavoux]
| ppf wrote:
| Stop buying their product - ie, advertising.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I actually thing Google maps (Inc live congestion) is well worth
| the loss of privacy.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Sounds like lots of people are going to have to re-take the "You
| Said What!?" training. But seriously why _would_ a product
| manager know with certainty how different settings interact? The
| only person who really knows would be the authors of the features
| that read those settings, and possibly not even them. These
| systems are too complex, no intelligent person should claim to
| understand them perfectly.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Considering all the dark patterns they've implemented to force
| location tracking there's no way management doesn't know about
| what the settings are meant to accomplish.
| arkades wrote:
| Earlier this week there was a post regarding Google and its
| utilization of private health information. A number of Googlers
| came forward to describe how very seriously Google takes user
| privacy and keeping inappropriate data from being shared across
| silos. I got the overall impression of Googlers taking the
| position of "you guys don't know how seriously we take peoples
| privacy."
|
| If any of those Googlers would please comment on how to square
| those statements with the featured article, I'd appreciate it.
| nullc wrote:
| Sometimes people confuse effort with security. You could build
| a fortress with eight foot thick reinforced concrete walls but
| it's not secure if you leave the back door open.
|
| No doubt google puts in heroic efforts to make sure that
| nothing that doesn't make them money gets access to your
| private data.
|
| The mere presence of heroic efforts isn't enough.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Health care data is the only thing with regulations in the US.
| Everything else is fair game. That is how Google rakes in the
| billions. They aren't going to leave money on the table to
| satisfy an ethical code.
| [deleted]
| tolbish wrote:
| I wonder how much evil they could actually be getting away
| with if they wanted to. Imagine all of the trade secrets and
| national security secrets they could easily obtain by
| analyzing who is Googling what from where, or who is
| accessing their services from where.
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| Which specific factual aspect of this story do you believe
| contradicts those claims? I'm a Xoogler, not a Googler, but in
| my post-Google experience I haven't seen anything that was even
| in the same league as Google's privacy controls. In my personal
| privacy threat model I think Google scores 10/10. They protect
| my data against external attackers, which in my view is the
| main problem faced by personal data, and their protections
| against insider risk are also excellent. Other places where
| I've worked, that you've definitely heard of, have security and
| insider risk practices that are a complete f-ing joke. There's
| nobody at Google who is "the DBA" who can just covertly access
| your data, there's no ad-hoc logs access (every logs access
| flows through a proxy that ensures only limited access for pre-
| defined purposes), and there are software controls that trigger
| privacy incident response (by a 24x7 user privacy incident
| response team) whenever an insider attempts to access user data
| in excess of their authority. In protocol buffer definitions,
| every field has an annotation for whether it contains private,
| sensitive, or non-private information so that even in crash
| dumps and debug logs those fields are censored before being
| printed. I really think Google has a pretty strong privacy
| story, compared to virtually every other company (except Apple
| and Microsoft) who leave themselves highly exposed to both
| outside and insider attacks, software (and even hardware)
| supply-chain attacks, accidental leaks, leaks into debug
| systems, poor encryption practices, and generally wanton
| behavior.
| jtrip wrote:
| What you suggest shows that individuals within the Google
| organisation do not have blatant open access to personal
| information. What do you think about the access of personal
| information to the organisation Google itself? Today the data
| is safe from menial concerns such as a google employee
| looking over private information, but what about tomorrow
| when whole troughs of such private information are made
| available to other organisations, a la Cambridge Analytica
| and Facebook, for commercial or other nefarious purposes?
|
| The article here talks about how google executives
| deliberately made privacy settings harder to find because the
| people were actually using them. The article also suggests,
| through court documents, that google coerced other
| manufacturers to do the same.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Xoogler.
|
| This is almost impossible by design. As mentioned before,
| every field on a protobuf is tagged for sensitivity,
| meaning right down to the bare disks there is privacy
| controls on data.
|
| Engineers under orders to decrypt & copy data literally
| could not, without a delegated authority from senior people
| (some will be GDPR officers too), and there would need to
| be a staggering level of process failure just to get at the
| data for a few users.
|
| Ultimately you have to decide if you trust Larry & Sergey,
| nobody else could make this happen. But insider risk just
| isn't going to happen from a company that treats user data
| like military treat classified documents.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I'm suggesting that based on my experience google has
| better organizational defenses against individuals or even
| groups intentionally or accidentally setting a privacy-
| invasive agenda than other organizations with which I have
| first-hand experience.
