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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

#381

Post by jayd16 »

reaperducer wrote: post #243
jayd16 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While Voice Match learning the sound of your voice sounds like a completely local task But voice rec is not local. The reason it asks to store your voice is because they need to send it to their backend for recognition.

But voice rec is not local Voice rec was local until about ten years ago. You could even buy software dictation products that installed from CDROM and didn't need a network connection. I shouldn't need a network connection to do anything voice on my own device. It should only reach out to the network for things it doesn't have local knowledge of.

If its that easy you should make an app because there's certainly a market for it. The reality is online connected services are far far better.

There's a reason voice rec has only now finally stuck.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#382

Post by darren_ »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #377
rifung wrote: post #209

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. 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…

I feel like you may have entirely dismissed the issue that location-based advertising is quite possibly, the most valuable form of advertising Google can conduct, and Google has massive incentives to collect location data. Statements like "there is no incentive for the Maps team to take in more data" feel like they completely ignore your employer's primary business model.

So I in fact work on the maps team. There is absolutely no _personal_ incentive for me (or anyone on my team) to help Google collect more location data. I will not get a bonus for it, I will not get an increased perf rating for it, any benefit I would get from it (increased stock price, I guess?) is so completely abstracted away that it simply does not register.

There is an incentive to have increased usage of the features I'm in charge of, many of which are intrinsically tied to (or superior with) location access. I don't believe that's the same as incentivizing the collection of location data, because it's not our real goal - if Apple would provide it I would absolutely love to provide users with a 'one-shot' location feature (it's probably too clumsy but the idea is when the user hits e.g. the directions button, the OS pops up a permission box and if they agree then maps gets one and only one GPS fix and then the permission is back off).

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#383

Post by creato »

StavrosK wrote: post #380
creato wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure I understand. Overwrite the local data with what? If you have history on the server turned on, then there's only one set of data, you don't need to overwrite the local data with anything. You just keep it where it is.

> If you have history on the server turned on, then there's only one set of data, you don't need to overwrite the local data with anything.

This is a bad assumption and why you would ruin a product like google maps if given the opportunity.

Google already had this problem for years with Contacts. I had local contacts on my phone, and contacts stored in my google account. It was a complete clusterfuck of duplicates, stale data, etc. Years later after I had this problem, Google added a fairly complicated power-user tool that let you reconcile this data. And then years after that, the tool became not-a-power-user tool and wasn't bad.

But we're still talking years of issues, for data that is probably a hell of a lot less complicated than what maps stores.

edit: And that said, I still have issues every now and then with that contact reconciler tool, it doesn't always do the right thing.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#384

Post by ben_w »

jayd16 wrote: post #381
reaperducer wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But voice rec is not local Voice rec was local until about ten years ago. You could even buy software dictation products that installed from CDROM and didn't need a network connection. I shouldn't need a network connection to do anything voice on my own device. It should only reach out to the network for things it doesn't have local knowledge of.

If its that easy you should make an app because there's certainly a market for it. The reality is online connected services are far far better. There's a reason voice rec has only now finally stuck.

On my iPhone, the voice keyboard works pretty well in airplane mode. Not quite as well as when it has signal, but the difference is small… with the sole exception that it recognises everything as if it is English in Airplane mode, and only uses the language of the keyboard (if different) when I have signal.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#385

Post by StavrosK »

creato wrote: post #383
StavrosK wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand. Overwrite the local data with what? If you have history on the server turned on, then there's only one set of data, you don't need to overwrite the local data with anything. You just keep it where it is.

> If you have history on the server turned on, then there's only one set of data, you don't need to overwrite the local data with anything. This is a bad assumption and why you would ruin a product like google maps if given the opportunity. Google already had this problem for years with Contacts. I had local contacts on my phone, and contacts stored in my google account. It was a complete clusterfuck of duplicates, s…

I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm talking about having server history turned on and then turning it off. What's the synchronization problem you see with that? I have no idea why you're talking about contact syncing, and if you mean that you need to sync locations like you sync contacts, then how is that a problem Google doesn't already have?

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#386

Post by ACow_Adonis »

Pxtl wrote: post #324
pyr0hu wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * use anonymous/private/porn mode browsing most of the time (except for sites I actually want to be logged in permanently) instead of this, I just use Firefox and use the Multi-Account Container function to separate my browsing

Firefox is great on desktop, but I've found it too slow and clumsy on mobile, sadly.

But with the ad-blocker installed, you get a bonus speed boost that doesn't apply to the other browsers...

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#388

Post by [deleted] »

aherz wrote: post #123
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?

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.

[deleted]

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#389

Post by polyfather »

pyr0hu wrote: post #299
FabHK wrote: post #276

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…

> * use anonymous/private/porn mode browsing most of the time (except for sites I actually want to be logged in permanently) instead of this, I just use Firefox and use the Multi-Account Container function to separate my browsing

The following command can be handy for one-off sessions. It won't interfere with your already-running instance of Firefox and uses a random profile in /tmp (which you can still monkey with if needed).

  firefox -no-remote -profile $(mktemp -d)

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#390

Post by userbinator »

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…

I think one of the clearest examples of this is "old Microsoft" vs "new Microsoft". Windows used to be something you bought (or pirated...), and then MS would just leave you alone. But Windows 10 is definitely headed towards the "service" model; despite being a product that can be bought, it's also full of deeply embedded nearly-impossible-to-remove telemetry and gives Microsoft power to arbitrarily disrupt you with forced updates and other unwanted changes.
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