Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you • Hacker News Board

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#111

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:12 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #103

efdee wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Activity one is a bit scary though. How many Android users are aware that Android tracks their app use and whatnot in this fashion? I think that's a point to take home. Users know that Google looks at their "location information". In their minds, it's to provide relevant weather info and whatnot. Seeing it aggregated in this way makes you realise that you actually are sending your entire life to Google servers.

Every time I've shown people stuff like that, they shrugged: "so what ?". They. Don't. Care. That's the problem, right here. Not that entities are selling people's privacy. Bad guys have always been there, and will always be. But usually people want to act against them. In this situation people don't want to. We got a very sudden outrage out of sheer media amplification effect. It will fade. And they will go back to…

[deleted]

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#112

Post by slenk » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

Calvin02 wrote: post #91

slenk wrote: post #4

But I willingly give my data to Google - they have (for some reason or another) kept my trust. Facebook broke my trust with data I didn't know they had collected.

What data does Facebook have on you that Google doesn’t collect? Google buys your credit card purchase data. Did you give it that? Why do you think Google wants you to stay logged into Chrome? Let’s be honest here and call a spade a spade. The world is just realizing how ads based business models work and there’s no difference between Google and Facebook.

Again, the difference here is that I let Google have this information and I am ok with that because of the services they offer me.

I never told Facebook to upload my cell-phone contacts to their servers, where-as with Google, I willingly store them using Google Contacts.

It's not so much the data they have, but how they obtain and use the data they have.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#113

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

danarmak wrote: post #24

This is nonsensical: > The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents. > Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents. This link [Google Takeout] includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve t…

[deleted]

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#114

Post by ttsda » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

>Somewhat pointlessly, they also store all the stickers you’ve ever sent on Facebook (I have no idea why they do this. It’s just a joke at this stage).

It's pretty obvious Facebook needs to store the stickers you sent if they store your chat history. They come in their own directory in the bundle so they can be shown in the chat HTML pages.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#115

Post by bhauer » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:23 PM UTC

danarmak wrote: post #24

This is nonsensical: > The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents. > Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents. This link [Google Takeout] includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve t…

I agree with you on the technical merit (or lack thereof) of illustrating the magnitude with colorful metaphors.

However, a counter point: I feel it is useful and helpful to our cause to have authors such as this creating those colorful metaphors. We have tried in vain to communicate to laypeople the importance of data safety, self-ownership of data, being mindful of one's privacy, and being suspicious of the data collected by third-parties. I believe laypeople remain disinterested because the way we raise these concerns is abstract.

In order to convince laypeople that control of one's data is important, those of us who are matter-of-fact on the matter will convey the facts and try to construct fairly mild-tempered plausible threat scenarios that are, frankly, unconvincing to the majority of people we are trying to convince.

For a good chunk of those we're trying to convince, vibrant and (to our minds, exaggerated) illustrations of the magnitude of the threat are what is necessary to tip the scale. The recent twitter thread that showed a map of Ireland with every point the user had been in the past several years was a poignant visual representation of our argument. It made the argument way better than repeatedly saying, "Google tracks your location, always!" When we've presented that abstract point previously, we've heard "I don't care, that's fine" as a response every time.

And then someone shows them this map and suddenly: "Whoa, that is creepy!" Yes!

I for one welcome a bit of colorful language, as long as we don't get totally carried away. I don't really dig the "Well, duh!" attitude if we convey that to the people we're trying to convince. We're trying to make laypeople value their own privacy and feel good doing so. Not judged for having been ignorant of or disinterested in our previous arguments. Be welcoming of this good favor in the fight for data privacy.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#116

Post by danarmak » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

bhauer wrote: post #115

danarmak wrote: post #24

This is nonsensical: > The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents. > Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents. This link [Google Takeout] includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve t…

I agree with you on the technical merit (or lack thereof) of illustrating the magnitude with colorful metaphors. However, a counter point: I feel it is useful and helpful to our cause to have authors such as this creating those colorful metaphors. We have tried in vain to communicate to laypeople the importance of data safety, self-ownership of data, being mindful of one's privacy, and being suspicious of the data co…

The problem isn't how they describe the size of the data. It's that the data whose size they describe is completely irrelevant to the point they are trying to make.