| asdff wrote:
| The whole issue is google already has a business model
| that is a privacy-invasive agenda. The cat you describe
| has left the bag years ago.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| How is Google ranking 10/10 on protecting user privacy if
| they considered people choosing to shut off their location
| tracking as a crisis worthy of pressuring OEMs to make it
| harder?
|
| The thing Googlers and Xooglers alike seem absolutely unable
| to grapple with is that Google itself is a major privacy
| threat, and we don't want Google itself to have this
| information.
|
| The fox is guarding the henhouse, and all the fox is doing is
| telling us it's protecting it from other foxes.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Different people have different privacy threat models. Gp
| even mentioned as much.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Again, that _you_ want, good for you. But when Google let
| people choose, and people choose in a way they didn 't
| like, they immediately reversed course, pressured OEMs to
| make that user choice harder.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| That's fine, but your comment makes no sense in response
| to someone who explicitly talked about their personal
| threat model. Of course they can grasp that other people
| have different ones, that's why they scoped the comment
| to their own.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Fair, though the comment above his was definitely asking
| in a more general sense.
| Twisell wrote:
| I think it was pretty relevant nonetheless because by
| tweaking the UI and UX Google is actively harming their
| users abilities to implement the threat model they have
| chosen (no matter which one they choose).
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Whether or not this is true, it's far from the original
| question. OP's question (in my reading) presupposes
| permission to monitor healthcare data. If you believe the
| xoogler and googler responses in this thread, Google's
| data stewardship will be superior to that of other people
| doing healthcare ERP stuff. So the only question is if
| Google can do something without ads tracking, and the
| answer is yes. Gmail and Docs and Drive isn't used for
| ads purposes (granted gmail used to be, but even then it
| was siloed and only used within gmail). It's just a
| freemium model.
| Drew_ wrote:
| I think its pretty straight forward that privacy protection for
| Google means protecting the data it has collected from their
| users. Not refraining or preventing itself from collecting user
| data. Google protects the privacy of your information from
| outsiders (and insiders) not from its own apps and services.
| That is what's meant when Google says they "take their user's
| privacy very seriously". And its obvious that this is true
| because this practice is effectively just protecting their
| business model.
| GoofballJones wrote:
| "We take very seriously your privacy and we make sure no one
| can see what you do...because THAT'S OUR JOB! Hey, you want
| to know what our customers are doing, we're more than willing
| to sell you the data and telemetry we collect, but ya gotta
| go through us! We take that very seriously."
| tzs wrote:
| In many large companies with multiple divisions the divisions
| operate to a large extent like separate private companies even
| if the company as a whole is a public company.
|
| Is Google like that? If so, then it is easy to square things.
| The parts of Google that handle health stuff could have
| completely different policies about handling private
| information than the parts that deal with smartphones.
| sunstone wrote:
| I've had a string of Google phones going back to the Nexus 5x
| but, for the very reasons laid out in this article, my next phone
| will likely be from Apple. That will be my first Apple product.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I really have to decide if the customizability of my Android
| phone is worth losing my location / private data.
|
| I love Tasker, love automating boring repetitive work and other
| tasks out of my day. But is that worth losing all my privacy?
| Can't say...
| kache_ wrote:
| I went through this and then realized that apple hardware is
| not meant for people who like to actually do things with their
| computers
| GoofballJones wrote:
| So, all the things I'm actually doing on Apple hardware I'm
| not really doing? Hmm...good to know. Thx.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > do things with their computers
|
| Do we mean "do thing _to_ their computers "?
| C-x_C-f wrote:
| FYI you can install GrapheneOS on a Pixel (3rd to 5th gen)
| bogwog wrote:
| Just looked that up, and the site describes the project as
|
| > GrapheneOS is a privacy and security focused mobile OS with
| Android app compatibility
|
| What does that mean? Is it a built-from-scratch OS with an
| Android compatability layer (like Blackberry 10), or is it
| just an indirect way of saying they're based on Android (like
| Cyanognemod/Lineage OS)?
| eingaeKaiy8ujie wrote:
| It's based on the latest Android (AOSP) + privacy/security
| improvements. From a UX point of view it's basically a
| vanilla Android without any proprietary Google code (which
| means no Google Play of course but you can install
| F-Droid). The main developer is a security researcher and
| many of his improvements have been accepted upstream to
| AOSP.
