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Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

theintercept.com

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Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#271

Post by zaarn »

JoshMnem wrote: post #34

> "The Dragonfly memo reveals that a prototype of the censored search engine was being developed as an app for both Android and iOS devices, and would force users to sign in so they could use the service. The memo confirms, as The Intercept first reported last week, that users’ searches would be associated with their personal phone number. The memo adds that Chinese users’ movements would also be stored, along with t…

The only remaining google usage I have is the Android play store, though I should flash a custom rom so I can use yalp store more effectively.

I'm done with Google and refuse to support their products and services.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#272

Post by skybrian »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #258
skybrian wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep making these arguments using hyperbolic examples that have little or nothing to do with what Google might (depending on how the internal politics work out) end up launching. Predicting the future is tricky, particularly when it involves the decisions of complicated political processes where the decision-makers (most likely) disagree. Plans often change. We can't possibly know what they're going to do. Maybe…

Do you really think PRC torturing and imprisoning dissidents is hyperbole? Really?

Yes. Of course terrible things do happen in China. But the assumption that Google's product will cause this to happen is currently just someone's imagination.

The product hasn't launched yet, might not ever launch, and we don't know how the product will work if it did launch. I'd hope they're thinking about how to make sure nobody gets in trouble, but we currently don't know what precautions they came up with.

There are lots of companies working in China. We know of one incident involving Yahoo. Do we assume without evidence that any other companies working there have caused dissidents to be tortured?

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#273

Post by krn »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #253
deegles wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because Microsoft's incentives are more aligned with ours. Better, more user-centric software == better outcomes for users, more Microsoft usage/profits. Google, on the other hand, is fundamentally incentivized to sell ads, which requires collecting data. The more data they collect, the more money they make. As the saying goes, we are the product. No amount of hand-wringing or shaming is going to change that f…

> That's because Microsoft's incentives are more aligned with ours. Better, more user-centric software == better outcomes for users, more Microsoft usage/profits. Microsoft is in the same business as Google. Search, Bing. Gmail, Outlook.com. GCP, Azure. They even operate an ad network. Google has some bad incentives but Microsoft has all the same ones. If not, why isn't there a single button for "never send any of my…

> Microsoft is in the same business as Google.

Microsoft and Google may have competing products, but they are in completely different businesses. Microsoft is in the business of software, Google is in the business of data. That's why there's a public Bing Search API[1], but there's no public Google Search API.

[1] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-service...

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#274

Post by lolc »

ccnafr wrote: post #146
lolc wrote: post #84

> “Leadership misled engineers working on [Dragonfly] about the nature of their work, depriving them of moral agency,” said a Google employee who read the memo. Lying to our own colleagues now are we? The end justifies the means I guess. Wait, what was the end again?

No offense, but Google is gonna launch that search engine regardless. Even if it's gonna have to outsource coding to China itself.

How does that justify lying about it?

If you're going to lie to your colleagues better have a very good reason ready. "They won't help me if they knew the truth" is not a good reason.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#275

Post by creaghpatr »

skybrian wrote: post #272
throwaway2048 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think PRC torturing and imprisoning dissidents is hyperbole? Really?

Yes. Of course terrible things do happen in China. But the assumption that Google's product will cause this to happen is currently just someone's imagination. The product hasn't launched yet, might not ever launch, and we don't know how the product will work if it did launch. I'd hope they're thinking about how to make sure nobody gets in trouble, but we currently don't know what precautions they came up with. There…

That is the weakest, most cowardly response you could ever give.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#276

Post by bubblethink »

kart23 wrote: post #220
bduerst wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn that off here, FYI: https://myaccount.google.com/u/1/activitycontrols

I've turned it off, but I found out that it removes a very useful feature: I can no longer set a home or work address. Why is this? You could've easily just stored those two addresses and not track everything else. They are clearly incentivizing the user to turn on activity tracking. Now instead of just typing in 'home', I have to input the entire address.

