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Google: Open Letter to Australians

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Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#41

Post by hoistbypetard »

mgraczyk wrote: post #18
ImaCake wrote: post #6

Link to the draft law is below [0]. Quoted from that page: >The code also includes a set of ‘minimum standards’ for: >providing advance notice of changes to algorithmic ranking and presentation of news; appropriately recognising original news content; and >providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users’ interactions with news content. This sounds great to…

As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.

> As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience.

As somebody who uses search products many times a day and who has opted in to the less personalized experience in several different ways over the past several years, I can confidently assure you that I very strongly prefer the "less personalized" experience. Additionally, I don't feel like I need a shower just because I used it.

Why on earth would I want you to track me more? I don't see any reason.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#42

Post by triceratops »

jp0d wrote: post #10

I'd probably trust the Australian govt to protect my data better than Google or even worse Facebook. The way the article has twisted the words in Google's favour is commendable though. Marketing really is everything.

The government that mandates backdoors in every software product? That government?[1]

1. https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-...

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#43

Post by reaperducer »

To all the people (hopefully Australians) who paint this as the government propping up legacy media: Isn't it better to have control of your media in local, Australian-owned and regulated megacorps, rather than some faceless megacorp in another country?

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#44

Post by qwerty456127 »

mgraczyk wrote: post #18
ImaCake wrote: post #6

Link to the draft law is below [0]. Quoted from that page: >The code also includes a set of ‘minimum standards’ for: >providing advance notice of changes to algorithmic ranking and presentation of news; appropriately recognising original news content; and >providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users’ interactions with news content. This sounds great to…

As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.

> As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience.

I absolutely prefer non-personalized web search results, the YouTube home page you get when you are not signed-in (and have cookies deleted) and suggestions based on the current view only (not on the previous history). I confidently assure you ;-)

Obviously there are people who feel different.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#45

Post by [deleted] »

reaperducer wrote: post #43

To all the people (hopefully Australians) who paint this as the government propping up legacy media: Isn't it better to have control of your media in local, Australian-owned and regulated megacorps, rather than some faceless megacorp in another country?

[deleted]

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#46

Post by StopHammoTime »

reaperducer wrote: post #43

To all the people (hopefully Australians) who paint this as the government propping up legacy media: Isn't it better to have control of your media in local, Australian-owned and regulated megacorps, rather than some faceless megacorp in another country?

Jokes on us, our media is run by a faceless megacorp in another country anyway (News Ltd).

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#47

Post by grecy »

reaperducer wrote: post #43

To all the people (hopefully Australians) who paint this as the government propping up legacy media: Isn't it better to have control of your media in local, Australian-owned and regulated megacorps, rather than some faceless megacorp in another country?

In theory yes, but in reality the Australian-owned megacorps are all owned by a single person, and every single one of the media outlets they control endlessly pushes the political message of just one side.

So although they're "Australian owned", they're very far from good "neutral" sources of information.

(Source: am Australian)

EDIT: For those wondering, it's like virtually all of Australia's media being run by Rush Limbaugh. And he has a cozy relationship with the government, so all of this is just a way to force Google and FB to pay him more money.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#48

Post by singron »

mgraczyk wrote: post #36
awalton wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confidently assure you that I've had that feature off for ages and could not possibly be happier about it.

It's definitely possible to have a good experience without personalization. Depending on how much you inherently value google not storing data about you, it may be the only way for you to be happy. But it's very unlikely the actual product experience would be worse with personalization enabled, measured by probability that a search includes something relevant near the top.

Of course the single best way to make the top more relevant is to block ads.

On YouTube, I highly recommend turning off personalization and watch history, especially if you find yourself spending too much time there clicking recommended videos. Without history, it will pretty reliably recommend the same videos again and again, which can help you realize when you have seen a lot and might want to stop.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#49

Post by deminature »

iamshs wrote: post #17
deminature wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murdoch's News Corporation and the currently incumbent Liberal party are very cosy with one another, so it's not surprising the government is legislating to prop them up financially. It's beneficial to consumers to have a well funded fourth estate, however I doubt this is being done out of public interest.

God forbid if Sky News corners a prominent real estate in my Youtube results, they are already atrocious and have insufferable comments.

Sky News is almost more virulently ignorant and hateful than Fox News. I'm shocked Australia - a generally 'nice' country - is capable of producing something like this.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#50

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

mgraczyk wrote: post #18
ImaCake wrote: post #6

Link to the draft law is below [0]. Quoted from that page: >The code also includes a set of ‘minimum standards’ for: >providing advance notice of changes to algorithmic ranking and presentation of news; appropriately recognising original news content; and >providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users’ interactions with news content. This sounds great to…

As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.

Personally, I don't like personalization.

I had a friend in middle school who was into rabbits for about a year. For the next several years, she got tons and tons of random rabbit stuff from people she knew who didn't know what else to buy her.

That's what personalization feels like to me. I can never find what I'm looking for because the algorithm is trying to pin me down into a category it thinks it understands, and those categories are always the wrong model of how I search.

The experience is much better when I use services that don't personalize.

Also you can't turn off personalization on Google unless you sign in. If you don't sign in, it still personalizes and there's nothing you can do about it.

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