| Karsteski wrote:
| Or even more friendly, CalyxOS. Works perfectly, easy to
| install and _very_ few problems in the 6 months I 've been
| using it
| kaba0 wrote:
| On which reasonably modern/performant phones can one
| install them? I did bought an iphone as my latest phone,
| because Google-riddled android is ridiculous (even though I
| like the ecosystem much better. Iphones can feel like some
| embedded software that only allows a few possibilities),
| but mainly because I could not find a phone on which
| installing some AOSP fork is safe, won't delete important
| firmware (I believe quite a few mobiles will delete
| proprietary camera firmware)
| eingaeKaiy8ujie wrote:
| Apple may protect you from Google and Facebook but it won't
| protect you from itself. iOS is completely closed and you can't
| verify if it respects your privacy. Don't trust Apple. Open
| source software is a fundamental requirement for privacy.
| GrapheneOS is one of the best alternatives.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Which phone do you recommend going with it?
| commoner wrote:
| GrapheneOS supports Google Pixel 2 and later, but only
| Google Pixel 3 and later are currently supported by vendor
| security updates:
|
| https://grapheneos.org/releases
|
| All Google Pixel phones released to date receive vendor
| security updates for 3 years after the release date:
| https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705
|
| A Pixel 4a ($349 new) would cover you until August 2023,
| and a Pixel 4a (5G) ($499 new) would cover you until
| November 2023 with better performance. The Pixel 5 is not a
| particularly good value for the price. Used Pixel 3, 3a,
| and 4 devices (along with their XL counterparts) are less
| expensive options with vendor support timeframes that
| expire sooner. The Pixel 3 and 4 (non-XL) models have poor
| battery life, so choose an XL model if you opt for either
| of those.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Thanks! Unfortunately as you note recentish Pixels are
| not all that great, at least last time I checked. But
| perhaps at the next release I might change back (I really
| want to), if it's suitable. But it is a real shame that
| other manufacturers make it very hard to replace the OS.
| The one other phone family I heard great things about is
| the One Plus, but they may also contain firmware that
| gets nulled.
| howzitallworkeh wrote:
| Unfortunately, you will find iOS bad in different ways.
|
| For example: you cannot install NoScript, or anything like it,
| on an iOS browser. You must choose between "all JS on" or "all
| JS off", and third-party browsers like Firefox are crippled
| because Apple forces all iOS browsers to use their WebKit
| engine under the hood.
|
| The myriad of Safari "content blocker" apps are also pretty
| dismal, and often expensive. So ad-blocking is difficult as
| well.
|
| They're better about app tracking, but you might want to keep
| an Android phone handy if you enjoy browsing the web.
| justbrowsing_ wrote:
| Firefox "Focus" browser does the trick for ad-blocking and
| erasing history on iOS. No tab support though.
| simfoo wrote:
| This is what is keeping me from switching. Apple, if anyone
| is listening: allow a full Firefox browser on the iphone and
| I will switch in a heart beat
| tobyhinloopen wrote:
| Ad blocking works perfectly fine, wdym?
| howzitallworkeh wrote:
| I mean that 1Blocker is terrible compared to
| uBlock+NoScript, and that's the best content blocker I
| could find after spending days researching them. Plus, it
| costs $3/mo or $40 for something that barely functions.
|
| Web browsing in iOS is incredibly frustrating and privacy-
| unfriendly compared to Android. I recently bought an iPhone
| for the app tracking protection, but the difference between
| Safari and Firefox is like night and day.
| andrewnicolalde wrote:
| Have you had a look at AdGuard Pro? I use it on iOS and I
| don't notice any ads on the web, and it's not really
| different from using UBlock Origin on Firefox in my
| experience.
| yccs27 wrote:
| Got any recommendations for blocking youtube ads in safari?
| reader_mode wrote:
| YouTube premium subscription. Seriously - don't want ads
| on your services ? Pay for it.
| justnotworthit wrote:
| https://adguard.com/en/blog/how-to-add-a-shortcut-to-
| block-y...
| underscore_ku wrote:
| get a pinephone if you value freedom and privacy. apple ios is
| just as bad as android or microsoft windows
| messe wrote:
| > get a pinephone if you value freedom and privacy. apple ios
| is just as bad as android or microsoft windows
|
| It's not as black and white as that. Other people will have
| different requirements and make different tradeoffs to you.
|
| The PinePhone is great if you value freedom, privacy, _and
| have the time and inclination to make it work for you_. Most
| don 't, and an iOS device is a good compromise if you value
| privacy over freedom to run your own code. It's not perfect,
| but it's better than Android.
| kaba0 wrote:
| While some people can manage with a pinephone, it is not
| "production-ready" at all. I do own one, and I am very very
| thankful to all the people involved with it, but it is simply
| not comparable to even a low-end android phone, let alone a
| high-end one or an iphone.
