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Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

nautil.us

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Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#111

Post by Erlangolem »

product50 wrote: post #107
droidist2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel like many people would though, even if it was a one-time $0.99 purchase.

One time $0.99 won't justify this. Companies can make far more money per user from ads. It has to be a subscription model for it to be tenable.

I believe FB makes something like $6.50 per user. Obviously Google makes money from users too, and given overlap it seems likely that one user is worth quite a bit annually. Average that out over lifetime value, and we’re talking thousands of dollars.

Imagine if the likes of Equifax treated silos of data as a liability instead of an asset to be milked. Properly valued, a breach of hundreds of millions of people’s data would end a business, even as large as Equifax.

Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#112

Post by whatyoucantsay »

Facebook is ethically bankrupt, but their power is much more limited. Google is nothing less than the greatest threat to humanity. Trump, North Korea, militant Islam and Putin all pale in comparison to what Google is capable of. Only Xi's increasingly nationalist and modernized China is capable of remotely the same kind of threat, but Google has a huge lead in military robotics and will probably reach the AI tipping point first.

They have been a beautifully gilded trojan horse, beloved in the beginning, but in the end most of humanity will likely regret having given away so much to Google.

Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#113

Post by hueving »

drawkbox wrote: post #97
some_account wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Which company is more powerful with your information? That little ISP who has no real use of it, or Google, the most powerful ad agency with ties to American agencies in the world? You may be able to bypass Google but almost everybody else won't. It's time to open your eyes for what they are.

> That little ISP who has no real use of it Those little ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, AT&T etc. I can't imagine those small companies would want your data or want to use it after bribing politicians to get the right to do it. Everyone knows Google tracks you, same with Facebook. They offer a service and people understand that. You aren't paying you are the product. You are paying your ISP for access to the intern…

>They offer a service and people understand that.

No they don't. Maybe in a superficial sense, but the vast majority of the public doesn't have any clue how data can be combined and mined to reveal far more than they thought they were bargaining for.

Otherwise there would be no sudden Facebook scandal.

Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#114

Post by vatueil »

lucb1e wrote: post #59
thriftwy wrote: post #24

You can also dump it and not miss a beat. Much harder to do with Google. Facebook is thoroughly non-essential.

On the contrary, how do you drop: - Android (iOS is the only alternative, and that's much worse in terms of openness) - Maps (OSM, Apple and others don't have the same amount of business information) - Search (I have DDG as default, but find myself returning at least once a week to google search because none of the other search engines will give good results) - Images (Bing and DDG are even more terrible at images th…

That's actually the same point the parent comment by thriftwy was making. The two of you are not in disagreement.

But as for your argument, didn't you just list notable alternatives for most Google products? To the extent that the competitors may be less attractive (though plenty of people say they prefer iOS, Bing, DDG, etc.), that just emphasizes how useful Google's products are. Most of them can even be used without a Google account, too.

It's strange to talk about the value Google services contribute as a bad thing. If you want to argue that value is still not worth the data they collect, that's a separate matter (and one that is logically at odds with arguing how great Google's utility is).

Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#115

Post by aylmao »

Erlangolem wrote: post #111
product50 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One time $0.99 won't justify this. Companies can make far more money per user from ads. It has to be a subscription model for it to be tenable.

I believe FB makes something like $6.50 per user. Obviously Google makes money from users too, and given overlap it seems likely that one user is worth quite a bit annually. Average that out over lifetime value, and we’re talking thousands of dollars. Imagine if the likes of Equifax treated silos of data as a liability instead of an asset to be milked. Properly valued, a breach of hundreds of millions of people’s dat…

This is interesting actually. In theory it makes sense for them to offer a subscription that gets rid of ads, and if priced well it could make them more money on a user than ads. I'm sure a few people would be pay $5.99 - $9.99 for ad-free Facebook, especially if this means getting rid of video ads too.

Yet, if too many people opt for the paid option, technically advertiser value would fall, since less users would be targetable. Moreover, $6.50 average per user means they probably make close to no money on some users, but a lot of money on others. If only their high-yielding users opt-in to an ad-less Facebook, this could mean big losses for them.

