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After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

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Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#201

Post by haZard_OS »

mattmanser wrote: post #127
rapnie wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have been using FF Nightly on Android for quite some time. In addition, I have uninstalled or disabled every Google app I can find on my device. Last year, I switched to unlimited mobile data and (almost) never use WiFi, even when easily available. I use DDG instead of Google.

  Consequently, I am never nagged by Google apps or social media apps. I just don't have any problems like what I hear other people experience. Particularly amusing is seeing that my inferred location is way off.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#202

Post by blackrock »

This may be the minority opinion here.

But Facebook, Google, and all these other shady companies that collects massive personal data, in ways that were never envisioned of being collected. They need to be reigned in. They have overstepped their boundaries of what is socially acceptable.

Facebook should just call themselves the FBIbook, because they have amassed such huge amounts of private data on us. And they have also done unethical things like creating fake dark profiles of you, or your children, and tracked them on their usage of the internet. This is egregious.

The creepiest thing by far, is their usage of facial scanning, to create a facial biometric of you. Their technology is probably something that the FBI has wet dreams of having. And they use this to identify you in any and all pictures on the internet.

Their next move, might be to actually partner up with brick-and-mortar stores, or CCTV surveillance cameras, to get a real time biometric identification on people. All the CCTV cameras at Walmart, Target, and in the malls, will get fed into the Facebook brain, and Facebook can build a real time tracking system as you wander through their digital surveillance system.

I just want to go to the mall and enjoy an ice cream with my loved ones. I'm not interested in getting tracked by Facebook's creepy surveillance system. This is akin to walking around in a digital virtual prison, that we can never escape from. And once this technology is built, then it will get expanded everywhere. To every single street corner camera, and combined with your smartphone's GPS, it's the perfect thing to track you everywhere. Just to sell you an ad, for something that you don't want to buy.

If you thought they make a lot of money now, by selling ads on their platform. Just imagine when they decide to go down this route. Their revenue and profit potential will explode! And they will be unstoppable.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#203

Post by darren_ »

simfoo wrote: post #86
justinzollars wrote: post #35

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

They also do this with Google Maps on Android. Disabled Location History sharing with Google? Sorry, we cannot remember the last search term you entered in Google Maps ON THE SAME DEVICE. This is so infuriating

That would be terrible if it was true, which it isn't.

Source: literally just tried it.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#204

Post by stjohnswarts »

simfoo wrote: post #86
justinzollars wrote: post #35

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

They also do this with Google Maps on Android. Disabled Location History sharing with Google? Sorry, we cannot remember the last search term you entered in Google Maps ON THE SAME DEVICE. This is so infuriating

Use waze, it works better anyway and basically uses the same info backend as google maps

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#205

Post by stjohnswarts »

product50 wrote: post #81
justinzollars wrote: post #35

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

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…

I wouldn't mind them using aggregate anonymous information, but they don't need to know my every move, so I turn off google everything and use alternatives.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#206

Post by stjohnswarts »

murukesh_s wrote: post #113
sfotm wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Bing is good in search, I switched to bing after google search showed a result directly in the top of search results after parsing an amazon shipment email. I realised they are tracking too much. Every company who depends on ad will do or eventually do that unless there are regulations in place. As a user it's up to you how much you want to share your data with third parties and advertisers.

use startpage.com google search without the tracking

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#207

Post by stjohnswarts »

rapnie wrote: post #133
product50 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well - there are competitors but they aren't nearly as good. Usage and popularity of these alternate products tell a story.

Unfamiliarity also goes a long way. I recently switched to DuckDuckGo. In the beginning I would compare my search queries with results from Google.. found there wasn't all that much difference.

checkout startpage and searx as well. better results than DDG

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#208

Post by stjohnswarts »

bowlich wrote: post #139
zeta0134 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I already pay them $5 a month so I can use myname@mydomain.com for e-mail (I believe this also exempts my inbox from their ad-based data mining, but I could be wrong) I would gladly up that to $10 or $15 a month to extend that across all of Google's products (Youtube, Search, Maps etc.) and have advertising stripped from the whole thing and my "peronalization" data sandboxed so it doesn't get leaked to the "free" ver…

can i just use "me@gmail.com" rather than some company name? I'd really just be paying for the knowledge that google isn't plowing through my data and sending it to 3rd parties. My company name is already associated with another host provider.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#209

Post by stjohnswarts »

downandout wrote: post #121
murukesh_s wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's time a model will come up where you have an option to choose between an ad supported and paid version.

Take a keyword like "mesothelioma". Are you going to personally reimburse Google for the $100 that an advertiser would pay them for your click that they will lose by not showing you an ad with this keyword?

try 1 cent.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#210

Post by Buge »

Draiken wrote: post #168
mattmanser wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would buy that if they did that occasionally, but all their services behave badly when you try and take back some privacy. To me it feels like they're deliberately making it painful when you minimise what you share with them.

I'd have to agree with the parent post. They create things for the 99.9999% that don't care about privacy and will never touch those settings. When you leave that massive group, that's when bugs will be way more common. We could argue that they intentionally only care about UX when you give them your data but then again that's capitalism, right? They might have to give you choice to turn those things off, but nobody…

>They might have to give you choice to turn those things off, but nobody can force them to give you the same experience.

Isn't that basically what GDPR says? You have to be able to opt out of anything, without breaking things except when absolutely necessary.

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