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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

#351

Post by creato »

StavrosK wrote: post #215
creato wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Answering "no" should mean you store it locally, not that you don't store it at all. If you tell Google not to save your search history on their servers, they just disable it completely, when they could just save it locally. I think you are ridiculously underestimating the complexity and issues that would arise with two separate mechanisms for saving the same kind of data, and an option to switch between the two. D…

> Do you download account-saved locations locally when changing to local storage? No, you delete the data that's on the server. That's the reasonable way to handle a revocation of consent from the user.

Obviously. I'm asking what you do before that. Do you just throw it away? That's going to piss people off. Do you overwrite the local data? That's going to piss people off. Do you try to reconcile it? That's hard to do and messy, and probably will piss people off.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#352

Post by quickben »

DennisAleynikov wrote: post #177
beezischillin wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to explicitly save and store a history of every voice command to do voice recognition.

there might be implementations that don't do this for instance Siri or Bixby but that doesn't mean Googles approach is wrong. It can be unacceptable for your privacy and security threat model but for most it makes 0 difference wether the training continuously happens in the cloud or locally on the NPU inside your phone. Saving all the clips as much as people love to fear monger it is literally the strategy that objec…

"but for most it makes 0 difference wether the training continuously happens in the cloud or locally on the NPU inside your phone."

Sadly, nobody will ever know if this is true as the choice doesn't exist.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#353

Post by justwalt »

Crespyl wrote: post #131
ingenieroariel wrote: post #91

I have had to visit the #nixos channel in Freenode (IRC) lately on a computer with all tracking disabled and the Recaptcha that is usually just click and continue becomes a multi-minute endeavor finding street signs, cars and buses. You really get punished if you opt out of tracking.

I'm sure this isn't done, but I do have to wonder if it'd be possible to identify a user by their unique behaviors when interacting with the extended Recaptcha puzzles. Something like writing style analysis, but applied to patterns of mouse movement, click timings and positions, or recognition rates for particular types of problems.

With a large enough dataset, I bet you totally could. But if someone were completely anonymous, it might require too many inputs for it to be practical in a one off situation. I’d guess you could identify someone with enough time after they got a new computer.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#354

Post by sandov »

swiley wrote: post #346
sandov wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Replace stock android with LineageOS if your phone is on the list of supported devices [1]. It has worked great for me. [1] https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

That's nice but a huge chunk of android has been moved into google's closed source "play services." It's pretty much impossible for the average person to have a functioning phone without that, they don't even maintain the open source mail client any more.

I've used it for a year without Google play services.

The basic OS utilites (camera, SMS, file manager, "phone" app, etc) are part of the Lineage base and don't need play services. You can also install f-droid which has a good variety of open source apps, including mail clients.

I even installed Whatsapp (downloaded the apk from whatsapp's website), which doesn't require play services.

Now, I don't think LineageOS is for the "average person", its for people who care about their privacy and like having control of their device, but you don't need to be some sort of long-bearded hacker to be able to use it.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#355

Post by nroets »

Loughla wrote: post #307
tspike wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart.com has stepped it up recently. Still a long way to go, and I doubt their intentions are any better, but competition is healthy.

As much as Amazon seems to be throwing their mud in consumers' collective faces, the Waltons are 100% not better people and Wal-Mart's entire success is based on exploiting low-wage workers and subsidizing your workforce through social programs. That's like trading arsenic for cyanide.

Last year I spent 5 months cycling through the US. Walmart was the one place I could consistently find healthy food such as fruit at low prices.

Many other retailers have specials prices on fruit that only apply to loyalty cards holders. Obviously they track their customers.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#356

Post by contravariant »

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…

At this point I'm convinced they're deliberately making their captcha's impossible, to annoy me for taking anti-tracking measures.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#357

Post by will_pseudonym »

_jal wrote: post #194
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…

Their music app is actually great, because it automatically shows lyrics for songs while they're playing. You get 2M songs with Amazon Prime, but the full library costs the same as Spotify/Google Play/Apple Music/Tidal/Pandora/etc. You can also scroll through the lyrics, and click the lyrics to seek directly to that part of the song.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#359

Post by scarface74 »

tivert wrote: post #345
scarface74 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we just need to stop buying from companies whose business model is anything other than you give them money and they give you stuff.

> No, we just need to stop buying from companies whose business model is anything other than you give them money and they give you stuff. So, stop using the internet, then? Uncoordinated collective economic action like you call for doesn't really work, especially when it's against the shareholder-value maximizing interest of a corporation.

I have an iPhone over an Android because Apple’s business model meets that criteria and nothing about the Android ecosystem does.

I have Roku TVs but they are set to automatically go to the HDMI input with my AppleTV. So I don’t have to use a remote that has hard coded buttons that go to the highest bidder and where half the home screen is an advertiser.

I buy business Windows PCs or laptops from the Microsoft store because they don’t look like a NASCAR car with all of the stickers and trialware.

I pay for ad free streaming services.

It’s not the “internet” that’s the problem. Websites have limited tracking ability if you use an adblocker. It’s your devices vendor that you have to worry about.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#360

Post by castis »

contravariant wrote: post #356
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…

At this point I'm convinced they're deliberately making their captcha's impossible, to annoy me for taking anti-tracking measures.

On the plus side I've become 400% better at identifying whether or not objects are traffic lights and/or fire hydrants.
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