I guess this is why they haven't offered a paid version as an option ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#116

Post by partiallypro »

mattlondon wrote: post #106

If you use FB, you have to be logged in and actively engaged by you providing your identity to use it. Google can be used without logging in or tracking. That is the critical difference for me - to use Facebook you have to actively be part of the social graph and share your identity. Google wants you to sign in, but you don't have to (apart from Gmail etc) To block tracking from most people you can: * Block third par…

Not entirely true. Facebook, like Google, has tracking pixels on pretty much every site now. I find Google and Facebook both to be fairly terrifying in their immense power. I also fear Amazon, I used to be an avid Amazon shopper, but now I try to go out of my way to not use them if I can help it. I never thought I'd live to see companies like Apple and Microsoft being more of the good guys than their competitors (relatively speaking.)

Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#117

Post by m_ke »

mattlondon wrote: post #106

If you use FB, you have to be logged in and actively engaged by you providing your identity to use it. Google can be used without logging in or tracking. That is the critical difference for me - to use Facebook you have to actively be part of the social graph and share your identity. Google wants you to sign in, but you don't have to (apart from Gmail etc) To block tracking from most people you can: * Block third par…

Facebook tracks everyone that comes across a page with a like button.

They also purchase data from 3rd parties https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/30/facebook-buys-data-on-us...

Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#118

Post by l33tbro »

ivanhoe wrote: post #23
sykh wrote: post #8

What is scary is the unregulated way in which massive amounts of data can be used to sway public opinion so easily. What is even scarier than this is the way in which those in power can use massive amounts of data to sway public opinion without oversight. The very notion of a republican form of government may end up needing to be reanalyzed. Forget concentrating on Google or Facebook. There is a larger concern. If mu…

Tools used to exercise political influences are getting more sophisticated and powerful, but the gameplay was always the same. Before it was Radio London, then radio Free Europe, and in countries where it was possible local TVs and radios financed directly or indirectly from US or Russia to promote their views. Now it's social medias. Superpowers were always doing this to others and the only new thing here is that th…

Sure, but all of the examples you give are of bad actors trying to influence the opinion of the general public. In 2018, the same bad actors are using private information to change the opinions of fragments of individuals in certain electorates, who each share a certain set of beliefs/biases.

The difference is huge. Why? Because when propaganda is crafted from the unique kinks of an individual and then secretly projected back at them with button-pushing messaging, it forgoes any chance of call-out from public scrutiny.

Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#119

Post by Twirrim »

fantispug wrote: post #63
drawkbox wrote: post #11

Your ISP tracking your every move is scarier than all of them after the ISP privacy bill passed. At least Facebook and Google give you something for it and you can route around them if you desire. No routing around ISPs unless you use a VPN but even then they are blocking those. Broadband/cable/telcos capture everything you do and can now sell that information and do[1]. That bill was the pre-cursor to removing net n…

On https sites there's not a lot ISPs can track without breaking encryption. With shared IPs they may not even know the domain for certain (although as IPv6 takes off it will be easier to map IP to domain).

They can make a fair guess at which websites you're accessing. A lot of websites that are related to your particular interests aren't behind shared IP addresses these days.

Consider this: * Build a list of domains you're interested in. There's fun community build blocking lists that can help you, if you need it.

* Periodically resolve every domain. Odds are if you're an ISP your servers already have the records cached, but it isn't too hard to resolve them all.

* Dynamically adjust your routing to specifically re-route those IP addresses to your special infrastructure (or maybe null route it if you want to block access)

* Use your special infrastructure to build up whatever profile you want about the source IP address, which of course being an ISP you'll be able to link directly to a user. Your end user won't even know.

You'll know when they access sites, be able to build up patterns of websites they access, in which order, and spot variations in that pattern.

There's a lot you can infer from metadata without decrypting the traffic. Everything from which domains you access, ports used for the communication, what order, and what sort of size the payloads are. You could identify that someone has an email account they only access after visiting, say, the Ashley Madison website. By tracking the size of communication on that is being sent to figure out if someone is sending dick picks or some such, or if it's likely just plain text.

Re: Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?

#120

Post by tgtweak »

drawkbox wrote: post #97
some_account wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Which company is more powerful with your information? That little ISP who has no real use of it, or Google, the most powerful ad agency with ties to American agencies in the world? You may be able to bypass Google but almost everybody else won't. It's time to open your eyes for what they are.

> That little ISP who has no real use of it Those little ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, AT&T etc. I can't imagine those small companies would want your data or want to use it after bribing politicians to get the right to do it. Everyone knows Google tracks you, same with Facebook. They offer a service and people understand that. You aren't paying you are the product. You are paying your ISP for access to the intern…

Not entirely true, you can use a vpn, but then you're placing trust in a vpn provider.
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