|
| It's a hobby project as of yet (as even mentioned on the
| website). Hopefully once software matures there will come a
| pinephone 2 that will pack a more modern hardware and have
| full android app compatibility (there is no way around it, it
| is needed) that can be actually used as a daily driver.
| user-the-name wrote:
| The pinephone is good for privacy only because it is
| unpopular. It offers far, far worse security against snooping
| by third-party apps than iOS does.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| How is the app store on pinephone these days?
| grishka wrote:
| You can use an Android phone without Google services. You don't
| even need root or a custom ROM for that -- there's a "disable"
| button on the app details page of every Google app, including
| GSF. You can complete the initial setup fully offline, too. In
| case you do need Google services, but want to have a say about
| which and how, there's MicroG, an open-source implementation of
| some of the most used ones like GCM (push messaging).
|
| You can't use an iPhone without Apple services, period. An
| Apple ID is a hard requirement to activate an iOS device, it
| literally won't let you past that screen without one. Even
| after you're done with that, you can only install apps from the
| app store, subject to that unfair, opaque approval process.
| commoner wrote:
| microG (a replacement for Google Play Services) includes a
| free and open source network location provider called
| UnifiedNlp:
|
| https://github.com/microg/UnifiedNlp
|
| UnifiedNlp allows you to choose the backends your Android
| device uses to determine the location, without providing any
| data to Google. Options include:
|
| - Mozilla Location Services: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/
| org.microg.nlp.backend.ichna...
|
| - Apple Location Services: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/or
| g.microg.nlp.backend.apple...
|
| - OpenCellID (offline):
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.gfd.gsmlocation/
|
| - Radiocells.org (optionally offline):
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.openbmap.unifiedNlp/
|
| - Deja Vu (offline cache using Wi-Fi and cellular data): http
| s://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fitchfamily.android.deja...
|
| The easiest way to use microG is to switch to an Android
| distribution that has it preinstalled:
|
| - CalyxOS (supports Google Pixel 2 and later):
| https://calyxos.org
|
| - LineageOS for microG (supports all devices supported by
| LineageOS): https://lineage.microg.org
|
| - /e/ (some overlap with LineageOS, but also supports
| different devices): https://e.foundation
| sirius87 wrote:
| From using Google servers for internet connectivity checks to NTP
| and DNS servers, Android has deep connections to Google's
| infrastructure.
|
| [1] https://e.foundation/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/e-state-
| of-d...
| QuadrupleA wrote:
| Google had a brilliant advertising business with AdWords
| originally, where the ads were simply based on the search term
| and not a bunch of Orwellian surveillance on the person
| searching.
|
| From the research I've seen, all this privacy-invading crap
| doesn't even improve ad performance much - it's small incremental
| gains at best. And per this article, those gains are clearly
| coming at the expense of user trust and goodwill, something not
| reflected in click thru rates and RPM.
|
| Here's hoping we can get past all this invasive retargeting /
| surveillance / privacy-invading crap and get back to
| straightforward contextual ads, like car parts ads on a hot rod
| website - our world would be better for it, and maybe Google
| could restore a little of its rapidly fading goodwill.
| j0ba wrote:
| https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
|
| Maybe they are more than just an ad company?
| fvv wrote:
| I think that big corp must always grow (in earnings ) or
| various manager hierarchies start having problem.. sometimes
| this need forget to consider ethic , trust , monopoly , roots ,
| ...
| nwellnhof wrote:
| > From the research I've seen, all this privacy-invading crap
| doesn't even improve ad performance much
|
| Which research? From my experience, personalized ads perform
| ~50% better than non-personalized ads. This would also explain
| why Google and Facebook are fighting tooth and nail to keep
| their tracking infrastructure.
| EastSmith wrote:
| DuckDuckGo have said that they make less money, because they
| use only the search term not other data/tracking.
|
| But they still make money.
| dheera wrote:
| Big companies have "fiduciary duty" to do the thing that
| gets them the most money within legal bounds, and not the
| ethically right thing.
|
| As in, they have a _duty_ to breach ethics for profit as
| long as it 's legal.
|
| Stupid concept which I wish we could abolish but that's the
| way the economy is currently setup.
| mattkrause wrote:
| This thread has some discussion and case references
| regarding what companies are "obligated" to do for
| shareholders.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393674
|
| It's not much, and there's certainly room for considering
| ethics. In fact, you can do nearly anything that isn't
| actively repurposing part of the business for the
| directors' own use. For example, one of the landmark
| cases affirmed the Chicago Cubs' right to leave tons of
| money on the table because their president believed that
| baseball was a "day-time sport" and wouldn't install
| lights for night games.