Yes, this bugs me too. They are also discouraging users like me from using maps at all, which is fine. Their app, their rules. maps.me, here we go maps and osmand all work reasonably well. Sometimes they aren't very good at finding addresses, but you can usually get the coordinates from an address using a separate tool or a web-search.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#277

Post by fauigerzigerk »

IBM wrote: post #197
bduerst wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Chinese government has the exact same access to Apple user data as before, which is through Apple. No, the Chinese government now owns the servers with the key storage. They now have access to all the keys and user data at rest. If the Chinese government is accessing all the user data because they requested Apple to put the user keys on their now-state-owned servers, then why does it matter if Apple controls the…

>No, the Chinese government now owns the servers with the key storage. They now have access to all the keys and user data. >If the Chinese government is accessing all the user data because they requested Apple to put the user keys on their now-state-owned servers, then why does it matter if Apple controls the keys? You're still splitting hairs. Apple said literally the opposite of this to Reuters and in this statemen…

You are wrong. Apple merely said "no backdoors will be created into any of our systems".

And no backdoors into any of Apple's systems are necessary because a government-owned company will be operating iCloud, including the keystore.

Apple's terms of service make this very clear:

"You understand and agree that Apple and GCBD will have access to all data that you store on this service"

https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/icloud/en/gcbd...

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#278

Post by sparkie »

ehsankia wrote: post #198
quickben wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I also think that there is an anti-Google bias on hacker news". Nah mate. When a company isn't paying me, I am unrestrictedly free to be objective. The problem, with companies (and with mafia, etc) starts once you take the money. So, from that perspective, what you read from most of us, is more objective than anything you read on your internal mailing lists. We, unlike your HR, don't care about morale, perception an…

So are you as critical with every other company that does business in China. Are you gonna throw out half of the products in your house which are Made In China? Are you also criticizing Apple and Tesla for doing business in China?

It isn't just about doing business in China, but the nature of the business (and propping up the Chinese regime).

Apple have had plenty of stick about their practices too. I think they just have too many diehard followers that the negative information gets drowned out by the positive.

I think there's a perception that Google is the one company that many people are (or were) supportive of, because of their past stance with regard to China. Google's former motto of "Don't be evil" convinced a lot of people that they have strong ethical standards. This may have been true in the early days. To me, it has not been true ever since Schmidt became CEO. I've been actively avoiding Google as much as possible since around 2005, because it was glaringly obvious even then that they were out to destroy privacy.

I also avoid Apple. Never liked their software, and they have pretty much the same problems wrt privacy.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#279

Post by prepend »

jiaweihli wrote: post #222
prepend wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the reason why you never enable images in your email client. Gmail sucks a bit because it always enables certain images in email and that means that google pixel trackers are really hard to block if you use google mail. If I were an employee, I’d switch to a non-google email client. The privacy issue is problematic, but their functionality is also buggy. Untrained users will misinterpret them as they can get…

Do you mean desktop Gmail enables certain images, even if you disable images by default? That's news to me, can you give examples of some sites for whose emails this is true?

I mean gmail.com accessed via browser.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#280

Post by quickben »

g00g3lethrow wrote: post #265
quickben wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I also think that there is an anti-Google bias on hacker news". Nah mate. When a company isn't paying me, I am unrestrictedly free to be objective. The problem, with companies (and with mafia, etc) starts once you take the money. So, from that perspective, what you read from most of us, is more objective than anything you read on your internal mailing lists. We, unlike your HR, don't care about morale, perception an…

A couple of months ago there was a post on the frontpage about some Google service being redesign. All the top comments about it found some non-obvious negative spin on it. That was the time when it became obvious to me how strong the anti-Google sentiment had become at HN. Look no further than this page. The top comment compares the Chinese Government's surveillance with being forced to sign into Chrome. There would…

It is just a reflection of the accumulated negative sentiment. If you categorize the users, on one end, you'd have a group that would complain about the redesign (but not care about world hunger as a problem, because it doesn't affect them), and on the other the egalitarian crowd that would react to Google's motives more than Google's moves (in China or elsewhere). Lately, it looks like Google is actively trying to alienate anything inside the user spectrum in search for profits.

Unfortunately we can't reach an engaging intellectual discussion on this. In the same way we can't about North Korea dedication about giving up the nukes, or women being able to drive in Saudi Arabia, because people are starving in family prisons and are being hanged and skinned alive, in 2018.

Sometimes the overall picture obscures the interesting intricate details, and as humans are emotional souls, in a very survivalist fashion, they react to what threatens them the most.

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