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Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

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Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#31

Post by vuln »

yipbub wrote: post #28
system2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a simple take it or leave it situation. There are alternatives. I don't get people getting mad because a private corp is doing something with their own software.

Can you uninstall Google Maps from an android phone? It's because that private corp is so big that it is starting to control much of the internet and devices so this is an issue very much in the public purview. It's not as simple as take it or leave it. The corp in question spends billions to insinuate itself into your life, make you dependant, eat competition, and then you can take it, but you definitely can't leave…

Just Google?

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#32

Post by dabernathy89 »

You also can't use Google Home to control iot devices (in my case just a wifi plug) without having that setting enabled. I know most folks concerned about this tracking wouldn't have a Google Home anyway, but it was annoying to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#33

Post by Analemma_ »

ENGNR wrote: post #4

I can’t even ask my phone to set an alarm anymore without giving it my entire web and app history. Google is vulnerable here as they’re creating a very real need for basic alternatives

They’re creating a need, but that doesn’t mean they’re creating a market opportunity. Google has taught everyone that all this stuff should be free, and that’s no accident: it’s a deliberate strategy to suck up all available oxygen away from potential competitors. Someone (Ben Thompson maybe?) described Google’s strategy as not just building a moat, but scorching the earth for hundreds of miles in every direction from their castle. It’s unbelievably difficult to build a direct competitor to Google unless you’re starting from a position of huge capitalization (and even that’s no guarantee... I don’t exactly see techies flocking to Bing after they complain about Google)

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#34

Post by lvs »

digitaLandscape wrote: post #26

There was a lot of uproar about this internally but nothing changed. They told us that this was the only "practical" option. The company has rotted.

From the outside, it seems to have reached a tipping point in the past year that is now getting quite dramatic. A whole string of heavy-handed, anti-user, and privacy-hostile decisions. What just happened to the culture that would allow all this evil behavior? Or did we misunderstand it all along?

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#35

Post by woranl »

lvs wrote: post #34
digitaLandscape wrote: post #26

There was a lot of uproar about this internally but nothing changed. They told us that this was the only "practical" option. The company has rotted.

From the outside, it seems to have reached a tipping point in the past year that is now getting quite dramatic. A whole string of heavy-handed, anti-user, and privacy-hostile decisions. What just happened to the culture that would allow all this evil behavior? Or did we misunderstand it all along?

Sundar Pichai is now CEO. What else do you expect?

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#36

Post by anonytrary »

This is not very least-privilege of them. I would measure a company's trust based on the error:

  |whatTheyAskFor - whatTheyNeed|/whatTheyNeed.
This number should be << 1. Being error-prone doesn't make you look very good. Stop asking for more than you need, it shows that you don't really care about your customers. You look less competent when you require more permissions than you need to accomplish a task. Don't do that.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#37

Post by hylianwarrior »

maxxxxx wrote: post #18

In a way stuff like this and the recent news that they don't delete their own cookies from Chrome when deleting all cookies could be good news. It seems to become clearer and clearer that Google is getting desperate to squeeze more and more data out of people in order to sell that data. Hope they will lose their good guy image because now they are just another big greedy company like all others. Nothing wrong with th…

Why on earth would you think Google would sell its most valuable asset? Google does not sell user data, it builds on it. The more data they get, the better and better their AI will develop.

Looking back, when they announced they were going to become an AI-first company these sort of drastic data-grabs and privacy issues should have been apparent. But hindsight is 20/20...

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#38

Post by lvs »

woranl wrote: post #35
lvs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the outside, it seems to have reached a tipping point in the past year that is now getting quite dramatic. A whole string of heavy-handed, anti-user, and privacy-hostile decisions. What just happened to the culture that would allow all this evil behavior? Or did we misunderstand it all along?

Sundar Pichai is now CEO. What else do you expect?

I guess that may be right. This is what you get when you put an MBA in charge of anything you care about.
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