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Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

bradfrost.com

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Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#181

Post by dontnotice »

It's always surprising how much comments and postings in these parts are vehemently in opposition to data being usefully incorporated into these apps and services, I remember a recent post about how Google's passive on device music identification worked on the Pixel 2 which turned hostel.

I understand that certain types of people are attracted to certain topics but it's still somewhat jarring when in a technology discussion board there is this amount of anti tech sentiment.

This feature is useful, it puts that data gathered to a good use, and it's upfront about it, if you don't like it just swipe the notification away.

Don't be fooled, the iPhone is gathering the same type of data it just only snitches on non system apps doing so in the background. Not to mention that it looks like they don't put that data to good use which as far as I'm concerned is the greater sin.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#182

Post by beat »

Raphmedia wrote: post #100
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.

This reminds me uncomfortably of someone I saw yesterday arguing that you shouldn't get a flu shot because it makes your immune system lazy.

Memory is complicated and difficult. It can be trained, but we only have so much bandwidth for it. It's very nice to have automation to "remember" for us, so we can stop wasting that limited bandwidth on things that don't much matter, like details of our dinner experience, and save medium-term memory for more important stuff.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#183

Post by saulrh »

Raphmedia wrote: post #100
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.

Sure. I'm all for the transhumanist aspect of this, letting the machines take care of everything they can so I can focus my intellect on the things that machines can't do, and I'll admit that (for example) I lean hard on Google when choosing whether to memorize a particular piece of information or to simply know that it exists and how it can be found. In this case, though, my parents figured out that I had an issue around the time I learned to read but I myself only recently realized I could talk to my doctor about it. There's a reason I choose to describe these systems as prostheses. And even if I do have a ton of practice exercising conscious control over my memory, I'd still really prefer to be spending those cognitive resources on things that aren't basic everyday tasks.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#184

Post by deong »

geofft wrote: post #157
Anderkent wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think whether your phone asks you if you want to send a restaurant review is in any way related to whether your phone provider is using your location data maliciously? In fact if there's any relation wouldn't it be the reverse? If you're using the location data unethically, you wouldn't want to draw attention to the fact that it's being gathered.

I don't think that - the behavior I object to is not solely behavior that the provider thinks is malicious / unethical. The roommate in my example who barges in on my phone calls could believe they were genuinely contributing to whatever conversation I was having on the phone and helping me out, but they would still be creepy. So I don't see this as about whether the provider has "good" or "bad" intentions; I see thi…

It does seem like that is the problem a lot of people have.

Google does explicitly ask you for permission to do this. And whenever someone in this thread points that out, someone replies with some variation of "yeah, but they probably do it anyway". Well...OK then I guess. There's not much of a conversation that can happen after that, but you do you.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#185

Post by mrweasel »

ovao wrote: post #94
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?

I get your point, but what else would you buy? I have an iPhone, but only because my employer pay for it, it's simply to expensive. The alternative is that most of us wouldn't have a smartphone.

But you're right of cause, people should boycott Android phones that track them to the extend Googles currently is.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#186

Post by lern_too_spel »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #41
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…

Is there really no way to turn this off? (I don't have an Android phone).

Yes, there is. You explicitly have to turn it on the first time you turn on the phone, which makes the author's complaint even more ridiculous. There are maybe three checkboxes total of privacy settings when you set up your phone, so this is hard to miss.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#188

Post by saulrh »

amelius wrote: post #170
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…

I can similarly say: If I could pay for the services of Google with money instead of with my data (which will be used in ways I cannot imagine or control), then I'd gladly do that. Why? Well, the problem with Google is they have an incentive to do bad things to us, simply because we are not the real customer.

Fair point. If I could get this kind of thing as a paid service I do think that I'd happily pay for it.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#189

Post by nullymcnull »

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.

Google just can't seem to win with some people. Notifications like this have an obvious benefit, in that they make the degree of tracking that is happening very clear even to the non-technical end user (and if they aren't comfortable with the tradeoffs involved, they can disable it). But apparently simple acknowledgement of what the phone (any smartphone) already knows is "creepy", and it's more comforting to bury your head in the sand and pretend it isn't going on ("I'm going back to an iPhone"). Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

This whole post just gets sillier as it goes. It's dire and creepy and "robotic" for Google to acknowledge that your phone, the internet, and their business are machine-driven, and to be open + straightforward about the fact that said machines can make good use of your human judgement + opinion, for the benefit of other humans? They need to "soften this blow"? Really?

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#190

Post by lern_too_spel »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #150
Anderkent wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people it's not spam.

They're using it as a way of increasing their ad revenue by getting free data from their users. How is that not spam? If I send you unsolicited emails asking you to give me photos of products you use which I'll then sell ads for and keep all the revenue, would that not be spam? I did not sign up for any product promotion notifications, so if I receive any it's spam.

They pay the user for it with increased Google Drive space, a free subscription to the NYT, etc.
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