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

Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

bradfrost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 399 posts

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#321

Post by bastijn »

Chaebixi wrote: post #301
bastijn wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you? Or did you just pay them peanuts for a tracking device that helps them make many times your peanuts with their real (real) customers?

I think that attitude is exactly what I was talking about. I paid Google directly ; I am their customer. But they don't know what to do with user-customers, so they treat me like the kind of user-product that they're more familiar with .

You are probably right, they are unfamiliar with retail trade (goods) which is why they make mistakes. I wanted to point out that you shouldn’t underestimate the amount of value you bring with your data. They need to keep the majority on board of their platform but not every person individually, and not on their devices, as they might not be in it for the device sales. Pixel can be a nice platform marketing tool and a data mining tool before being a device sales profit tool. That turns their users in second class citizens while they expect to be first class citizens.

Take with a grain of salt though. Pure speculations at best. Maybe they do just want device sales.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#322

Post by rhizome »

geofft wrote: post #311
rhizome wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP said, "cannot function." How did cellphones work before they came with GPS?

They registered with the nearest cell towers, and ask them to watch signal strength so they can make handover work. This is coarse location information (since the company that runs the cell towers knows where their own cell towers, and uses your current tower registration to figure out which cell tower to send a call to), and can be made a little more fine-grained if you use signal strength from the various towers an…

And that's fine, but none of this addresses the assertion that cellphones can't work without GPS tracking.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#323

Post by pandler »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #282
Raphmedia wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't get in the details because I'm no neurologist but there are a lot of news stories out there about how taxi drivers end up with a great memories from having to remember all the routes. There are also stories about how taxi drivers using GPS don't have all those memory improvements. I agree that news stories are not the best source of accurate scientific information so take it with a grain of salt. https://www.…

> there are a lot of news stories out there about how taxi drivers end up with a great memories from having to remember all the routes The question is, does that do them any good? It might help them in the rare case there's a problem with navigation data, but 99% of the time it's a wasted effort, and personally, I purposefully prefer taxis/transport services that use navigation. My own opinion is that we should treat…

> The question is, does that do them any good?

Anecdotally, I used to have a phone with a really bad battery that I couldn’t be bothered to replace, so I was constantly running out of charge. I started training myself to look up directions on google maps, then memorize the next 5-10 direction steps and compete with myself to make it to my destination with the fewest number of map checks.

I continue to do that, because it’s done a few things for me:

- it’s fun and I get personal gratification out of my improved sense of direction and orientation - driving/riding is much more engaging because I’m paying attention to my surroundings (looking for visual queues for my location) instead of just putting on music and turning on mental cruise control - I travel a lot and feel a lot safer when I have a mental backup of where I am, in case I run out of data or if I lose signal, which happens from time to time - I feel less attached to and reliant on my phone

To your point, it’s something I decided is worth my time and effort, if even just for the entertainment.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#324

Post by Chaebixi »

plorg wrote: post #68
laurent123456 wrote: post #13

What are these "Google" notifications? Is that a "Google" app generating them? If so, can't it be disabled or uninstalled? I don't have this on my Android phone but I've uninstalled or disabled everything Google related. And if you don't want to be tracked, you can also switch off Location History.

I have Location History on (it's complicated to justify it in my own head, but I find the feature useful, and it's not like my phone company and Google don't know my location - at least this way I get some benefit from it). I have basically every other "history" item disabled on my Google account. I constantly encounter new features that I'm interested in using, but for whatever reason they require me to enable App a…

> but for whatever reason they require me to enable App and Web Usage History (or something like that) for my Google account, so I decline, as I don't want to open that can of worms.

Such as dictating new text messages in Android auto. Boggles my mind how they could legitimately need by web history for that, especially since replying to text messages works.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#326

Post by Chaebixi »

amelius wrote: post #107
ovao wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lack of affordable options? My banking app supports only two platforms, one of which is too expensive, and the other is made by Google.

Also Android is a more open platform. I can't reasonably side-load personal apps in iOS.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#327

Post by singularity2001 »

singularity2001 wrote: post #316

This creep factor was the main reason why I got another IPhone. As a developer I'd much prefer an Android (hating the Apple Store but thats another story), however as a user Android was a total no-go.

I was even daring enough to install the superb Google keyboard on the iPhone but only because they explicitly repeatedly say that they do not send my data home. if they ever do Google is dead!

Speaking of: Why does Siri (mother of all bitches) thinks she needs my GPS in order to tell me the weather??

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#328

Post by wvenable »

rhizome wrote: post #293
wvenable wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a cellular telephone -- they need to know all the cell towers near you and direct your phone between them. It's a rough area but my phone provider definitely knows I'm at work right now.

GP said, "cannot function." How did cellphones work before they came with GPS?

Your assumption is that GPS is required to know where you are. But each cell tower has a well known physical address and your phone connects to multiple towers making it trivial to triangulate your location. Much less exact than GPS and highly dependent on cell density, etc.

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC...

But even just the connection cell tower number is enough to determine whether or not you're at home or work.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#329

Post by singularity2001 »

JepZ wrote: post #53

Yeah, Google could still be the cool company they were around 2000, if they just were not so greedy about collecting data for their Advertising business... Another thing is that every time you start using an Android phone, all Google sync services are activated. So you have no chance to disable them until its too late and Google uploaded all your contacts into their cloud. That should be illegal.

actually I'm pretty sure it in Europe it is illegal. thanks for pointing it out.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#330

Post by kajecounterhack »

rhizome wrote: post #113
kajecounterhack wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as centralized companies go Google is one of the better ones. It's unfortunate that so much power accrues to only a few entities. But slamming Google is like slamming a side effect of a bigger problem: many markets are naturally winner takes all and vertical integration confers enormous benefits. I don't see much of a way around this but many feel stronger regulations to protect consumer data should be enacted…

As far as centralized companies go Google is one of the better ones. Gonna have to ask you to define your terms here, pal.

Sorry. I meant to express that Google represents a company that has been successful at centralizing a lot of data, wealth, and engineering ability. Others include Apple, Amazon, Facebook, etc.
Post reply on HN