Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch • Hacker News Board

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#91

Post by rsync » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

Mizza wrote: post #18

Google are a deeply, deeply unethical company and all of their employees are complicit. On a more practical note, I live in apartment above a restaurant. My phone now asks me to review this restaurant every time I come home and wants me to post photos I take in my apartment to the restaurant's map page. Now that OSM data is as good as Google and Maps.Me is a good enough client, my next phone will be completely de-Goo…

"Google are a deeply, deeply unethical company and all of their employees are complicit."

...

"My phone now asks me to review this restaurant every time I come home ..."

Why are you using their products (specifically, their phones with their ecosystem built-in) if they are "deeply, deeply unethical") ?

Every single step you take while your phone on is giving them more data and building their resource base.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#92

Post by koyote » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #71

koyote wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is of course, but I guess the question remains whether the data is being logged even if you turn it off (you just don't get the annoying notifications anymore).

It's not (if you disable location history which powers these services).

I would have to double-check but I believe I got those kind of notifications even with location history off (maybe from recent Google Maps search terms and Google Maps activity?).

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#93

Post by Anderkent » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

brndnmtthws wrote: post #55

tacomonstrous wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn off these notifications in the Maps app. It's annoying they're on by default though.

You shouldn't have to opt out of spam.

For most people it's not spam.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#94

Post by ovao » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

Mizza wrote: post #18

Google are a deeply, deeply unethical company and all of their employees are complicit. On a more practical note, I live in apartment above a restaurant. My phone now asks me to review this restaurant every time I come home and wants me to post photos I take in my apartment to the restaurant's map page. Now that OSM data is as good as Google and Maps.Me is a good enough client, my next phone will be completely de-Goo…

Why did you purchase a phone with an OS provided by what you believe to be a deeply unethical company?

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#95

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #29

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #15

The idea that you'd have any location privacy while carrying around a cell phone is absurd. Both iPhone and Android devices record location history, and your network provider always has a rough guess of where you are. It may be annoying that Google is very persistent about trying to build its maps dataset, but the suggestion that it's not happening on other devices is crazy.

My mobile carrier is a local server hoster that also happens to operate a fiber and DSL network in the city, and a small 3G network. They don’t track – I’ve talked with them, personally. And in the future, with the Librem phones, we’ll also be able to ensure there is no tracking on the device side.

[deleted]

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#96

Post by throwwwwaway9 » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #10

Two things that happened to me: A) I walk into a store, get a notification from google photos asking me "I see you're at store X, wouldn't you like to take some pictures?". Possibly to use as part of google maps. Thinking back I think this is when I started de-googlifying my life. B) I get a notification from google maps asking me "you're travelling to place X soon, wouldn't you like to download an offline map, just…

Frankly Google needs to be broken up. They pulled the "we're a cool company doing ethical and interesting stuff" for far too long." They are too big to exist.

I wonder if Matt Cutts is still shilling for Google, talk about losing respect.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#97

Post by amelius » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #50

Wow, the author is surprised that when she/he shared her/his location with Google, Google actually got her/his location. If only Google made it ridiculously easy to disable this. Oh, wait, it does: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?hl=en

If you have to stop and think about every bad consequence of any of your actions on your phone, then at some point the phone loses its usefulness, and becomes a nuisance.

The device should think for you, not against you.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#98

Post by daodedickinson » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #65

saulrh wrote: post #42

I'm going to be completely honest here: If these things were behind a configuration option and defaulted to off, I'd have gone into my phone and turned that option on. I want to leave reviews for restaurants as I'm walking out of them - it serves the common good and doing it immediately is better for memory. I want to remember to download offline maps when I'm about to go somewhere where I won't have coverage. My mem…

Also, if they were behind a configuration option and defaulted to on, most people would be fine turning it off and forgetting about it. This seems to be about lack of control. It's good for developers to think carefully before they ship products that do things with no way of being told not to. EDIT: Welp. Apparently these settings exist. I don't understand the point of the blog post then. Why is it so upsetting, if y…

Default on is outrageous. It's clear the average person doesn't know how to access and manage even some of these settings, much less understand what they do or be able to understand what privacy violations will continue despite turning something off in one place.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#99

Post by gthtjtkt » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

Djvacto wrote: post #40

gthtjtkt wrote: post #19

It feels like Google has a team dedicated to finding new and idiotic ways to make Android more annoying. The most recent annoyance I experienced was the "Welcome to [State]" announcement every time you're using Google Maps navigation and you cross a state line. Really, Google? You had to interrupt my music for that?

I can't imagine you're crossing multiple state lines in a short enough time that this is any more annoying than google maps navigation instructions. Things like that aren't universally liked or dis-liked, but I can see that for you it was way more annoying than it is for me. Have you checked if you can turn it off?

> I can't imagine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-state_area

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_State_Area

I searched and found no way to disable it at the time. I don't re-do that search on a regular basis so I can't say if that's changed since then.

And no single annoyance is a huge issue, but when you view this in the larger context of Android's cacophony of distracting annoyances it starts to become mildly infuriating. Everything you do, Android seems to have some way of pestering you about it. Your phone starts to feel like a telemarketer in your pocket.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#100

Post by Raphmedia » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

saulrh wrote: post #42

I'm going to be completely honest here: If these things were behind a configuration option and defaulted to off, I'd have gone into my phone and turned that option on. I want to leave reviews for restaurants as I'm walking out of them - it serves the common good and doing it immediately is better for memory. I want to remember to download offline maps when I'm about to go somewhere where I won't have coverage. My mem…

> My memory is terrible enough that I can't do those things myself.

One could argue that your memory is terrible because you know you can rely on those services.