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New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

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Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#101

Post by remusrm »

snazz wrote: post #29
mscasts wrote: post #5

This is scary stuff. Thank you norway for taking the fight against Google. How can you turn this off on an android?

Installing LineageOS without any Google apps (including Google Play Services) might be the only way to continue using Android minus the tracking. You lose quite a bit of convenience for this, though. And of course, you’re still being tracked by virtue of it being a cell phone with a baseband processor (see my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18821444 ).

I do exactly that, and only use waze in town and HERE maps everywhere else. Only problem seems to be GPS signal is really hard to pick up, and always wants google play services, same goes for google maps.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#102

Post by nmg »

sudo-i wrote: post #82
diogenescynic wrote: post #64

Yelp is the worst about this. You can’t even use most features on the mobile website without downloading the app so they can suck up all your info.

Reddit too, they cripple their mobile website to force you into their mobile app and hence your data.

old.reddit.com still works well for me (as well as it ever did) on mobile. The login is (intentionally?) broken, so I use i.reddit.com to login.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#103

Post by module0000 »

mscasts wrote: post #55
tirpen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn of "Location History" and "Web & App History", for your google account from https://myaccount.google.com/data-and-personalization Before you deactivate them, I suggest looking through the data Google has saved in them for a while so you grok the full scale of how horrible those settings truly are.

Jeez, that is truly terrifying. I hate Google even more now. I can see my history years back. It seems that I cannot delete it just "pause" it? Seriously? EDIT: Found it, it was just hidden several layers down.

Darn you, now I had to go through the same process. The page to delete the data was not obvious to locate - scary and sad.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#104

Post by mulmen »

jerf wrote: post #95
mulmen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Are you talking about adding a shortcut to smile.amazon.com to your homepage or do you mean the actual native app? I can add a shortcut (on iOS) to smile.amazon.com but I don’t see why that would ever send me a notification. The native iOS shopping app has no option I can find to default or even select smile. Am I missing something? Also what does Amazon have to do with SV?

It's the native app, albeit in beta, so you may not have it yet. You can turn on smile functionality in the app, but you must turn on all notifications. "Also what does Amazon have to do with SV?" Amazon is part of metaphorical Silicon Valley. So's Microsoft, for instance. Metaphorical Silicon Valley is too large to fit in literal Silicon Valley.

Is IBM included in metaphorical Silicon Valley? What about Expedia? Or Concur? Seems very arbitrary. Is metaphorical Silicon Valley only applicable to negative actions of tech companies or does it apply to all big tech companies? I searched for “metaphorical Silicon Valley” and didn’t see anything relevant.

Also how did you get into this beta and where is the actual option? Is it under notifications? I’d prefer to use the native app and still use smile.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#105

Post by simias »

sudo-i wrote: post #82
diogenescynic wrote: post #64

Yelp is the worst about this. You can’t even use most features on the mobile website without downloading the app so they can suck up all your info.

Reddit too, they cripple their mobile website to force you into their mobile app and hence your data.

Oh man, tell me about it. I lurk on Reddit from time to time from my smartphone and the experience nowadays is terrible. I have like half a dozen elements disabled using u-block to make it somewhat bearable. From the pulsating button at the top of every page to the multiple dialogs taking turn to harass you into installing the app...

On top of that I've noticed that the website keeps getting slower and slower to load what's effectively a few KB of plain text comments.

The state of the web in 2019 is frankly shameful. Those are tactics that you should expect from shady websites, not some of the biggest players in the field. Everybody is trying to trick you into going against your best interests.

The GDPR did a good job at highlighting that for me, suddenly all the websites in the world deployed a wealth of ingenuity to develop new dark patterns to trick you into opting into the tracking, using ambiguous controls and confusingly worded instructions.

I hope this is only a phase and we'll move away from this toxic ad-driven business model sooner or later but honestly at this point I'm not holding my breath.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#106

Post by dokov »

sidibe wrote: post #71
IanCal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR/etc. absolutely deliver on this: > Frankly it's insulting to say that adults cannot decide for themselves how they want their data used All those laws really push is you have to actually let people know what you're using the data for, ask if you can (so that they're able to decide) and make sure you take care of it. It doesn't say you can't decide for yourself, it just makes it an actual decision.

GDPR does not allow you to trade services in return for using your data for ads. A website can't deny you service if you opt out of tracking, so EU has decided that business model should not be viable even if both parties agree.

That is a sane approach, we need to find a balance and currently there is no balance.

For instance, you're not allowed to use your preset home address on google maps by google, if tracking is turned off.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#107

Post by p49k »

sudo-i wrote: post #82
diogenescynic wrote: post #64

Yelp is the worst about this. You can’t even use most features on the mobile website without downloading the app so they can suck up all your info.

Reddit too, they cripple their mobile website to force you into their mobile app and hence your data.

They are getting more and more aggressive about it too. Recently they add a full modal covering content and forcing you to “choose to view in app or browser”.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#108

Post by jerf »

mulmen wrote: post #104
jerf wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the native app, albeit in beta, so you may not have it yet. You can turn on smile functionality in the app, but you must turn on all notifications. "Also what does Amazon have to do with SV?" Amazon is part of metaphorical Silicon Valley. So's Microsoft, for instance. Metaphorical Silicon Valley is too large to fit in literal Silicon Valley.

Is IBM included in metaphorical Silicon Valley? What about Expedia? Or Concur? Seems very arbitrary. Is metaphorical Silicon Valley only applicable to negative actions of tech companies or does it apply to all big tech companies? I searched for “metaphorical Silicon Valley” and didn’t see anything relevant. Also how did you get into this beta and where is the actual option? Is it under notifications? I’d prefer to us…

I didn't do anything in particular to get the beta; the offer got pushed to me.

As for SV, the inability to draw a rigid, precise line around a phenomenon doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Life's fuzzy.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#109

Post by simias »

nmg wrote: post #102
sudo-i wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit too, they cripple their mobile website to force you into their mobile app and hence your data.

old.reddit.com still works well for me (as well as it ever did) on mobile. The login is (intentionally?) broken, so I use i.reddit.com to login.

It's a pain if you follow links to reddit that don't explicitly link the old subdomain. I think maybe if you have an account you can force it (?) but for us lurkers it's annoying. Of course I could create an account to browse reddit but then... well they've already won, haven't they?

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#110

Post by falcolas »

aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #78

Whenever you tap a link in the iOS YouTube app, it starts nagging you to download Chrome, or continue with the old boring Safari... There's a pre-checked switch at the bottom of the dialog that says "Ask me which app to use every time". Now, even if you uncheck the switch and choose Safari, they will only let you off the hook for around a day; after this cooldown period you're "offered" to download Chrome yet again,…

It's either "not my project" or "not my fault" (pointing at PM/Management/Marketing), or "it's actually a good thing".

So, pretty much like everyone else associated with companies that do moderately shady things.

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