They get the most elementary thing wrong in their “mission.” The very first search link should be the most relevant, right? Now the entire first PAGE is often bought and paid for.
Google Fights Back
201–210 of 475 posts
Re: Google Fights Back
#202Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…
You think Apple is less evil than Google?
Remember that Apple has been cracked by the FBI, has proprietary connectors, and charges more than anyone.
I couldn't disagree more. Apple is horrible to customers and developers.
Re: Google Fights Back
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it really that hard to understand? What's the concrete harm so far? I've been using Google for a couple decades, and I can't really articulate a specific way that I've been harmed. Yes, I realize that there's the potential for harm from a leak or something like that, but it's hardly surprising that the abstract notion of possible harm isn't super compelling to the average user when they're currently getting useful…
you're rationalizing, i.e., looking the other way to avoid cognitive dissonance. but part of why we have such big brains is to anticipate the future, not simply accept events as they occur. what might the future you say? should we ignore that gas leak in the kitchen because it hasn't killed anyone yet? it's important to expose this kind of mis-rationalization, especially when tiny individual harms accumulate otherwis…
This word, I don't think it means what you think it means.
> should we ignore that gas leak in the kitchen because it hasn't killed anyone yet?
No, but it's hard to see how using personal data to sell ads is going to cause a harm anywhere near as bad as a person dying.
Re: Google Fights Back
#204Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…
Google is already not Google. The "Don't Be Evil" corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over "oops, we didn't mean to break that for you!" isn't here anymore. The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state. I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ug…
> The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state.
This is the key point. Google came of age during the GWB administration, when the folly of trusting government was more clear than it had been for decades, and under Schmidt's leadership Google became a major defense contractor.
It's impossible to know how much unlawful surveillance has already been done thanks to Google's collaboration/complicity.
How can Google earn back some trust? Implement warrant canaries at the google account level, decline to do business with the Pentagon, and come forward and reveal all of the shady and unethical things the firm has done, and simply ask the public for forgiveness.
Re: Google Fights Back
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google pivoted? When? And from what to what? Still a company that collects and sells consumer data and ads right?
Generally, Google does not sell personal data. They use personal data to sell ads.
They also forward personal data to government agencies when asked, like it or not.
Re: Google Fights Back
#206The problem with google’s mission is that it doesn’t say which information has to be accessible to whom and in what way it’s going to be useful. Given that google’s income is mostly from advertising, it feels like the mission is about making my information available to someone else, and useful for them to make money.
Absolutely agreed. The doublespeak and lack of transparency leaves a really bad taste in one's mouth.
It would be one thing if they were very straightforward the 'with whom' and the 'for what' of the data they harvest. Users could weigh the pros and cons, make an informed decision, and move on.
But instead they choose to masquerade as a forward-thinking philanthropic organization, burying their ulterior motives behind pages of fine print and intentionally vague 'disclosures' about what they do with your data.
Wearing a disguise makes one appear guilty. I would be wary of any individual or group intentionally presenting a false image in order to mask their true intentions.
Re: Google Fights Back
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are espousing an "ADS ARE INHERENTLY BAD" mentality that just doesn't resonate with people. I want to know about the best services that are useful for me. I do not want to be advertised women's swimsuits on Instagram (I'm a male with no interest in purchasing said item). When I see ads that are useless its infuriating. However, when I see an ad for Allbirds or a cool new leather jacket, I feel very much i…
It resonates with me, because I view ads as (intrinsically) mentally intrusive. I find seeing any ad, regardless of its relevance, infuriating; the advertiser is paying someone, not me, to place a thought or perception into my brain that I do not want there . If I decide that I want to purchase a new jacket, for example because I'm traveling to a much colder climate, I want to be able to seek out (ideally unbiased) i…
Do you believe you are being force-fed thoughts any time you hear or read anything anyone else expresses? Seems to be just as much the case whether on not that expression is part of an ad.
I personally have a pretty strong desire for agency. I’m also conscious that my understanding of the world is entirely constructed by the sum of my interactions with said world, and advertising is only a tiny part of it. I’m thankful for the sensory input this world provides me - without them my brain would have nothing to do and my agency wouldn’t be very useful.
It sounds like you are suffering a lot because your experience of advertising in the world is incompatible with your opinions about advertising. I can see two ways to solve this problem:
1) Adjust your opinions about advertising, so that you think of them as part of your voluntary engagement with the world around you, not something that is being forced on you.
2) Remove advertising from your life.
Re: Google Fights Back
#208Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…
Google is already not Google. The "Don't Be Evil" corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over "oops, we didn't mean to break that for you!" isn't here anymore. The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state. I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ug…
> But my next phone will be an iPhone.
I ordered a new old-stock Nexus 5X to run KDE Plasma on. Fuck both Google and Apple. I hope the Purism and Pinephone actually get released as well so we have more real Linux options.
I hate we live in a world with totally non-standard mobile hardware. Back in the day you could wipe Windows and run Linux on nearly anything. Maybe you would only get VESA graphics or text, but it would at least boot.
PostmarketOS is trying to make a dent in it, but we still have huge gaps in hardware support.
Re: Google Fights Back
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fully switched from Android to iOS when iPhone X came out in November 2017. I realised in the next months that the perceived "freedom to tinker" on Android is something hugely overrated. I could achieve almost everything I wanted on my iPhone -- it just took a bit of time to find the proper apps. Later Apple added the Shortcuts which is a very solid automation app. Many Android users also lament the lack of a visib…
I don't know if it falls under "freedom to tinker", but having a microSD slot saved my vacation once (well, the pictures of it anyway). We were out at a children's amusement park in the mountains with poor service, so just moving things to the cloud wasn't an option. Deleting apps from my phone to pick up space is of course an option, but also a silly one. Swapping out the microSD card, however, was simple and I just…
I use my DSLR to shoot pictures in RAW and still don't fill ~10GB of space in a full vacation. Granted different people have different needs - but anything over 32GB seems to work fine for me.
Re: Google Fights Back
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
> which they could only have gathered by parsing my emails from the bank. You say it as if it's a revelation or discovery, when Google is very upfront about surfacing relevant information and reminders based on your inbox. On more than one occasion, this feature has helped me take actions on pending work items like payments, renewals and so on. You don't want Google to show you ads, fair enough. You don't want Google…
Frankly, I'd reverse the question: why are you surprised that people are surprised? You think everybody has time to read the dozens of pages of legalese in Google's privacy policy, which anyway doesn't actually specify in which ways they abuse one's information? It also sounds like you need to organise your life a bit better. Google's notorious for their screw-ups and service closures, one day you might miss an impor…
"why are you surprised that people are surprised?"
It'd be surprising if there wasn't a clear or direct causal path about how Google found that information. For example, imagine that you paid for a hotel room somewhere in Thailand by cash, didn't carry your phone with you at the time, didn't log in to any electronic device, and still Google inferred that you stayed there, THAT would be surprising.
On the other hand, literally parsing out an email (AND even linking to it, you can click on the notifs to take you to the relevant email!!!) and showing you the result doesn't in any sense qualify as surprising.