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https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols by the way.
Followed the link. Read the description at https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/54068 There is absolutely nothing written about this being a way to opt out of their purchasing and tracking credit card use.
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A lot of attention in the press is given to Google et. al. about purchase profiling and tracking for ads. But the concept of purchase profiling has existed really since the invention of the credit card. As others have mentioned hedge funds have brokered this data for decades - but for some reason it has not been covered as excruciatingly as it has for tech companies. While I disapprove of the practice overall I would…
It is somewhat ironic that Google is probably more privacy focused and has better security than any other company in the fortune 500 and yet they seem to get some of the most negative criticism here.
Google is in the business of utilising your data in the interest of advertising. No matter how you sugar coat it, the core of the business is tracking people and exploiting that data.
Are they doing their best to be careful and ethical? It sure seems like it, but that doesn't solve the issue.
The free services they and many tech companies provide for free are just payment for your data. The majority of people don't realise this implicit connection and many others do realise it but are happy with the transaction. But it's important to note that they undermine the ability to provide these services more ethically by setting a social norm of incredible services that are "free".
Edit: I will add that the cost and benefit to society of this kind of service provision is complex and nuanced, Google has obviously provided incredible value and society has decided that advertising is a fair price to pay, else they wouldn't be around still. But the true effects of immense tracking and advertising are still yet to play out completely.
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It is somewhat ironic that Google is probably more privacy focused and has better security than any other company in the fortune 500 and yet they seem to get some of the most negative criticism here.
You can be extremely ethical about your factory farm but it's still a factory farm. Google is in the business of utilising your data in the interest of advertising. No matter how you sugar coat it, the core of the business is tracking people and exploiting that data. Are they doing their best to be careful and ethical? It sure seems like it, but that doesn't solve the issue. The free services they and many tech compa…
Disclaimer: I work at Google.
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You can be extremely ethical about your factory farm but it's still a factory farm. Google is in the business of utilising your data in the interest of advertising. No matter how you sugar coat it, the core of the business is tracking people and exploiting that data. Are they doing their best to be careful and ethical? It sure seems like it, but that doesn't solve the issue. The free services they and many tech compa…
Google is not in the business of selling your data. Google does not sell your data. It’s pretty clear in their privacy policy: https://privacy.google.com/how-ads-work.html Disclaimer: I work at Google.
Google paid Mastercard millions of dollars for the data, according to two people who worked on the deal, and the companies discussed sharing a portion of the ad revenue, according to one of the people.
That is not an unusual arrangement for people with search indexes, party A provides a search query, party B provides 10 links to appropriate content and some advertisements, if the eyeball making the search clicks on an ad the revenue is split between in the index provider (party B) and the traffic provider (party A).
I've been repeatedly contacted by Google over recent years (supposedly because of the work I've done) but I've always felt uneasy about them and hesitated to respond. This additional layer of tracking and the recent revelation on location tracking regardless of explicit settings both seal the non-deal for me. The soul of that company is to turn the human experience into a vessel for the paid delivery of ads, nothing…
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Google is not in the business of selling your data. Google does not sell your data. It’s pretty clear in their privacy policy: https://privacy.google.com/how-ads-work.html Disclaimer: I work at Google.
You're right–people often conflate "selling" with "using internally to sell ads." There's a difference, and it's meaningful, but the point is that Google's business model is based on gathering and exploiting as much data about you as possible
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Your only option is to refuse cards altogether because they've all been selling anonymized data on you for years. The big hedge funds pay big dollars for direct lines of data from the credit card companies.
A lot of attention in the press is given to Google et. al. about purchase profiling and tracking for ads. But the concept of purchase profiling has existed really since the invention of the credit card. As others have mentioned hedge funds have brokered this data for decades - but for some reason it has not been covered as excruciatingly as it has for tech companies. While I disapprove of the practice overall I would…
I'm not affiliated with them.. Just a satisfied user. (Although happy to hand out referral links.)