Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#91

Post by wincy » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

arkitaip wrote: post #73

wincy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My marriage isn't in shambles or anything like that. Just not great. We just feel like we've been on autopilot for years. It never really "became a problem", it was just always a problem. We were both glued to our screens. We never did anything. My daughter is 18 months old and will sign and say "birds birds" because she loves birds and wants to watch videos on Youtube. If we turn it off she starts screaming she's so…

I have similiar issues with games. I dread open ended ones - Witcher, Skyrim - because of the prospect of them never ending. But it's worse than that because the least resistance in gameplay and I will abandon the game. For instance, I've haven't been able to play more than 10 minutes of Cities: Skylines because it gets overwhelming. At least now I accept that I don't have to finish games. That it's ok to even uninst…

Maybe take a look at Gamebooks? Inkle's remake of the Sorcery! gamebooks [0] were something I was playing and enjoying quite a lot. I'm giving that up too for now, maybe I'll reintroduce it later. I was amazed to find out that physical gamebooks are still a thing and being published. If you encounter "resistance" in the game just turn to the next page.

I'd suggest if you're really dreading games so much, try giving them up for 3 weeks. That's about how long it took me to stop freaking out that I wasn't spending every waking moment playing Diablo 3 or literally ANY game. I felt really awful. It really surprised me how negative my initial reaction was, but lately I've been finding myself reading books for pleasure again, and I'm going out with my family more often. I realized I was implicitly choosing video games over spending time in the real world with actual people.

[0] http://www.inklestudios.com/sorcery/

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#92

Post by ViViDboarder » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

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…

I think most people here understand that everyone is collecting data about usage of their apps. The thing people are getting wary of is having all your habits, regardless of app or platform, in one place.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#93

Post by KirinDave » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

GrinningFool wrote: post #63

FUCK__GOOGLE wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm moving off gmail today, gonna just register my own domain and set up a server somewhere. I think that and hangouts are the last ways they got me, looking forward to deleting my account. It's so strange to be old enough to see the same mistakes of the AOL days repeated again at a much larger scale. I don't want your garden, I want my privacy, thanks.

Meta-comment: Your post isn't unreasonable, but it seems your throwaway name killed it for you...

"isn't unreasonable" but it's a profoundly selfish sentiment. It's almost a given that the people reading this are totally immune to this. We all use adblockers as the default.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#94

Post by clarry » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:40 PM UTC

arkitaip wrote: post #73

wincy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My marriage isn't in shambles or anything like that. Just not great. We just feel like we've been on autopilot for years. It never really "became a problem", it was just always a problem. We were both glued to our screens. We never did anything. My daughter is 18 months old and will sign and say "birds birds" because she loves birds and wants to watch videos on Youtube. If we turn it off she starts screaming she's so…

I have similiar issues with games. I dread open ended ones - Witcher, Skyrim - because of the prospect of them never ending. But it's worse than that because the least resistance in gameplay and I will abandon the game. For instance, I've haven't been able to play more than 10 minutes of Cities: Skylines because it gets overwhelming. At least now I accept that I don't have to finish games. That it's ok to even uninst…

I used to play non-ending games throughout most of my teen years. I think that taught me a lesson, because I started to get very depressed. I don't play that much games anymore, and when I do, I try to stick to something relatively short and with clear endings. First person shooters that I can finish in a weekend are good.

Addictive open ended games, sandboxes and competitive online games quickly lead to severe existential depression so I just don't play them. Sometimes people ask me to join them on MMOs. I have to refuse.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#95

Post by KirinDave » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:40 PM UTC

bnegreve wrote: post #76

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.

> So opt-in becomes opt-out. Hum, not exactly. With these new TOS, you can't assume that their will be a clear way to opt-out. ("it will depend on your account settings" is rather vague)

But examining the settings, it is not vague at all. Until such time as it actually is impossible we should probably actually consider the whole picture.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#96

Post by clarry » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

drieddust wrote: post #56

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.

You can do that for other services but I do not see an easy alternate to Android. People are moaning about Microsoft tracking with Windows 10 which is mostly on home devices. In reality Google is worse, they are tracking us 24x7 via our smart phones.

Is Cyanogen mod wed to google services?

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#97

Post by CommanderData » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

0xmohit wrote: post #50

CommanderData wrote: post #49

Is it enough to install adblock on the router level? This would in theory block all domains tracking and serving adverts.

You could also try https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts to block ads. Quoting from the description: Extending and consolidating hosts files from a variety of sources like adaway.org, mvps.org, malwaredomains.com, someonewhocares.org, yoyo.org, and potentially others. You can optionally invoke extensions to block additional sites by category.

Great to see an updated hosts file. I've and others have been saying, routers need an easier configuration method. Preferably through an app and common API across firmware and manufacturers.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#98

Post by windlep » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

That is blatantly false. The policy page here describes what is sent for each data feature in Firefox:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/

Mozilla does not have tracking cookies scattered through-out the web tracking you. Google via Google Ad's and Doubleclick does (as does Facebook via their social features).

Neither the Chrome browser nor Firefox sends "your browsing habits and all clicks and actions you performed" to their respective companies. If you turn on History sync, the clients encrypt all this data before uploading.

Disclaimer: I work at Mozilla.

edit: Chrome can send all history unencrypted to Google if you ask it to, under Privacy Checkup, Web & Web App Activity: "Include Chrome browsing history and activity from websites and apps that use Google services". Supposedly this is to make the search more relevant. This was unchecked for me by default though.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#99

Post by falcolas » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

j_s wrote: post #39

eveningcoffee wrote: post #32

Like I have told under other similar discussions. Something in ToS has no relevance if data is collected. If data is collected then it will eventually be used (against you).

That's a good point: is this change retroactive (will old data be associated)?

Consider the path of least resistance - is it easier to just take one action across data, or multiple actions based on data age, user opt-in, and EULAs? Engineers are lazy, after all, and it's fairly easy to change an EULA.

Re: Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

#100

Post by artursapek » Fri, Oct 21, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

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.

I recently moved to using https://mailbox.org/ to host my email under a personal domain name. I've been very happy with their service. (not affiliated with them whatsoever)