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After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

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Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#231

Post by antod »

dawhizkid wrote: post #34

If you frame the question as "how much value do I get from X in exchange for my data?" I think the answer is clear that Google > Facebook. G Search, Gmail, Analytics, Docs, YT (original home of Khan Academy) etc. all contribute to my learning and productivity...with FB the total opposite.

Good point about the benefit side of the equation, but also on the cost side even though Google probably knows much more about me I'd still trust Google more than Facebook to not leak that data to someone else.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#232

Post by coretx »

georgebarnett wrote: post #160
Bombthecat wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that one day Apple will also use / sell your data. Why? Because it makes them even more money...

What evidence do you have for this baseless accusation? Apple have been hammering Google on privacy for many years and they have an incredible track record on privacy when they’ve had their feet held to the fire with the FBI.

Means, motive and opportunity. There is so much money to be made out of privacy infringement that it's safe to assume at least the border of crime will be touched. Either that, or a CEO will be wiped by the shareholders. Ergo, the accusation above is not so baseless at all.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#233

Post by rapnie »

hetspookjee wrote: post #223
vvanders wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that FF on Android just isn't up to par yet. Even on a OnePlus 3T, HN stutters when scrolling. It's a shame because I'd love to ditch chrome.

It's weird cause I'm using FF on an far inferior phone, Huawei p10 lite, and it works out great for HN .

Same experience here. On average 40 tabs open, Privacy Badger installed. No problems anywhere (except for the dark patterns). Runs like a Swiss clock :)

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#234

Post by mayniac »

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 really don't mind Google as much when it comes to data collection.

Primary difference between them and Facebook is that I feel Google has a lot more transparency with what data they hold on you. With Google I just deleted all my account activity which is older than a week. Facebook gave me no such option, I even had to write a fucking 600 line python script using OCR to spam click delete buttons on timeline because there's no way to delete activity using the API.

I also agree with you that Google actually provides a service that Facebook doesn't. There's dozens of Google services I use on a weekly basis. I deleted my FB account because of privacy issues but leave my location on my Android for Google Timeline, despite them keeping a log of where I've been every second of my life I a) trust them more with that data than I trust FB to know my hair colour and b) I actually use that feature and think the payoff is worth it.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#235

Post by dingaling »

modeless wrote: post #125
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…

> actually, I would pay to use most of Google's good services. A lot of people say this. You already can pay for Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Photos, and YouTube. Are you paying for them?

> You already can pay

Where 'you' is a minority subset of the Internet population.

I am in the UK and use Google Search and YouTube. The only way to pay is with my data.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#236

Post by dingaling »

icebraining wrote: post #49
wybiral wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My feed often randomly recommends "SJW owned compilation" and "feminism fails". I had the same videos queue up in mine and nothing I watch seems even remotely related to that. My YouTube usage is pretty "family friendly" so it struck me as particularly odd to see such blatantly divisive hate videos. I've even seen weird ads about deep state conspiracy stuff on there too. Their algorithms seem totally broken because…

Where do these appear? If it's in the Recommendations, you can delete them, then a link appears called "Tell Us Why", and in that dialog you can see which video in your history influenced that recommendation (and tell it to stop recommending stuff based on it). It's always worked quite well for me. I have zero crap in my recommendations.

You can only do that if you have a Google account. For everyone else yve Recommendations feed is an uneditable, unhidable list of click bait and dross.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#237

Post by cdancette »

MarkMc wrote: post #225
cdancette wrote: post #4

Next is passing laws to avoid those kind of problems (like GDPR). It's not sufficient to go after each shady company that sells your data.

GDPR isn't very effective in that regard. 98% of Facebook users will just click 'Agree and Continue' when promoted, giving Facebook the legal right to buy/sell whatever data they want.

GDPR is just a first step and obviously is not the whole solution to this problem. But I believe it's a necessary step, even if not perfect.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#238

Post by mattmanser »

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…

99.9999% means only 1 in a 1,000,000 care, where's it's more like to be 1 in 10 or maybe 1 in 20. If you'd said 90% or 80% you'd be closer.

It's stupid to make such a wild proclamation, that, for example, only 70 odd people in the whole of the UK care.

For Google it's millions or 10s of millions of their consumers.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#239

Post by mattmanser »

haZard_OS wrote: post #201
mattmanser wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah, I've switched to DDG on my mobile too as a result.

Re: After Facebook scrutiny, is Google next?

#240

Post by unicornwizard »

sfotm wrote: post #99
product50 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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…

I stopped using DDG a few days ago, when I noticed the !g flag is not encrypting traffic to google anymore, it just redirects to google.com. Do you know what is up with that? Using startpage now.
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