The problem I have is the lack of transparency. Google lets you download "all of your data". But it's nothing near the entirety of what they collect about you. It's insulting.
It's time we learn what they know about us. I want to know.
Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
31–40 of 72 posts
Re: Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
#32I absolutely agree Google has a much wider ecosystem they cover: social media with google plus or whatever is left of it, video via YouTube, Images via google Photos, cloud infrastructure via Compute Engine, google work via G Suit, ISP via Google Fiber etc... All these have Term of Services with very broad language they can dragnet collect whatever they want. I don't mind sharing the information and I don't want the government involve and regulate how private entities work. But I also wouldn't mind having this companies put on the spot and have to explain how they handle the data they gather. How they handle ToS and/or Data breach. Facebook is a speck of dust compare to google.
Re: Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
#33Re: Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
#34Google is more dangerous than Facebook. In the later you usually have a persona you pretend to be. But Google knows you better than yourself. You can’t lie to Google. Is your teenage daughter pregnant? Do you have a disease that is socially rejected? Do you want to have an abortion? Are those pimples in your groin an STD? Are you secretly looking for another job? Google probably knows that before you do. And their bu…
Sometimes I wonder what Schmidt is _really_ thinking when he's handing out these statements. "Dumb fucks" [1] as well?
Re: Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
#35Fun fact: Google collects much more data from Android devices than from iOS devices. This might be unsurprising, and even obvious, but I was surprised how precise and intrusive that data is. The whole time I was using an Android phone with my google account logged in on the device, google recorded and retained basically everything. My location, without even me using the maps app. My old contacts which I deleted from…
It also annoys the hell out of me how often companies get away with something if they just say "Whoops, it was a mistake/bug." Google was recently found to track Android users' location even when they didn't have their GPS on. And they said it was a "bug". Like I'm just going to believe that from a company whose main objective is to track as much about us as possible. But my point is the FTC should have slapped them…
Can you link the article about Google tracking you even when location wasn't on?
I am curious because I more or less came to that same hypothesis, but had no hard evidence. I noted before that when I turned on and off location services, the GPS lock was near instantaneous (i.e. when I turned on location, Google Maps located me with GPS precision immediately. There could be other ways of how this happens, it was noted in another post of mine, but that had still had me a bit suspicious. I replaced Google Play Services with microG recently (https://lineage.microg.org/). I then saw that it was MicroG, NOT the OS, that had control over my location, and MicroG still tracks my location when Location is off(https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki...).
While none of this conclusively points to Google Play Services tracking me when it is off, the way that Android is set up makes me very strongly suspect that's what they did.
Re: Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
#36Google is on the list, but I'm going to break away from the flock and say they shouldn't be next . Credit agencies and data brokers, who facilitate the worst kinds of third-party privacy violation and about whom most people know very little, should go next. Then the government itself. Then Google, and then Amazon. BTW, if you want to have some fun, just try to imagine that the the government's interest in Facebook's…
Credit agencies and data brokers
Don't forget ISPs and mobile phone service providers
government's interest in Facebook's data practices is not so much to regulate it as to copy it
Nah, they're just trying to look like they're doing something in response to public outcry.
Re: Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
#37Google is on the list, but I'm going to break away from the flock and say they shouldn't be next . Credit agencies and data brokers, who facilitate the worst kinds of third-party privacy violation and about whom most people know very little, should go next. Then the government itself. Then Google, and then Amazon. BTW, if you want to have some fun, just try to imagine that the the government's interest in Facebook's…
"...Google is on the list, but I'm going to break away from the flock and say they shouldn't be next. Credit agencies and data brokers ... should go next... Why can't it be both? Serious question.
Because a "loss" can disrupt the momentum and public support that is snowballing with these Facebook headlines. Think about the failed attempt to break up Microsoft in the 90s. Regardless of how you felt about the breakup idea, Congress was spurned at that decision and avoided taking action on other emerging monopolies.
Re: Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
#38Google is more dangerous than Facebook. In the later you usually have a persona you pretend to be. But Google knows you better than yourself. You can’t lie to Google. Is your teenage daughter pregnant? Do you have a disease that is socially rejected? Do you want to have an abortion? Are those pimples in your groin an STD? Are you secretly looking for another job? Google probably knows that before you do. And their bu…
If we really want to deal with Google's enormous power, we'll need to tackle the issue at both ends: political and technical. As for politics, it doesn't look like Google is going to be attacked the way it happened to FB - the CA affair was almost an accident. And Google knows better and will do everything to avoid accidents.
The second issue is technological. The competing search engines are not there yet, although they're continuously improving. Google got where they are not only by text search, but also extending the search categories horizontally. The competing search engine would need some smart minds to come up with something extra, something genuinely useful that would make people flock there.
Then there are all other parts of Google ecosystem that people depend on: Gmail, Adwords, Adsense, GA. And millions of Android devices. How to eradicate all that from our lives? It will take decades to complete - if we started now, that is.
Re: Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
#39Google is on the list, but I'm going to break away from the flock and say they shouldn't be next . Credit agencies and data brokers, who facilitate the worst kinds of third-party privacy violation and about whom most people know very little, should go next. Then the government itself. Then Google, and then Amazon. BTW, if you want to have some fun, just try to imagine that the the government's interest in Facebook's…
Facebook is in a completely different privacy universe from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter and Snap.
Facebook actively employs dark patterns to get people to over-share. Google does not.
Facebook has a social graph of 2.2 billion people. Google does not.
Facebook has been caught repeatedly, systematically and recklessly leaking personal information to third parties over the last decade and a half. Google has not.
The 84 million profiles Facebook leaked to Cambridge Analytica is the headline, but it's far, far worse than this. Facebook quietly acknowledged that they've also leaked profiles of "most people on Facebook" to "malicious actors" [0]. There's nothing even close to this in the Google universe.
Facebook is the primary vector for subversion of democratic elections around the world (not only in the US, see for example the Philippines [1]). Google is not.
There are many alternatives to Google services that are a click away. There is no real alternative to Facebook.
So yes, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter, Snap, etc. have a lot of data, so they're on the list. But they're not in the same league as Facebook.
[0] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/restricting-data-access...
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/how-rodri...
Re: Facebook is in the privacy spotlight but should Google be next
#40Not saying Google is a saint, but it's orders of magnitude better at privacy than Facebook:
- Malicious actors can't access most Google data has on you. Especially not by releasing psychological quiz app.
- Google is not tracking logged out users. New id is assigned to logged out users only for very short periods of time.
- Mostly compliant with GDPR for years prior to the regulation being released. The same can't be said for Facebook.
- Search results are much harder to manipulate by malicious actors than Facebook news feed ranking - based on the history of such manipulations.
- I don't work on either right now, but at the time I did Google had way much better internal access controls for employees.
Amassing personal data can be considered unethical on some levels, but amassing personal data can't be equated with being bad at privacy. Among "personal data hoarders" Google is by far the most coginzant about keeping that data private.