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Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

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Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#81

Post by xgbi »

fencepost wrote: post #79

Looking at the My Activity details is actually pretty creepy. Starting today working backwards, Google includes "Used Phone," "Used [my launcher]," "contacted [messaging site]," "Used [alarm clock app]," several overnight repeats of the messaging site when I received alerts, my Chrome-based website visits from yesterday, my foray into Android Settings yesterday, etc. It all serves to make me happy that I'm using Fire…

Using firefox? Did you tick "Send analysis data to Mozilla"? If yes, Mozilla has the very same information about your browsing habits and all clicks and actions you performed in Firefox too.

It's just that Google shows it to you, rather than not telling you anything.

Any sufficiently big Android/iOS app has the very same system in place so that they can see what people are doing with their app and anticipate interesting features, down to the location of your finger when you touched that button, the wifis you were seeing at the time, the battery level etc.

Admitedly though, Google has such a wide reach in all your day-to-day life that they gather an immense amount of data.

But don't be fooled, anyone else is also doing it. And they are far less open about it.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#82

Post by golergka »

omouse wrote: post #37

The marketers and advertisers have finally won. Google hasn't been an engineering company for the last 5 years maybe, but this confirms it. It's like Facebook, they're beholden to the non-developers and non-software engineers who frankly don't care about other people's privacy and only see the dollar bills. So glad I'm evaluating other email providers and use Privoxy for ad-blocking.

Why do you think none of the marketers care about privacy?

Why do you think all engineers do?

For the record, I'm an engineer, have almost nothing to do with web development, and my honest opinion is actually against so-called privacy advocates. At the same time, a lot of marketing people that I meet actually argue against me on this.

If you see a corellation between a profession and political opinion, it does not signify causation.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#83

Post by wincy »

arkitaip wrote: post #25
wincy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, my wife and I just ordered dumb phones and an AWS 2FA key fob (remember those?) which will be here this weekend, we're selling all our screens except one family PC. I sold off my Oculus Rift and gaming PC a month ago. We're going to have to buy a flashlight, GPS or maybe just a map book, calculator, a CD player, a Blu-Ray burner, a day planner, a wristwatch, a kitchen timer, get a library card, a shared calenda…

I admire your dedication and would be interested in hearing more about your experiment in the future. Maybe some kind of update in the future here on HN?

Thanks for the kind words. I was with a group of developers in person last night and mentioned this plan casually and was amazed by how many questions everyone had. I'm start to feel like this disconnect is, paradoxically, going to result in me spending more time on social media talking about and setting up meetup groups with like minded people. I don't want to bury my head in the sand, and I'm not a Luddite – I just want to be more intentional about how I'm spending my time and go to sleep happy with how I've spent my day.

HN was a big part of the inspiration [0] and the few articles I've read about Tristan Harris have filled me with a desire to reclaim my life. We're in sort of a planning stage right now and are realizing there's quite a few things we're going to have to buy, which seems intimidating, but it'll be nice that my egg timer or flashlight won't become out of date in a few years. I was looking at a wristwatch [1] I feel embodies how I'm feeling I should live life lately. It seems a little silly at first but it really struck me as a timepiece that makes a particular statement.

We don't form memories of what life was like at 12:07 PM or 12:09 PM, at most we need to know the general time of day. I feel like even the exact time of day might be too much information. I've started checking email at work once a day and disabled the always visible clock in OSX and have yet to have any issues with this. If someone really needs me real time they'll come talk to me or send me a message on Slack.

I'm thinking about blogging about my experience, but it feels like that might be against the spirit of what I'm trying to accomplish. Then again blogging is a different sort of communication than writing 144 character responses, and may be appropriate to get the word out.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12678325 [1] https://www.slow-watches.com/

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#84

Post by e40 »

runeb wrote: post #38
0xmohit wrote: post #9

Earlier: We will not combine DoubleClick cookie information with your personally identifiable information unless we have your opt-in consent. Now: Depending on your account settings, your activity on other sites and apps may be associated with your personal information in order to improve Google's services and the ads delivered by Google. So opt-in becomes opt-out.

To opt out, or "Pause" as Google is tellingly calling it, from the article: To opt-out of Google’s identified tracking, visit the Activity controls[1] on Google’s My Account page, and uncheck the box next to “Include Chrome browsing history and activity from websites and apps that use Google services." You can also delete past activity from your account. [1] https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols

Mine was already unchecked.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#85

Post by ommunist »

As for now, there is no viable alternative to Google. There is no distributed, free independent search engine that provides such quality relevant search results as Google, and is caring for users privacy.

I do not think either it is financially possible to run such a thing, without someone's vested interest in metadata behind such possible endeavour. There is silent demand for such an effort however.

UPD: I know about DuckDuckGo, but look: https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.as...

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#86

Post by dmux »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #78
omouse wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep there's something to be said about being addicted to screens and how it changes our attention span and focus. I've been trying to use my long commute to work to increase focus and be less agitated by distractions.

I'm just trying to grasp that second sentence.

They may be commuting by bike or foot.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#87

Post by mccr8 »

xgbi wrote: post #81
fencepost wrote: post #79

Looking at the My Activity details is actually pretty creepy. Starting today working backwards, Google includes "Used Phone," "Used [my launcher]," "contacted [messaging site]," "Used [alarm clock app]," several overnight repeats of the messaging site when I received alerts, my Chrome-based website visits from yesterday, my foray into Android Settings yesterday, etc. It all serves to make me happy that I'm using Fire…

Using firefox? Did you tick "Send analysis data to Mozilla"? If yes, Mozilla has the very same information about your browsing habits and all clicks and actions you performed in Firefox too. It's just that Google shows it to you, rather than not telling you anything. Any sufficiently big Android/iOS app has the very same system in place so that they can see what people are doing with their app and anticipate interest…

If you go to about:telemetry in Firefox, you can see exactly what data is being collected.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#89

Post by digi_owl »

Ntrails wrote: post #72
pmyjavec wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, it's time to make a change and start educating family and friends about this issue and the alternatives. I always believed Google was successful because it was pushed and advocated for by geeks, I feel that those days are coming to an end. I use DDG and I think it's a pretty solid alternative, although it requires a little more effort when looking for certain things. Non-tech types have been curious about why I…

I use DDG at work and the sheer number of times I just resort to sticking !g in front of the query in order to find what I'm looking for is bemusing. It's also a self fulfilling prophecy though - as my threshold to scroll through results on DDG has dropped markedly from when I first started.

Try using !s instead. It brings you to startpage.com, producing Google results without the tracking.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#90

Post by pyrophane »

pmyjavec wrote: post #61
blowski wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a neat split along the lines of "All developers good, all marketers bad". What has won here is the pressure to grow, and the acceptance of society and governments to let them do it by any means. We are all complicit in this.

True, it's time to make a change and start educating family and friends about this issue and the alternatives. I always believed Google was successful because it was pushed and advocated for by geeks, I feel that those days are coming to an end. I use DDG and I think it's a pretty solid alternative, although it requires a little more effort when looking for certain things. Non-tech types have been curious about why I…

The two things I miss when using DDG: 1) The ability to easy filter results by date at 1 year 2) A last update date on the result.

There may be a way to get these things from DDG, but I'm haven't had the time to look for them yet.

Still DDG is pretty good, and obviously will get better the more we use it.

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