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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

#191

Post by wongarsu »

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 would define a Silicon Valley company as a venture funded startup that leverages tech and has a set of ideologies that is usually left leaning American, usually values growth over profit, usually is fine with taking the law less serious if it's in the way of growth or profit, usually has elements of hacker culture, ...

... or any company that started out this way, which is why Microsoft can be considered to be a SV company.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#192

Post by dreamcompiler »

What Android desperately needs is an additional API layer that provides apps like Google and others with fake location data and fake contact data so there's simply no way they can tell that you're holding information back. Turning off these data sources just makes them use dark patterns to get you to turn them back on; spoofing the data is the real solution.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#193

Post by rhizome »

blattimwind wrote: post #158
jerf wrote: post #45

This dark pattern seems to be spreading. Amazon recently pushed out an update to their (beta last I knew) web app that allows you to use their smile.amazon.com charity donation through the app. But in order to turn that on, you have to turn on all the notifications the app has, including their rather constant pushes of "deals I may be interested in". They're holding you hostage to their notifications because "it's fo…

On the website I always found it quite interesting that the "if you shop on smile.amazon.com its for charity" pop-up does not contain any link to the current page on smile.amazon.com; even the domain is plain-text. You need to type it in manually in the address bar.

Anytime I see something like that I can automatically conclude that they are fundamentally unserious about the initiative.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#194

Post by _jal »

jerf wrote: post #45

This dark pattern seems to be spreading. Amazon recently pushed out an update to their (beta last I knew) web app that allows you to use their smile.amazon.com charity donation through the app. But in order to turn that on, you have to turn on all the notifications the app has, including their rather constant pushes of "deals I may be interested in". They're holding you hostage to their notifications because "it's fo…

Amazon finally exceeded my tolerance for slimy behavior last year, and I let Prime lapse. The amount of time and energy they have put in to making it hard to compare prices in their own goddamn store was enough by itself; behavior like this is motor-oil icing on the garbage cake.

I had to readjust a few common purchases, but I was far less habituated to them than I thought I was. Having to actually pay attention and look meant I found cheaper options. And I never cared about Video or their other goofy add-ons.

Still handy for pricing data-points when buying elsewhere, though.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#195

Post by PavlovsCat »

itronitron wrote: post #80
benschulz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude makes me so off the charts angry, I struggle to put it into words. I think Jews in Germany in the 1920s didn't think they were doing anything wrong, or feel a need to actively hide it.

Schmidt's attitude shows just how much Google thinks it owns the internet. There is so much data out there that people can live in relative anonymity online (95% of bloggers) however Google crawls and indexes so much that many things become quite easy to find. All the tracking and linking and indexing that is done without a person's informed consent makes that person's intentional behavior a warped spotlight back on…

> All the tracking and linking and indexing that is done without a person's informed consent makes that person's intentional behavior a warped spotlight back on them.

Sure, but only in the minds of people who don't even know themselves, and can't make a coherent argument to save their lifes. They confuse the "data" they have on things with the things themselves, not to mention people -- same noobs doing the same shit, different day.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#196

Post by rhizome »

mulmen wrote: post #129
_ptgt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Right, and while we're at it Goldman Sachs shouldn't be considered part of Wall Street. They're headquartered…

Goldman Sachs is obviously a “Wall Street” company because they are based in NYC and participate in the financial industry. Amazon, Microsoft, Concur and Expedia are all headquartered in Washington State which is nowhere near Silicon Valley. Similarly IBM is headquartered in New York. My question is what makes a company outside SV a “SV Company”. This usage of the term is new to me so I am attempting to get a more co…

Is it too hard to take the charitable view that by "SV Company" they mean "internet company?"

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#197

Post by dzader »

maxxxxx wrote: post #31
levesque wrote: post #4

I tried using Google Maps without search history turned on. It's basically a downgraded version. They tied saving locations with the search history, so it won't let you search for friends' contacts, set a home address, etc. Is it on purpose? I don't know, but I find it weird that they would tie some unrelated features together. Why does setting a Home address require search history?

Yeah. Tying setting the home address to search history is pretty sleazy and there is no good explanation for this other than bullying people into turning on tracking. I am really getting tired of companies that want to suck up every piece of data.

Curious why you feel so entitled that you think Google should provide you with their free mapping service and features with nothing in exchange?

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#198

Post by ljcn »

OmarGonzalez wrote: post #140
aherz wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As manipulative as Google can be, we should keep in mind that Google Maps is incredibly useful and we get to use it for "free". Yes we pay with our data and privacy and Google can do a better job of making that transparent but we can only get so upset when we don't get the full version of a product when we don't want to give our data.

Yeah no, I rather pay a fee for that

There are plenty of paid-for satnavs. Tomtom Navigation GPS Traffic (Android)/ Tomtom GO (iOS) get good reviews for motoring. Citymapper is free and great for public transport. I'm sure there are many others.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#199

Post by stlHusker »

jimmytucson wrote: post #118
kache_ wrote: post #6

They constantly berate you to deactivate no tracking preferences on google maps. When you're aware of this fact you start seeing it everywhere, not just on google. For example, on Pinterest they will berate you to sign up using highlighted buttons on land, and the x button is out of the way on the top right corner. This end result is due to product managers/devs looking at conversion rates and optimizing for whatever…

> 3 or 4 rounds of A/B testing and you get the most efficient (read: manipulative) method of getting users "engaged" Now replace “engaged” with “to buy stuff” and that’s essentially online advertising. You’re being tricked by gurus of the mind to send your money to someone else. How this is legal represents a gap between traditional laws and modern times. The sad truth for us software engineers is, a lot of the most…

> You’re being tricked by gurus of the mind to send your money to someone else. How this is legal represents a gap between traditional laws and modern times.

Eh, this has existed for decades at a macro level in over-the-air television and radio. 'If you're not paying for the product, you are the product' is a quote that has been floating around since at least the 1970s. Methods and techniques now have the ability to target you individually but the overall premise is nothing new.

> The sad truth for us software engineers is, a lot of the most exciting work is at least tangentially related to refining this trickery: big data, machine learning, etc.

Well, I'm in Aerospace and there are plenty of interesting problems to solve here that have nothing to do with "trickery"; it's just that 100 year old companies aren't "sexy" to young kids, often don't "move fast and break stuff" and frankly don't throw obscene amounts of money to bait them.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#200

Post by wongarsu »

door5 wrote: post #153
sephoric wrote: post #134

Ethically I think the good old days of software products were superior to the current days of software services . Services are paid for by subscription or ads or selling data, so that they are forced to optimize for continued use. Products are sold as-is, with the hope that they are useful enough that enough people will buy them once and own it forever. It should work this way: you spend N months making a useful prod…

What if we thought of software not as a product, or a service, but a utility or a public good? There doesn't seem to be any way to monetize software that isn't destructive to users, either through paywalls or tracking/advertising, so why not publicly subsidize its development and release it for free?

If you do that you still want to allocate money in a way that encourages constant improvement as well as rewarding successful radical new ideas. And that's not easy to do in a way that doesn't generate problems very similar to the free market.

For example if "time spent in application" would be one of the metrics you use to allocate money then every user interface will be redesigned to require as many clicks as possible for frequent tasks, with fake loading screens in between.

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