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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

#181

Post by joshuamorton »

dmitriid wrote: post #172
joshuamorton wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you claiming that you can't actually delete your data? Or are you saying that letting you delete your data isn't a thing? Because "letting you delete your data" seems to be a thing the company is doing. Which you say we should look at.

No one can say for certain how, and when they delete the data. Even the person from the privacy team said as much. Moreover, this is a very, very, very small "modicum of privacy". A very small number of users will use that. It makes the company look good, for sure [1], but it will in no way, shape, or form affect what they are already doing, and will continue doing. Should we celebrate them for being so gracious as t…

> No one can say for certain how, and when they delete the data. Even the person from the privacy team said as much.

You and I read very different comments. Not being able to tell you, a random HN commented, the exact procedure by which a specific piece of data's lifetime is managed is different than not being able to, in the abstract, describe, monitor, and alert on the intended lifecycle of a piece of data.

> I wonder how much of this is related to GDPR,

Probably not at all: Google was already GDPR compliant (it was already possible to manually delete your data), this goes beyond the GDPR mandate, and allows you to set a ttl on your data, essentially.

It's becoming more apparent to me that you, either intentionally or not, aren't clear on what the status quo was, or what this change changed. To be clear, deleting your location data has always been possible (or at least, has been possible for a long time). There's a UI for it. This is, in addition to being able to manually delete data, have Google automatically delete any data older than a certain time.

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

#182

Post by saalweachter »

mehrdadn wrote: post #117
devereaux wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is another nudge: how easily can you write a rule to delete from gmail inbox after say X days? (same question for outlook.com, icloud.com etc) There are ways for technical users, but it nudges users to leave all the juicy data to the company, which can then use it in any way it feels (including monetization)

I dare say that I don't expect automatic deletion of emails from your inbox is not a feature many users are clamoring for, whether they have privacy concerns or not. Hence I don't think the lack of it is for monetization puposes or the lack.

If you are a business customer you can set an email retention period for your domain (under the 'Compliance' section) which deletes all emails and chat messages after N days.

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

#183

Post by dmitriid »

joshuamorton wrote: post #181
dmitriid wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one can say for certain how, and when they delete the data. Even the person from the privacy team said as much. Moreover, this is a very, very, very small "modicum of privacy". A very small number of users will use that. It makes the company look good, for sure [1], but it will in no way, shape, or form affect what they are already doing, and will continue doing. Should we celebrate them for being so gracious as t…

> No one can say for certain how, and when they delete the data. Even the person from the privacy team said as much. You and I read very different comments. Not being able to tell you, a random HN commented, the exact procedure by which a specific piece of data's lifetime is managed is different than not being able to, in the abstract, describe, monitor, and alert on the intended lifecycle of a piece of data. > I won…

> It's becoming more apparent to me that you, either intentionally or not, aren't clear on what the status quo was, or what this change changed.

It's becoming more apparent that the whole conversation kinda derailed from "privacy engineering team" which engineers privacy (whatever that means at Google) does a shitty job to "we should celebrate them for doing just the minimum amount of work for something that has already been possible, if spread across many UIs".

Literally despite multiple complaints about how Google handles data with regards to location and activity tracking (original complaint: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809168, summary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19812861), the "privacy engineering team" answers "just disable it": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19810083

This is what I'm talking about, and this is the status quo that was, is, and is going to be in the future.

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

#184

Post by sixothree »

aiiane wrote: post #22
loudtieblahblah wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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're welcome to believe whatever you want, but a decent chunk of my day job is making sure that it's true.

Literally nothing whatsoever in Google's history suggests what you are describing is true.

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

#185

Post by verytrivial »

mattlondon wrote: post #3

This is welcomed, but they might do better to remove the requirement to have the Web/Location/App history enabled for apparently unrelated features. E.g. I cant store my home location in Google Maps without turning on Web & App activity history. Why? I cant share my current location (not historic, just my latest location - they only need to store one) with my partner unless I turn on Web and Location history. Why? I…

The Google Podcast app (!) refuses to do any related to subscriptions without Web and App activity tracking enabled. Seriously reaching here regarding relevance and consent.

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

#186

Post by alias_neo »

o10449366 wrote: post #23

The funny thing is that Google will still let you store your home address and they'll display it on the map, but if you have Location History turned off they'll refuse to list it as an autocomplete option when you search for addresses or directions. They know what it is, but they won't let you actually use it unless you expose everything else. It's extremely user hostile and there's no good reason to do it. Edit: To…

I've found that with it disabled, on Android, I can't even click the "Home" or "Work" buttons in maps without a prompt to turn on "Web & App Activity".

Why do I need to turn on "Web & App Activity" to store my home or work address?

Because Google wants to inconvenience us into turning it back on, plain and simple.

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

#187

Post by eeZah7Ux »

bad_user wrote: post #104

This feature looks pretty cool and it’s basically what I wanted. Kudos. The question is, are they deleting that data? I think they are big enough that, at least for EU users, not deleting that data would land them in a lot of trouble, so I think that they do. For people concerned with privacy I don’t think Google is trustworthy enough, but these features are good to have for the rest of the world, so I’m glad to see…

> are they deleting that data?

Also, are other "global observers" deleting data extracted from Google?

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

#188

Post by soup10 »

Sheep_McSheepy wrote: post #141
soup10 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you, but I also believe the NSA and others siphon that data and archive it so it's kind of a minor point if google keeps it or not, privacy is a relative term these days. We can be fairly confident since the Snowden revelations that data dragnet operations are continuing and expanding in scope.

Looking at all leaks coming from Google, including Dragonfly and Maven do you think that NSA could access data directly without any engineer noticing it and going to the media with it? I doubt it.

yes.. they split fiber pipes, if encrypted they use undisclosed zero days to steal encryption keys or try to break the encryption with super computers. these tactics are are all well known.

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

#189

Post by DEADBEEFC0FFEE »

dylan604 wrote: post #169
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.

In the light of the recent story on how YouTube and Google Docs put up banners about not working with IE6, I would not put it past them to do something similar any time the user did something that Google did not like.

That IE story was specifically about YouTubers during the transition to Google. A story about how they used a legacy YouTube permissions role to circumvent process and oversight.

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

#190

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

soup10 wrote: post #188
Sheep_McSheepy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at all leaks coming from Google, including Dragonfly and Maven do you think that NSA could access data directly without any engineer noticing it and going to the media with it? I doubt it.

yes.. they split fiber pipes, if encrypted they use undisclosed zero days to steal encryption keys or try to break the encryption with super computers. these tactics are are all well known.

All Google internal traffic is encrypted, and I'd guess they use some sort of forward secrecy. I guess it's going to be basically impossible to use split fibers to sip at that data.
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