371–380 of 463 posts
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Is it too hard to take the charitable view that by "SV Company" they mean "internet company?"
Yes because not all "internet companies" have the same culture as companies from the South Bay area.
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I am not sure that is really a trustworthy source at this point. Particularly since it seems to focus a lot on involving Hillary.
Agreed. Wikileaks may have been reputable at some point in the past but they're not trustworthy now. It's not so much the 'focus on Hillary' but their focus on being pro-Russian state. [1] The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has his own show on RT [2], which mean's he's essentially being paid by Russia's state propaganda media [3]. That, along with attacking the Panama papers leak for "going after Putin", and a…
RT has some of the best coverage of some things around, and this constant talking as of it is putins right hand in media form is grounded in tribalism and not in careful evaluation of the facts.
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?
In order to have youtube app work when the screen is off, you have to pay for youtube. Its something they could provide but if they can force you to pay or give up more data (paying in a round about way) they are going to do it
My list of degooglifying actions: * switch default search engine to DuckDuckGo (can still use !s bang when one wants to see what Google has) * use tracking blocker (uBlock origin, BlockBear on iOS) * use anonymous/private/porn mode browsing most of the time (except for sites I actually want to be logged in permanently) * use Zoho as a replacement for shared Google docs * use Youtube either in private window, and/or d…
You could also use Firefox Focus in iOS. It comes with a built-in ad/content/tracker blocker. Since content blockers are common to all browsers on iOS (everything using Safari/WebKit underneath), it would help other browsers too.
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…
This is how online services meeting the regulatory requirements and creating a positive image of being privacy-respecting, "we are giving people a choice over their data", meanwhile still allowing the unhampered collection of personal data in practice.
Or the principle can be worded as, "If everyone opt-out from the tracking in their privacy settings, our business is finished". You can opt-out, but their business model remains the same, and you are simply an outlier.
As I see it, the most interesting case study is Do-No-Track. When DNT has just became a standard, the response was mostly positive. Then something dramatic happened, Microsoft enabled DNT in IE 10 by default! Then amusingly, it triggered a total backlash from the industry. If you see the principle, it's easy to explain that.
But Microsoft surely understand this point. Then why did it decide to do this? I highly suspect Microsoft's decision was a conspiracy to intentionally kill DNT, even if most people won't active it anyway, but they may believe that having a simple and universal privacy toggle is still being a potential threat to the business of the industry, so they decided to sabotage it by making it default-on, thus nobody will treat it seriously, and Microsoft can use the "we care about your privacy" as an excuse.
One can't fix the privacy issues with a privacy setting. One needs to have an alternative business model in the age of Surveillance Capitalism.
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…
> There may be no intention of manipulation If random airmchair commentators can see the results as manipulative I guarantee that the program managers and devs can see it too.
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This is disingenuous and unreasonable. The setting is unnecessarily restrictive. It's simple: "Do you want us to store your data on our servers?" 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. This is nowhere near a product problem. The setti…
> 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. This is nowhere near a product problem. The setting is per-account, so it's not like it'd be disabled on one device and enabled on another, so they'd get some weird UX, they just like crippling…
My list of degooglifying actions: * switch default search engine to DuckDuckGo (can still use !s bang when one wants to see what Google has) * use tracking blocker (uBlock origin, BlockBear on iOS) * use anonymous/private/porn mode browsing most of the time (except for sites I actually want to be logged in permanently) * use Zoho as a replacement for shared Google docs * use Youtube either in private window, and/or d…
You can play youtube directly in major video players (mpv, vlc), at least on linux. Although, afaik, they use youtube-dl in the background.
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> 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.