| distances wrote:
| As the others have already said, you're completely
| incorrect here. No such duty, it's an urban myth through
| and through.
| mdoms wrote:
| This is a widely believed myth. There is no corporate law
| requiring public corporations to maximize profits. Simply
| untrue.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| That's not what a fiduciary duty is. The fiduciary duty
| is for a broker dealer to act in your best interests
| rather than rip you off.
|
| A company's management has a duty to shareholders to work
| on behalf of the shareholders and not on behalf of their
| own well being. That usually means profit because that's
| what most shareholders own the company for, not for
| charity. But there is no particular duty to maximize it
| at all costs. Damage to reputation and legal risk and the
| like are real concerns.
|
| If anything, it's the self-interested managers violating
| their duty who cut the most corners and burn goodwill, in
| the name of hitting short term goals and chasing their
| bonus.
| xmprt wrote:
| As an example, if shareholders invest in your company
| despite saying you will never show targeted ads then they
| can't sue you for not showing targeted ads to increase
| profits.
| trulyme wrote:
| This is a huge oversimplification. Short term gains of
| breaching ethics might result in middle- and longterm
| reduced profit, regulatory action or opportunity for
| other players to eat their lunch. Businesses can follow
| ethics if they decide to, even when breaking them results
| in more immediate profits.
| nojito wrote:
| Location targeting isn't effective.
|
| https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/mksc.2019.118.
| ..
|
| Google are fighting tooth and nail to protect the illusion
| that their ads work.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Location data is _very_ important for search.
|
| Try turning on a VPN from another country, opening an
| incognito window and doing a google search for 'pizza'.
|
| See how the results are nearly useless...? A bunch of
| delivery services that don't deliver in your country, who
| want payment in a currency you don't have, and all written
| in a language you don't speak.
|
| Location at the local level matters less, but even so it
| makes some search results substantially more useful. That
| is a benefit that other search providers (who don't have
| strong control of the browser/platform) will not have. It
| makes the moat bigger.
| codyb wrote:
| Couldn't just search for "pizza in Brooklyn" then? It's
| not that onerous.
| QuadrupleA wrote:
| Here's one study - 1st link is a ZdNet summary about it, and
| 2nd is a direct link to the paper:
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-research-shows-
| personalize...
|
| https://weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/6/...
| nwellnhof wrote:
| It depends a lot on the content. If you're targeting a
| lucrative niche, contextual ads can be effective. But for
| the majority of (mostly low-quality) content, it's hard to
| find well-matched ads. The study you cited is based on "a
| rich dataset of millions of advertising transactions
| completed across multiple websites owned by a large media
| company". It's probably not that representative.
| rodgerd wrote:
| I'm glad that your anecdotes trump an actual study.
| wumpus wrote:
| You shouldn't lump search ads in with display ads -- search
| ads are relevant to the search terms, and are much more
| valuable than display ads. Search ads get a much smaller lift
| from personalization.
| coliveira wrote:
| My opinion is that the target ads is just a cover, the real
| reason they want to track users is to give more data to their
| in-house AI system that learns what people do once they reach
| certain page. This knowledge (what people will do) is what is
| important to them, rather than simply showing certain ads. For
| example, if Google knows the profit potential of certain
| actions, they will raise the ad cost on that property by the
| true value, instead of relying on non-targeted auctions.
| nexuist wrote:
| If this was true then every single ad campaign would be worth
| it then, no? I thought that lots of people try Google or FB
| ads with a couple thousand dollars and never recoup operating
| costs. If Google knows how much profit a certain page could
| bring then they could also tell you exactly what to price
| your product at to maximize returns.
| kaba0 wrote:
| How would it profit Google?
| judge2020 wrote:
| Note that contextual ads still perform better than personalized
| ads on search results, given how you still don't see eg.
| Spotify ads on search results for anything other than music.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Worked in targeted ad tech for b2b. High dollar sales stuff.
|
| Short version. It works really well. Like absurdly well.
|
| Massive fear if browsers started limited cookies. As that would
| destroy the cash cow.
| m463 wrote:
| The word advertising itself has been co-opted. It is like
| "freedom" or "justice" that is ambiguous and means one thing to
| advertisers and another to the public.