I didn't say "well duh, Google has at least 5GB on you, that's a small number really". I said "well duh, of course Google has your gmails and Drive docs" - and they are as small or large as you make them, their size is completely irrelevant.

I did snipe at the comparison to Word docs, not because it's a non-commensurable unit but because Word docs don't have a size - I can easily make a single Word doc 5GB large. But that was an aside quite irrelevant to my main point and maybe I should have omitted it.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#117

Post by Beamer92 » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #98

danarmak wrote: post #24

This is nonsensical: > The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents. > Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents. This link [Google Takeout] includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve t…

This is typical. As a techie, you're triggered by technical detail because you understand the technical details of that example that is intended to illustrate the size of the data collected. Rest assured that this happens all the time and when people read news about a topic that they are an expert on, they cringe all the time. For example, a paraglider pilot will get triggered if the reporter uses the word "Jumped" i…

Is it really the responsibility of a journalist to hold the hand of people not well versed in the topic at the expense of technical correctness? I don't think so, I'd prefer we hold a standard of being correct and put the onus of education on the readers. They can Google what they don't understand. We can educate the public better to not be afraid of technical details. I agree with danarmak, this piece like so many others is just a bunch of sensationalized details. You should know what you're signing up for, nobody should be surprised by anything in there.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#118

Post by honr » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:30 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #98

danarmak wrote: post #24

This is nonsensical: > The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents. > Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents. This link [Google Takeout] includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve t…

This is typical. As a techie, you're triggered by technical detail because you understand the technical details of that example that is intended to illustrate the size of the data collected. Rest assured that this happens all the time and when people read news about a topic that they are an expert on, they cringe all the time. For example, a paraglider pilot will get triggered if the reporter uses the word "Jumped" i…

Some of us do not subscribe to the "ends justify the means" theory. And with that, I'd consider this example a form of failed journalism. Regardless of whether or not there is actually an underlying point, this particular piece of pseudo-journalism didn't capture it. I chuckled when I read the author's description of himself/herself: "... who does extensive research into spreading technical awareness ...". One might think with the extensive research they have done so far, some of that technical awareness should have had reached the author, themselves.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#119

Post by danarmak » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #98

danarmak wrote: post #24

This is nonsensical: > The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents. > Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents. This link [Google Takeout] includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve t…

This is typical. As a techie, you're triggered by technical detail because you understand the technical details of that example that is intended to illustrate the size of the data collected. Rest assured that this happens all the time and when people read news about a topic that they are an expert on, they cringe all the time. For example, a paraglider pilot will get triggered if the reporter uses the word "Jumped" i…

> I do believe that calling out the 5GB illustrative example is missing the point of the article.

Please see my reply to bhauer's sibling comment, I think it applies here too. The problem isn't with the 5GB size or how they compare it to 3 million Word docs. The problem is with measuring the size of something completely irrelevant. The problem is with saying "Google collects data on you for advertising, they have data you wouldn't expect them to have" and then linking to data you explicitly, deliberately uploaded to Google yourself. The problem is with linking to Google Takeout and pretending it's something that it's not.

Re: Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you

#120

Post by Zak » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #98

danarmak wrote: post #24

This is nonsensical: > The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents. > Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB big, which is roughly 3m Word documents. This link [Google Takeout] includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve t…

This is typical. As a techie, you're triggered by technical detail because you understand the technical details of that example that is intended to illustrate the size of the data collected. Rest assured that this happens all the time and when people read news about a topic that they are an expert on, they cringe all the time. For example, a paraglider pilot will get triggered if the reporter uses the word "Jumped" i…

The difference between an incorrect description of a paraglider launch and a nonsensical comparison regarding the amount of data Google stores is that the latter is intentionally being presented as a proxy for the potential impact of that data.

To be able to interpret the article in a useful way, it is important to be aware that a single long, high-res youtube video could be 5.5 Gb and therefore that figure doesn't imply anything about what google knows about you. Of course, it would be easy for a non-expert to mischaracterize an aircraft accident in a way that matters to a layperson's understanding of why the accident happened and who is responsible.