131–140 of 255 posts
Congress should take action, and install a watchdog that continuously monitors these companies; e.g. by verifying that data placed online cannot be bought through different channels.
Why would google ever sell data? Surely it is their greatest asset?
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There are all kinds of such dark patterns. If you switch from Chrome to Firefox on Android you find all kinds of features missing, like in image search. It's some time ago I checked, but I want to do a comparison and report to some naming & shaming site. Anyone knows a good one?
Also try turning location off on your android phone so it only gets it when requested. The nagging, whining, breaking and pleading various google services do is confusing and annoying.
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"they offer real value services without which you can't survive a day on the web" This is just not true. There are viable competitors in about every space that Google is in. Use local documents and sync via a different storage provider. Alternate email providers exist. The only place where they have a distinct advantage is search, and even then, DuckDuckGo is usually enough (and if it's not, just pass a !g flag). You…
Well - there are competitors but they aren't nearly as good. Usage and popularity of these alternate products tell a story.
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Why would google ever sell data? Surely it is their greatest asset?
Google would be the last to sell your data as they know better then anyone the value. This and security is why I try to centralize my data at Google. In the US an ISP can sell your data without you even knowing. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/04/04/isps-can... ISPs can now collect and sell your data: What to know ... - USA Today
For example, let's say a bad actor creates a Google ad for pizzas, directed at gay people. Now if you see and click that pizza ad, the bad actor will know your sexual orientation.
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"they offer real value services without which you can't survive a day on the web" This is just not true. There are viable competitors in about every space that Google is in. Use local documents and sync via a different storage provider. Alternate email providers exist. The only place where they have a distinct advantage is search, and even then, DuckDuckGo is usually enough (and if it's not, just pass a !g flag). You…
For the HN crowd, this may be an option. The general public doesn't really care about privacy, and is not going to use DuckDuckGo or any other service whose primary selling point is privacy. The best search engine will win the market, and the best search engine will tend to be the one that can generate the most money to invest in its service. Even if someone comes in and beats Google at some point, they will do it by…
The spark that triggered the current firestorm Facebook is facing has nothing to do with Facebook’s practices—those have been apparent and obvious since before Facebook is as even a company. The spark was the confluence of divisive political headwinds and an outrage-driven news cycle. I’m thankful that spark has resulted in sustained scrutiny of Facebook, but without a similar environment and controversy, I doubt Goo…
Do you think that this would have happened even if Hillary had won the election?
Regulations like GDPR aren’t a reaction to Trump.
Concerned that google has so much info ( https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity ) I visited https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols to turn off Web & App Activity, but left Voice & Audio Activity on. This breaks my google home. I do not want Google to save 20 years of search history so I can use a stupid google home. For the first time I'm considering Apple's device. This is a dark pattern Google
Congress should take action, and install a watchdog that continuously monitors these companies; e.g. by verifying that data placed online cannot be bought through different channels.
That is wrong way to approach the issue. These companies should not be gathering personal information worse than NSA. Personal information is personal, and free people in a free society should not be followed by multinational corporations.
Rather, free people should be allowed to choose. And free people are the ones making these companies too.
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Yeah - you want to make use of Google services (search, maps, youtube, Photos etc.) for free and don't want to give anything in return. #entitlement Also, most likely you turning off tracking will impact your Google experience. Google is different than Facebook in that they offer real value services without which you can't survive a day on the web. Just count how many times you rely on a Google service in a day. The…
Okay actually, I would pay to use most of Google's good services. I expect them to do advertising and they do not (!) need that kind of data on me for their search result advertising to be relevant. They have my search term; that should be enough in isolation. I would pay handsomely for Google Maps, but I have no such option. Again though, that is a service that works just fine without my individual data; they have m…
The difference that I see between FB and Google is that I would trust Google to get that right. I would expect FB to say they sandboxed or protected my data and then have it turn out in court in ten years that they did no such thing...
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> For the first time I'm considering Apple's device. Apple does collect analytics, but those can be turned off in OSX at the very least. As a company, they are not currently geared towards data collection. They have publicly positioned themselves in favor of privacy.
I don't have problem if a company collects usage information. End of the day, they need it to improve the product. But for fuck's sake, DON'T sell it to others to increase revenue. Just use it for product development.