|
| I'm reminded of the vitamin water lawsuit
|
| _" Coca-Cola criticized the suit as "ridiculous" on the
| grounds that "no consumer could reasonably be misled into
| thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage"_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Brands#vitaminwater
|
| The point being that normal people think "advertising" means
| showing a picture of a car or cereal, and google thinks
| advertising is identifying the individual.
| edgyquant wrote:
| I really hate that "reasonably think" defense. Yes most
| people, including myself, did think that vitamin water was
| healthy until reading the nutritional sheet. It's one step
| away from selling chocolate as, "good for you bars," and
| claiming no reasonable person would think they're good for
| you.
| paxys wrote:
| What research? Multiple companies which use these practices
| have grown from zero to trillion+ dollars in market cap, so I
| find it hard to believe the narrative that all of it is useless
| and ineffective.
| nom wrote:
| Can someone point me in the right direction regarding the
| mentioned research? My feeling is still that google know what
| they are doing when it comes to ads.
| QuadrupleA wrote:
| See the other comments in this thread for a couple studies.
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| Or it's the "measure everything" culture having become self-
| reinforcing regardless of results or collateral damage.
| dexen wrote:
| Insightful reasoning. The moat that Google built and maintains
| with privacy invasion is a _legal moat_ rather than a business
| moat.
|
| A competing ad service, naturally much smaller at first, would
| be hard pressed to replicate[1] even part of Google's privacy-
| invasive targeting, due to the costs involved. Even more
| importantly, a competing ad service would be nigh unable to
| replicate even part of Google's privacy-invasive targeting, due
| to the legal protections and regulatory oversight of privacy.
| It is much easier for a large, well established business to
| "continue as it always did" and get either a nod of
| understanding, or at worst a slap on the wrist from the
| regulators - than for a newer, smaller player to start doing
| anything shady. In the later case, stiff penalties and "making
| an example of" can be expected for variety of reasons - the new
| player tends to not be well connected in the regulatory
| circles, and tends to be less influential on the local economy
| either, thus there's little downside for slapping the new
| player hard.
|
| This is yet another case where regulatory framework with
| somewhat arbitrary enforcement (relevant fines have wide
| ranges; judicial injunctions are optional and discretionary)
| entrenches and unfairly protects from competition the existing
| large market players.
|
| --
|
| [1] sadly, ability to replicate minute features is key to
| provide "bullet-point engineering" and getting sales to casual
| buyers who are easily impressed by long feature list - and to
| advanced buyers who are trying to squeeze every last bit of
| advantage from the service.
| chimen wrote:
| Even attempting to stay private gets you banned on most services.
| toastal wrote:
| Ran into this today logging into PayPal (the password-must-
| be-8-20-characters payment service) for the first time in a
| long time to buy a band t-shirt. After jumping through two
| different types of CAPTCHAs, now they require you share your
| phone number to log in. I contacted support via Twitter saying
| they have my email if they want to verify a login because I'm
| not comfortable with SIM jacking nor how data-mining is cross-
| referencing phone numbers (I can set up U2F or TOTP after
| initial verification). They said call them... which is still
| giving out your phone. I tried to use a Google Voice number,
| but I got an error about these types of numbers being blocked.
| To get a non-useless level of support, you must log in so it's
| either give up your data or no service for you. You shouldn't
| be required to give out your number to most online services.
|
| I just feel bad for the indie band I couldn't support.
| rolph wrote:
| find thier [indie band] email and touch heads on how to mail
| them a fiver
| Taek wrote:
| This is one of the use cases for cryptocurrency.
| Decentralization means there is no company in the middle that
| can force you to give up your data.
| toastal wrote:
| In this case, Bandcamp, which I generally like, doesn't yet
| support crypto. I think it's also a lot to ask a small band
| to pick anything other than PayPal for international
| payment.
| ttt0 wrote:
| Setting up a Monero wallet or whatever shouldn't be that
| hard.
| mormegil wrote:
| Could you call them with Calling Line Identification
| Restriction? (I. e. caller ID blocking) There is usually a
| prefix you can dial to suppress your ID. But the exact prefix
| depends on your location, I think.
| abawany wrote:
| I believe such restrictions are defeated/not available for
| toll free lines.
| toast0 wrote:
| Caller ID blocking only affects the consumer level feature,
| not Automatic Number Identification which was historically
| available with PBX lines and toll free numbers, but might
| be available to more people these days.
| sthnblllII wrote:
| Stuff like paypal exist so that powerful people can shut you
| out of the economy if you challenge their power. They
| complain about money laundering while the CIA is the biggest
| money launderer in the world and no one goes to jail when
| Deutsche bank launders Jeffery Epstein's payments. But
| operating a Bitcoin mixer is a federal offense. They are
| scared.
