161–170 of 246 posts
On this subject https://myaccount.google.com/purchases Turning off all of the controls under myactivity won't stop Google from scanning your emails to track any purchases you make. The only way to stop that is to switch off of Gmail.
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This is what finally prompted me to move to Fastmail after being on G Suite since 2007. Even though I have to pay for Fastmail and was grandfathered into free on G Suite. Pretty happy with it so far. Now going through the process of reducing all the places I use Google services. Moved my personal stuff from GCP to Digital Ocean. Gmail to Fastmail. Chrome to Firefox / Safari. Currently seeing if Zoho is a good substit…
Fastmail is unfortunately very bad too now due to recent Australian legislation.
Edit: apparently they do provide email export to paid users now via a new application that is in beta. I had not realized this
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You see plenty people defending Facebook too. Trying to assign a single opinion to a large group of people doesn't work.
I see this argument a lot of Hacker News and Reddit. While it's true that both websites are comprised of a large and diverse body of individuals who share differing opinions and various subjects, that doesn't mean you can't discern real trends and biases within them. I think it's quite clear from reading any of the past month's discussions on Facebook: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=facebook&sort=byPopularity&pre...
On this subject https://myaccount.google.com/purchases Turning off all of the controls under myactivity won't stop Google from scanning your emails to track any purchases you make. The only way to stop that is to switch off of Gmail.
I have all tracking disabled, have multiple gmail accounts with which I have made purchases, and there is nothing showing up on this page for me
I guess I'll be the lone voice chiming in that I find this pretty useful. There's been a number of times I've been like "oh, what's that song I asked Google to identify a month ago?" or "what was that page I managed to find last year by searching about [x]?" that I've been able to remember via this tool. Yeah, Google knows everything about me. C'est la vie. At least it's useful. What exactly is the threat model that…
Usefulness shouldn't justify evil. It may be more comfortable to shrug it off that way but it also helps to normalize it. There are a couple of examples in history where similar attitude on a societal level ultimately led to the most terrible of outcomes.
It's honestly hilarious and sad to see so many commenters here defending and excusing Google because the services they provide are "free." Somehow Hacker News thinks this argument isn't applicable to Facebook. The truth of the matter is that both companies are committing huge privacy violations, but Google has managed to convince Hacker News and the US media (NYT in particular) that they aren't evil still. Good ridda…
You see plenty people defending Facebook too. Trying to assign a single opinion to a large group of people doesn't work.
Like the OP responded, even if 100% of people aren’t the same, you can discern clear trends, behaviors, and feelings of the general commenting populace. Like we can for HN being abnormally anti-FB.
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You see plenty people defending Facebook too. Trying to assign a single opinion to a large group of people doesn't work.
I see this argument a lot of Hacker News and Reddit. While it's true that both websites are comprised of a large and diverse body of individuals who share differing opinions and various subjects, that doesn't mean you can't discern real trends and biases within them. I think it's quite clear from reading any of the past month's discussions on Facebook: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=facebook&sort=byPopularity&pre...
There was a recent thread with more than one person comparing cigarettes with FB. Possibly even FB being worse than cigarettes. Something that has killed millions of people. But even in that no one defended FB. They just said FB isn’t as bad as people are making it seem.
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My email (gmail) is bound with so many services (both online and offline) and it is part of my online identity. It would be so much effort to change the email now. I don't think there is an alternative to google maps which is in the same level as quality and richness in information. I would be totally lost without google maps when I'm traveling to other countries, especially when it comes to public transportation lik…
I switched off of Gmail a couple years ago after almost a decade with Gmail, in the same boat as you with my full online identity tied to it. Honestly, the realization that my identity was so tied to it is why I switched - I didn't want to lose my online identity at Google's whim. The switch isn't as bad as you would think. It was pretty painless. 1. Compile a list of all your online accounts - if you use a password…
This is really interesting.
You mean I could change your `google account` email to a non-google domain just like other internet services? Was not sure about what you meant by "Google ID"
If that is true, I probably want to take advantage of this before they remove it.
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> The only real solution is to fill your history and your Gmail purchases with fake emails and fake clicks and fake purchases. The only real solution is to delete your Google account(s), avoid using Google services entirely, and firewall off any access from your machines to Google servers.
You can't escape Google. I think there's been several articles talking about how deeply embedded they are.
You can't do much about Google's real-world spying, though, such as their use of credit/debit card usage and so forth.