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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

#301

Post by 0xb100db1ade »

krn wrote: post #112
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…

I installed Chromium on Ubuntu today, and on the first run was given an opportunity to opt out from Google's personalized ads being shown to me based on my entire web browsing history. It was that moment when I realized, that what I had just installed was not primarily a web browser, but a Google application with a web browsing feature built-in. Because everything in it was built to optimize Google's ad revenue. It e…

Take a look at ungoogled chromium

https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium

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

#302

Post by dustinmoorenet »

chrischen wrote: post #300
dustinmoorenet wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Google doesn't come to your house, take you in for questioning and then pressuring you into confessing that you did something wrong which disturbed civil order. Stories about what happens in China: https://chinachange.org/

You're absolutely right. We take people from other countries and put them in a facility on Cuba and deny them their rights. We treat our own citizens better, and enforce these same standards on China because we must Make America Great Again. Here's Last Week Tonight's recent episode focusing on forced confessions in the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET_b78GSBUs HBO's miniseries "The Night Of" is a great look in…

Isn't it nice how we can have TV shows that point out the problems in the US while also being filmed, financed and distributed within the US. John Oliver would have been deported if he did the same in China.

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

#303

Post by AnthonyMouse »

krn wrote: post #292
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. In what way are Windows and Edge "software" but Android and Chrome are not? > That's why there's a public Bing Search API[1], but there's no public Google Search API. The company that is operating a data service is the one not in the data bus…

> In what way are Windows and Edge "software" but Android and Chrome are not? > The company that is operating a data service is the one not in the data business? A company in the software business charges for the usage of its software (Windows, Bing API). A company in the data business gives the software for free, and monetizes the data it collects about its users (Android, Google).

> A company in the software business charges for the usage of its software (Windows, Bing API). A company in the data business gives the software for free, and monetizes the data it collects about its users (Android, Google).

A services API isn't software. You're not buying a copy of the code and running it on your computer. And Google offers the same category of thing (paid services), e.g. the Google Maps API or G Suite, while Microsoft offers free services equivalent to google.com and gmail.com like bing.com and outlook.com.

Meanwhile Microsoft has been giving away actual software like Windows 10 for free, along with a variety of other things like IE/Edge (including for non-Windows platforms), VS Express, the Skype software, etc.

They're direct competitors operating in largely the same markets and using the same business models.

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

#305

Post by parinvachhani »

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.

You also cant use the Google Assistant on your phone without turning on the Voice & Web Activity afaik. Its terrible. I switched to DuckDuckGo and dont care much about giving up some convenient features anymore.

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

#306

Post by jkn »

jiaweihli wrote: post #221
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with images disabled?

No, disabling images breaks pixel tracking. One way to quickly sanity check a mail client's priorities is whether it gives you the option to disable images by default. Some clients that don't allow you to disable by default: Polymail, Gmail on iOS, Inbox (Google) on IOS If it's free, you're the product...

Ha I thought you were wrong, but it turns out that indeed, you can disable image loading in the Gmail Web interface, in the Android app, but not on iOS: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?co=GENIE.Platf...

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

#307

Post by krn »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #303
krn wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what way are Windows and Edge "software" but Android and Chrome are not? > The company that is operating a data service is the one not in the data business? A company in the software business charges for the usage of its software (Windows, Bing API). A company in the data business gives the software for free, and monetizes the data it collects about its users (Android, Google).

> A company in the software business charges for the usage of its software (Windows, Bing API). A company in the data business gives the software for free, and monetizes the data it collects about its users (Android, Google). A services API isn't software. You're not buying a copy of the code and running it on your computer. And Google offers the same category of thing (paid services), e.g. the Google Maps API or G S…

> A services API isn't software. You're not buying a copy of the code and running it on your computer.

It's called SaaS, which stands for "Software as a service"[1].

> They're direct competitors operating in largely the same markets and using the same business models.

Google generates 84% of its revenues from ads[2], Microsoft generates 95% of its revenues from software[3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service

[2] https://martechtoday.com/google-posts-31-1b-in-total-revenue...

[3] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2018-Q1...

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

#308

Post by bobdole123456 »

krn wrote: post #299
bobdole123456 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What now? https://developers.google.com/custom-search/json-api/v1/usin...

It's Google's Custom Search API, designed to increase the usage of Google, not to replace it. Bing Search API allows creating new search engines that don't send user data back to Microsoft. That's why DuckDuckGo is powered by Bing, not Google.

Except that the entire reason most sites are searchable is because of the analytics includes on every single page, everywhere.

So, literally every click you make is trickling data back to Facegoogsoft, because that’s how indexing works.

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

#309

Post by snr »

zachberger wrote: post #213
snr wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The new version of Chrome signs you into the browser even if you don't want to sign into the software itself" Damn. I just realized that. Signing out of browser signs you out of GMail. And signing into GMail signs you into the browser. Went to download Edge but turns out it's not on Win Server. MSFT really needs to get its act together.

Out of curiosity why are you using a web browser on a server?

Employer's choice of workstation OS :/

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

#310

Post by snr »

koolba wrote: post #217
snr wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The new version of Chrome signs you into the browser even if you don't want to sign into the software itself" Damn. I just realized that. Signing out of browser signs you out of GMail. And signing into GMail signs you into the browser. Went to download Edge but turns out it's not on Win Server. MSFT really needs to get its act together.

Why not Firefox?

Yep that's what I ended up eventually downloading. Edge on Win 10 is not bad actually.
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