| [deleted]
| swader999 wrote:
| Just imagine lock downs augmented with geo fenced official
| national wallets with cash no longer accepted anywhere.
| dlsa wrote:
| This cant be just location either. Anything you'd think of as
| private. I wonder what the privacy implications of using
| something like DDG on an android phone is like. I'm fairly sure
| google are quite desperately keen to grab any and all data from
| anything visited using the DDG app. I don't see any way to stop
| Google from doing it either.
| anticristi wrote:
| I hate to repeat it, but the US really needs its GDPR.
| nojito wrote:
| It's even worse than the headline implies.
|
| You couldn't prevent location tracking unless you disabled the
| numerous switches in settings and turned off WiFi as well.
|
| The real damning allegation is that location data collected from
| google maps/apps and non-google apps was siphoned to all other
| google products through something that is redacted in the court
| docs.
|
| >"So there is no way to give a third party app your location and
| not Google? That doesn't sound like something we would want on
| the front page of the NYT
|
| Additionally this process was deemed so critical to Google's
| overall revenues because of something else that was also
| redacted.
|
| https://www.azag.gov/media/interest/updated-redacted-google-...
| jeffbee wrote:
| OK "siphoned" is an opinion. Apple Maps also provides location
| services to other Apple products on its platform. Unless I
| disable the switch which is buried at Settings, Privacy,
| Location Services, System Services, Significant Locations,
| Apple will "allow your iCloud connected devices to learn places
| significant to you in order to provide useful location-related
| information in Maps, Calendar, Photos, and more." If I try to
| disable it, because I use iOS but I don't use any of those
| apps, it warns me that "Disabling Significant Locations will
| affect many Apple apps and services ... such as Maps, Do Not
| Disturb While Driving, CarPlay, Siri, Calendar, and Photos."
| I'd like to know how that's different.
| nojito wrote:
| Sorry I wasn't clear, but it was google maps/apps and non-
| google apps.
| kyralis wrote:
| That data isn't actually shared with Apple. It's used _on
| device_ by the client applications for those services.
| jeffbee wrote:
| OK, but I don't find the distinction as stark as others on
| HN seem to. My location data being used by Apple-authored
| applications running on my device, none of which I've ever
| intentionally used, is not that different to me than my
| location data being used on my behalf by Google-written
| applications, many of which I personally enjoy, running in
| Google data centers. I _like_ that I can see my location
| history in Google Maps for web, I also like that I can get
| that data as KML from Google Takeout.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Apple collects location data solely to help you. They've
| built themselves no financial benefit to collect it, so
| they keep it only on the device and discard it as much as
| possible, while still providing all the features users
| want. If you want a location tracker on iOS, you can
| install one, but it's not a condition of using their
| mapping product.
|
| Google has a financial incentive to violate your privacy,
| and all of it's products are designed to serve that goal.
| So everything that could stay on the device is designed
| to collect and send data to Google, for their purposes,
| while they tell you it's to benefit you.
|
| It's a very distinct difference, and the entire design of
| their respective ecosystems reflects that.
| bozzcl wrote:
| As an ex-Android user who switched to an iPhone because
| of privacy concerns, I'd still like sources and hopefully
| proof for these claims.
|
| The more I think about it, the more I suspect trusting
| another big tech company with my privacy with no material
| proof other than their word might have been foolish.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| It can be difficult to vet closed source applications,
| but I think this policy describes a truly stark
| difference between the two: https://support.apple.com/en-
| us/HT212039
|
| Whereas every location ping is seen by Google as an
| opportunity to attach data to your account, Apple Maps
| goes beyond not tying to your account, but regularly
| trying to make it difficult for them to tie the activity
| to any sort of cohesive profile entirely.
| tobyhinloopen wrote:
| I always find it funny how articles like this are behind a
| "privacy" cookie wall.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| what about users who don't sign into their android phones with a
| google account and don't actively use google apps like maps or
| chrome or whatever they have? i suspect they still have your data
| but it isn't tied to "you" unless you tell them by linking who
| you are so you should be fine?
| rantwasp wrote:
| so an android phone without the store? intriguing. at that
| point you might as well switch to a dumbphone. are dumb phones
| still a thing?
