New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking • Hacker News Board

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#411

Post by ocdtrekkie » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:29 AM UTC

darren_ wrote: post #382

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fe…

That's fair, I suppose. I just suspect resistance would appear from up above if anyone tried to make location access significantly less required.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#412

Post by HeWhoLurksLate » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:32 AM UTC

swiley wrote: post #340

_jal wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Amazons search is TERRIBLE! I'm beginning to think sites that don't just let you download the catalog and search it yourself are probably trying to hide something. Amazon being the prime example of that.

> I'm beginning to think sites that don't just let you download the catalog and search it yourself are probably trying to hide something.

You know what would be a great feature? Letting you prioritize different categories, in relation to each other- on AliExpress, "fist sort by price, then by shipping arrival date" would be incredibly helpful- I'm totally willing to spend a bit more to get stuff here 20 days faster, and searching through everything for that is a PITA.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#413

Post by HeWhoLurksLate » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:35 AM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #331

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who was forcing the many famous Victorian philanthropist industrialists to build their railway and model villages, with free schools, hospitals and more for workers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_village

Mostly God, e.g. Titus Salt is listed in that article "Salt's motives in building Saltaire remain obscure. They seem to have been a mixture of sound economics, Christian duty, and a desire to have effective control over his workforce. There were economic reasons for moving out of Bradford, and the village did provide him with an amenable, handpicked workforce. Yet Salt was deeply religious and sincerely believed that…

> Now, God doesn't exist

Do you have a definitive source for that?

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#414

Post by throwawaymjabba » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:39 AM UTC

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…

Another one is body sensors. I disabled body sensor permission for play services. Whenever I am using Google Maps, it would complain about the permission every few minutes. Thankfully, found later an option to disable that nagging in maps setting. Maps still worked fine.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#415

Post by 29083011397778 » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:42 AM UTC

sandov wrote: post #354

swiley wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I even installed Whatsapp

This just switches being tracked by Google to being tracked by Facebook. They now have names, times, numbers, etc of people you talk to/interact with, as well as your rough location via IP, access point, or cell tower (which are shared with people who have location services enabled).

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#416

Post by StavrosK » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:44 AM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #410

StavrosK wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work at Google on the maps team? Do you know how the maps backend works or what the codebase of the app looks like? Do you have special expertise in the area? Let me guess: No. Yet not only are you so certain that it's hard, you're willing assign all sorts of benevolent motives to Google.

I do not try to hide my lack of authority, which is why I transparently couch my words with "it seems" and "my guess". I don't need to speak with authority here. If you want to stoke the flames of moral outrage, the burden is on you, not me.

Yeah, but all you said was "if you didn't work on X, you can't have an opinion about X", which is a completely useless and trivially wrong statement.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#417

Post by almuric » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:45 AM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #385

creato wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Most people have multiple devices. If it's all local, how do you keep it synced? I have a work PC, home Windows PC, Macbook, linux laptop and chromebook in addition to a phone. How do I sync across devices at all times? New contact is created on one device but how does it get to the other devices if there's no common server? New work location; new restaurant; new anything? Or are you assuming everyone only has one device.

I'm sure you've got it all figured out. You should go work at google and implement it.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#418

Post by StavrosK » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

almuric wrote: post #417

StavrosK wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Most people have multiple devices. If it's all local, how do you keep it synced? I have a work PC, home Windows PC, Macbook, linux laptop and chromebook in addition to a phone. How do I sync across devices at all times? New contact is created on one device but how does it get to the other devices if there's no common server? New work location; new restaurant; new anything? Or are you assuming everyone only has one de…

I don't know what you aren't getting about this: Maps already has to implement sync. Disabling location storage on the server means that they don't have to implement sync. Each device has its own history. I can't explain it more simply.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#419

Post by james_s_tayler » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 5:16 AM UTC

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…

So what we have learned is that manipulation works.

Re: New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking

#420

Post by mda » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 5:16 AM UTC

pornel wrote: post #332

My "favorite" Google dark pattern is suggesting "Privacy Checkup" when I'm logged out. The checkup of course requires signing in. This is so cunning — they make it look like they care about my privacy, while in reality they upgrade from no tracking (signed out) to at least default tracking they allow themselves in the ToS.

Why is this a dark pattern? There could be a lot of people who sometimes sign in and sometimes stay logged out, the privacy checkup is useful for them, even you might have some settings from past you might want to see. This is not a dark pattern, HN became hysterical.