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Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

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Re: Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

#151

Post by lallysingh »

rchaud wrote: post #129
lallysingh wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but breaking a written policy is (AFAIK) fraud and has some teeth to it.

Assuming that you, an individual, can prove not only that the policy was broken, but also broken at the time when the policy was in effect. T&Cs change often, and only major changes require notifying the user. The entire burden of proof would be on you, vs. a behemoth corp whose bottom line depends on maximizing data collection and retention. Go to court on your own dime, prove it, and yes, the penalty might have som…

Usually AGs do that. They're slowly coming around to this being a major thing.

https://www.law.com/therecorder/2018/12/19/facebook-is-being...

Re: Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

#152

Post by Sheep_McSheepy »

hcnews wrote: post #146
Sheep_McSheepy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot comment in too much detail as not sure how much information is public but tape backups are also in scope for wipeout and user data is removed from them.

Is any copy of data anonymized and still kept around in ml models etc.?

I'm not an expert in this area but from what I know, personalized ML models are rebuilt often from fresh data that is not anonymized so if you request your data to be removed, then it's gone from these models as well.

That said, there's also data without PII (anonymized) that is not attached to any specific user, that of course is not subject to this data wipeout as Google wouldn't know what to delete. Such data can be used for general ml models.

Not sure how it's done at Google but anonymization is tricky and it's easier to gather two forms of information from the start, one with PII and one without PII. I think most large companies are doing it like that.

EDIT: Just remembered one thing. At Google, even when building general models data that is rare cannot be used because it could be used to identify specific people. For example: If search query is used by less than X people on a given day then these queries cannot be used for model building.

Re: Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

#153

Post by 50656E6973 »

Circuits wrote: post #53

TBH I dont mind Google knowing all this stuff about me. I like targeted ads. What I dont like is the idea that someone could steal that information from them and use it against me. Soak up as much info as you want from me Google, idc but if you're going to do that than you better damn well be able to keep it protected.

>you better damn well be able to keep it protected

There is no 100% security.

Some companies do a lot better job than others at protecting their systems, but it's only a matter of time before they are breached or information is leaked, especially a high value target like Google.

If a powerful nation state wants to breach a corporation, they will.

So, the real question is this: is an affinity for targeted advertising really worth creating the most detailed psychological profiles in history on billions of people if it is inevitable that this information will be compromised and used for more nefarious purposes?

Re: Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

#154

Post by Felz »

hawaiian wrote: post #122

There's a hint of hubris in this move, the way I see it. Google must have enough confidence in the interferential power of the data they've accumulated that they can now wash their hands of anti-privacy dark patterns and declare themselves pure. It's a huge PR win without having to commit to deep changes in their (primary) business model.

Assuming that were true, wouldn't it be a massive existential risk to Google? The finely tuned ML model that classified everything correctly before might catch fire and explode if the thing generating its data changes.

In practice I assume that data has highly marginal value for them so the small percent of people who bother to use this won't matter much.

Re: Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

#155

Post by Faark »

xvector wrote: post #73
teekert wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often get reminded by apps that "This app will not function when play services has no access to: Contacts, calendar, call history (and about 5 more things)". I once turned everything I though to be unnecessary off from the settings. Indeed nothing ever stopped working correctly but many things started nagging me periodically, while functioning perfectly.

I just stopped using Android after shit like this. Privacy is an afterthought at best, despite the great new permissions model. And it's absolutely not Android's fault as much it is app developers' faults. Want to use an app that tracks your dreams? Most devs will have you sign up for their terrible service so they can store the information in plaintext on a server. At least with iOS most devs seem to opt for CloudKi…

> And it's absolutely not Android's fault as much it is app developers' faults

I do see it as a shortcoming of android that i cannot redirect unwanted capabilities into a harmless sandbox version of those.

Re: Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

#157

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #21
aiiane wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if you choose to delete it, it will be deleted. (It takes nontrivial amounts of time to delete it across distributed service architecture but the deletions do get propagated.)

I simply do not believe this. Unless they're audited by a source that can be trusted and have the findings made public, I will not believe it either.

You don't have to believe it, but it helps rationally thinking about incentives.

What is worse:

- losing some data of the 0.1% of users who actually care, or

- the regulatory and PR nightmare that would happen if they don't and it is brought to light?

Re: Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

#158

Post by eigenvector »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #63
hdfbdtbcdg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point the big companies probably need to submit to some external audits to really get trust back.

I've worked on wipeout compliance at Google and IMHO there's no possibility that an outside auditor would ever be able to understand those systems to such an extent that they would discover a flaw in them that wasn't previously known to the many engineers who work full-time on wipeout. The systems are just too complex. One does not simply `find -type f /google` to figure out what data is available.

I disagree. Compliance enforcement of complex systems is not done by sending in a team of engineers to reverse engineer the whole thing. What you do is require the regulated corporation to maintain auditable evidence of its compliance in a specific format, then do routine auditing of the evidence. You only do a true deep dive into their systems if the routine audit shows non-compliance or potential fraud.

Re: Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

#159

Post by luckylion »

Sheep_McSheepy wrote: post #144

One thing that I find very interesting in the comments is people's approach to Google services. It's no secret that Google makes money from ads and models based on the user usage on their free services. A lot of people are complaining that if they disable data collection, try their hardest to not contribute to these data models and block the ads with ad blocker then some feature doesn't work for them. So you just wan…

> So you just want to use Google services completely for free without contributing anything.

Not necessarily. I believe that google's services are good enough to use them, and I'd certainly pay a few bucks a month to do so and be their customer - and not be the product that they sell to their customers. I'm also pretty sure that they'd make more money off of me paying them for providing a service to me than they make by selling my data to advertisers (me blocking ads and all that). If the only way of "contributing" however is to give up my privacy, then yes, I don't want to contribute.

Re: Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

#160

Post by qntty »

dmitriid wrote: post #121
aiiane wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'justcodebruh' your comment is marked as dead, but to answer your question I work on Google's privacy engineering team.

Your team is doing a shitty job, to be completely honest. This comment and all the comments beliw it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809168

People will be more likely to consider your criticism if you are specific. Can you recommend an incremental improvement that aiiane could push for?
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