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| aurora store is a thing.
| bozzcl wrote:
| And F-Droid. And there's plenty of sites to download APKs
| outside of the Play Store, though I don't know how reliable
| they are.
| notdang wrote:
| There are plenty of other stores to chose from.
|
| The problem here is that there are some apps that don't work
| without Google services, and those are the apps that you need
| the most: banking apps, payment apps, Uber, etc.
| grammers wrote:
| What really devastated me was when I found out that even if you
| try to keep yourself private, you'll get exposed by your friends:
| Just by tracking that you are regularly close to others, for
| example meeting for a camping trip, you suddenly get camping
| advertisements - probably because your friends searched for
| something or booked the trip via Gmail or whatever. I don't
| really know how it works, but it's awfully scary.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| They really like to tag and paste your telephone number into
| facebook messages as well. _sigh_
| [deleted]
| indymike wrote:
| I would love to have a control panel that lists who I'm sharing
| my location with. Not what apps. What people and companies,
| including secondary buyers. With an on/off toggle. And this list
| needs to include my cell phone carrier, the OS vendor, the
| hardware manufacturer and, perhaps even the government where
| there's no warrant. Then extend the model to other things... one
| can dream.
| max_hammer wrote:
| If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the
| product being sold.
|
| Few years back you could easily root your android device and get
| custom ROM installed. Now, only solution is use a feature phone
| without gps and wifi and have a separate device for connecting to
| internet.
|
| IPhone is also a good alternative but I don't agree with thier
| walled garden development philosophy.
|
| Edit: You pay a separate fee for using Microsoft windows but for
| Android thier is no separate fee hence the product reference.
| Downvoting won't change the fact.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Eh? I certainly paid for my phone so I don't see the
| applicability of that soundbite here.
| whoknowswhat11 wrote:
| You paid for Google maps - weird
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| They paid for a phone advertised to include this service,
| so, in a way, yes, they did.
| ppf wrote:
| In some ways, it sounds like you didn't pay enough, if the
| cost is subsidised by data collection and advertising.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| Regardless of how much you pay, what is their incentive as
| a large organization not to get more money out of you, if
| they know they can get away with it?
| google234123 wrote:
| Apple just charges a lot more upfront for their products.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're
| the product being sold.
|
| Full price TVs from eg. Samsung comes with ads and spyware
| nowadays. I would say the saying has stopped being accurate.
| Also, phones are paid for.
| leesalminen wrote:
| TVs are so cheap now because of ad subsidies. That 42" panel
| wouldn't cost $199 if it weren't for ads.
| bogwog wrote:
| Source? That sounds like bullshit.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Nonsense.
|
| The same surveillance capitalism runs on a multi-thousand
| dollar OLED panel.
| google234123 wrote:
| Then it would cost multi-thousand dollars + extra without
| the ads in order for the manufactures to maintain their
| thin margins.
| hobs wrote:
| That'd be a good point if there were companies offering the
| full price model, but unless you want to buy a commercial
| panel and do a bunch of hoop jumping yourself, you
| literally cant buy a TV without adware in it.
| QasimK wrote:
| It would be great if we, the customers, were actually
| given a genuine, competitive choice. As you say, right
| now you literally don't have a genuine choice.
|
| There is precedent for this too. Amazon Kindles came
| (come?) with two options - one with ads and one without.
| The latter cost something like $20 more. That was good!
|
| Having said that, I bought the one without ads and they
| increasingly, with software updates, devoted greater and
| greater screen space to the Amazon ebook store. I
| consider that to be an ad too (and arguably worse because
| of anti-competitiveness reasons).
| jjulius wrote:
| That's fine, maybe the trade off in increased price is
| worth it to some people.
| anonymousab wrote:
| Or it would be that cheap but ads and spyware just give
| them more money for free now.
| C-x_C-f wrote:
| > I would say the saying has stopped being accurate.
|
| I wouldn't say so. The saying states that not paying implies
| being the product. Your example shows that being the product
| does not imply not paying. The two are independent and can be
| true at the same time.
| testific8 wrote:
| I didn't pay for the OS on my pinephone, but for some reason
| the vendors decide not to use that as an opportunity to create
| a mass surveilance campaign.
| est31 wrote:
| You are still able to root android phones and install custom
| ROMs. Note that even then though, even if you don't have any
| gapps installed, it sends your approximate location to google
| by querying its AGPS services.
| rantwasp wrote:
| what bothers me is the normalization of collecting this data in
| the first place.
|
| some people are outraged, but hey if google does it, are you
| really surprised when someone else does it?
|
| I have worked pretty hard to kick google out of my digital life.
| it's hard but not impossible.
|
| what apple is doing with their privacy schtick has probably
| raised the alert level to red on the Borg and on the Klingon
| ships. There probably is going to be an intense struggle
| following with more things like this coming out.
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