Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Not OK, Google

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 594 posts

Re: Not OK, Google

#231

Post by Klathmon »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #208
ams6110 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's pretty simple. If you don't like what Google is doing, don't use their services, and don't buy their products.

But as mentioned above, if you don't want Google to potentially track your behaviour and preferences, "don't use their services" encompasses "don't send email to anyone with a gmail address".

Which IMO is a valid thing. If you are sending something to someone, they are free to do what they want with it. You can't force them to treat it differently.

If i'm on gmail, then you need to talk to gmail to talk to me. It's a tradeoff you'll need to make. If you want you can GPG encrypt the email, but there is nothing from stopping me (legally, morally, or otherwise) from just decrypting it and replying with the contents, or saving the decrypted message in my google drive.

Re: Not OK, Google

#232

Post by ubercore »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #208
ams6110 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's pretty simple. If you don't like what Google is doing, don't use their services, and don't buy their products.

But as mentioned above, if you don't want Google to potentially track your behaviour and preferences, "don't use their services" encompasses "don't send email to anyone with a gmail address".

Which is the digital equivalent of "Don't walk out your front door".

My whole point in posting originally was to bring up the fact that the interesting discussion of different thresholds and having a spectrum of options is being lost in binary "privacy vs complete corporate control". It's not binary, and it does everyone a disservice to act like it can be for everyone.

Re: Not OK, Google

#234

Post by ams6110 »

aRationalMoose wrote: post #21

I have an open ended question-- mostly born out of ignorance; But why is this a bad thing? Isn't an artificial assistant that not only knows and understands us but anticipates our needs incredibly useful? In the process, sure they'll collect your info for better advertising, but short of Totalitarian Surveillance or Data Breach Concerns (The former is a bit of a reach if you live in the west, and they can survey you…

For most of history, most humans lived under tyranny or domination if not outright slavery. It's only been the past few hundred years that this mostly stopped in some places.

Maybe we've turned a corner and will never go back to that. But I don't have confidence yet.

Re: Not OK, Google

#235

Post by falcolas »

zeveb wrote: post #224
falcolas wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why is this a bad thing? Do you trust every single person at Google, and every single person at every third party company Google shares your data with, now and in perpetuity, to never abuse the data collected on you? Personally, my circle of trust is not that large. Totalitarian Surveillance is here. In the west. Secure document releases aside, it's too easy to do to imagine a state actor not doing it. Data bre…

> Do you trust every single person at Google, and every single person at every third party company Google shares your data with, now and in perpetuity, to never abuse the data collected on you? You forgot: every single state which Google is subject to.

Yup. If any of my data is stored on servers in, say Canada, what is to stop the Canadian government from siezing Google's servers in an effort to stop my maple syrup smuggling ring?

Re: Not OK, Google

#236

Post by Someone »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #4

What I think is interesting is that many of us nerds have probably innocuously fantasized about having a Star Trek-like AI assistant with us, but now that they're taking the first steps towards that, we're starting to realize that in order for it to do everything for us, it has to know everything about us, too.

You could have realized that from watching Star Trek, as the computer in the Enterprise can always tell the captain where every crew member is, whether there are strangers on board, etc.

Re: Not OK, Google

#237

Post by jacquesm »

madenine wrote: post #197
jacquesm wrote: post #23

So, at the risk of making myself ridiculous and branded a Luddite: I've totally passed on the 'mobile revolution', I do have a cell phone but I use it to make calls and to be reachable. This already leaks more data about me and my activities than I'm strictly speaking comfortable with. So far this has not hindered me much, I know how to use a map, have a 'regular' navigation device for my car, read my email when I'm…

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your "crappy dumb phone" is already telling someone about your every move with a degree of accuracy ranging from an area around the closest cell tower to within a few feet. The courts are still deciding when/whether that information requires a warrant.

Yes, I'm well aware of that. That's how Dudayev got himself killed by a missile.

But short of anybody wanting to aim a missile at me I figure that I'm better off with the courts in my country where such information does require a warrant at present (and without any indication that this will change), and without the company controlling those assets trying to 'mine' my profile in order to advertise to me more efficiently.

Re: Not OK, Google

#238

Post by quickben »

darklajid wrote: post #92
ubercore wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols?pli=1 do what you're asking for? It's fairly fine-grained.

I love that this uses 'pause' vs 'stop', 'off', 'disable' 'deactivate'. Your location history tracking is paused ..

There is a difference between 'the user requested to deactivate the service', and 'the user paused the service', he may or may not wish to continue using it, gray area right?

It can probably save them from a legal mess if they 'resume' it in future updates.

Re: Not OK, Google

#239

Post by sangnoir »

pimlottc wrote: post #152
TulliusCicero wrote: post #4

What I think is interesting is that many of us nerds have probably innocuously fantasized about having a Star Trek-like AI assistant with us, but now that they're taking the first steps towards that, we're starting to realize that in order for it to do everything for us, it has to know everything about us, too.

Nobody was thinking about "the cloud" back in those days. Back then, your data, you programs all lived and ran on your own computer in your home. Most people didn't go online, and if you did, it was mostly to read and download data to use locally on your own computer. Connections were intermittent and slow. The idea that your own data would be stored online was almost unimaginable; even using network-depending applic…

> Our expectations of how "Star Trek AI" would actually be implemented were completely different than how highly connected cloud-based services like Google Assistant work today.

The trope-namer (Star Trek AI) was a ship-wide AI - when considering the ship sizes, it definitely is closer to the "cloud" model and not limited to a private instances on officers' bunker/bridge terminals/tricorders. Perhaps a hardcore Trekkie could answer this question: is there any canon that defines the AIs scope? Is restricted to just one ship, or could it possible be a Federation-wide presence with a presence/instances on ships?

Re: Not OK, Google

#240

Post by digi_owl »

ubercore wrote: post #70
mojuba wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One tiny caveat being that, Google (and others as well, to be fair) will be able to indirectly collect data even on the privacy-aware part of the population who don't use Google much. The simplest example being, even if you don't use GMail, still some part of your emails inevitably end up in GMail inboxes. Now also consider this: just being a guest in a Google-stuffed house means you are under surveillance. So no, it…

Sure, and to illustrate your point, I have an email very similar to someone else's. I very frequently get their emails (invoices, church events, travel itineraries, purchase receipts). Google thinks they're _my_ trips, and updates me about flight times. I think this example serves both our points. To your point, it's totally leaked this other person's info into my "google world" because I'm on gmail. On the other han…

Wonder if one should press for having these services accept a public key alongside the email address that they then are obliged to encrypt all outgoing emails with. Thus even if the address is wrong, the recipient can't easily read the content.
Post reply on HN