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Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

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Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#161
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that they're citizen accounts rather than fake accounts from pedophiles, spammers, and scammers.

Pedophiles, spammers, and scammers are still citizens.

I mean it's possible that they're alt account created on a whim rather than ones that represent actual people. Law enforcement could have requested information from about a few people who each created thousands of accounts, for example.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the LineageOS devs say that their project does not aim to completely de-Google the OS, only remove Google Play Services and some Google applications like Maps. Thus, geolocation, DNS and login portal detection in LineageOS still use Google's servers.

What about /e/ ? It's been a while I haven't heard about them.

Least. Fucking. Searchable. Name. Ever.

Arguable worse than R, C, or Word.

"Gee, let's take the most frequently occurring letter in English usage, and bracket it with Web-significant non-text punctuation."

"e Foundation" will find them.

No idea on status/news.

https://e.foundation

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#163

The number of government requests for user information is actually scary: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview So Google handed over info on 175k accounts in the last half of 2019 alone? It seems it's becoming common practice to routinely pull citizens data, without much of a warrant and without the target's knowledge. There used to be a thing called secrecy of correspondence, preventing governmen…

I agree this is troubling but no one seems to care that the carriers know where you are 24/7 even when you aren't using your phone.

Not only that, carrier triangulation is getting much more precise with 5G because of the smaller cell sizes.

So far they are using it for beamforming, but I think location tracking is also one of the advertised use cases.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#164
post #156

The number of government requests for user information is actually scary: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview So Google handed over info on 175k accounts in the last half of 2019 alone? It seems it's becoming common practice to routinely pull citizens data, without much of a warrant and without the target's knowledge. There used to be a thing called secrecy of correspondence, preventing governmen…

You're assuming that they're citizen accounts rather than fake accounts from pedophiles, spammers, and scammers.

1) Please define 'fake account'. Does the fact that I have more than one Google account mean that some of them are 'fake'? What if I lie about or omit my government name?

2) When did people start losing their citizenship by breaking the law?

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#165
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hn, I expect the content of the article to be obvious to everyone here.

The other comments show this is not obvious to everyone.

None of the other commenters show surprise about any of it. This is just another generic unfruitful "google bad" circlejerk thread, no one learned anything new from it.

Sorry, I don't mean to argue with you, I just disagreed with the "accusation" against meibo.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#166

The place where I currently work assigned me a gmail address, and I wanted to check them on my phone. I was using k9 for my personal stuff, and wanted another app for the pro mails, so I pulled out the gmail app. Just one step before finalizing the setup process, I realized that google was asking me to accept Google Play terms of service. WTF? It turns out the gmail app setup process does much more, google takes over…

I agree it's unfortunate you can't setup just one of their services. However, if you're not running a custom Android ROM that explicitly does not include any of Google's services then they could still collect whatever they want (from a technical perspective).

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very much not anonymized. It is trivially easy (albeit not cheap - around $10k/month) to buy access to mobile ad id data, draw a polygon around your house, and get all the “anonymous” ids. From there, you can see all other locations of those ids. When they anonymize you, that just means they give you an is not linked to your phone number or account. It doesn’t mean someone can’t link it for you. The best defens…

Google does not sell my data.

But they do turn it over to the government.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview WTF? This makes me extremely uncomfortable for some reason. There was some hope in mind that Snowden was exaggerating but this is just insane. It feels like liberty has failed. There's no other option but to give in and accept. I submit to the overlords, but I'm not happy about this.

Why do you give up, because other people know more about you, than you thought? Maybe giving up on the "nobody must ever know", but maybe not in general? There are still quite some steps from here to 1984, despite people dramatizing.

Maybe but the direction is towards 1984 not away from it.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#169
post #164
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that they're citizen accounts rather than fake accounts from pedophiles, spammers, and scammers.

1) Please define 'fake account'. Does the fact that I have more than one Google account mean that some of them are 'fake'? What if I lie about or omit my government name? 2) When did people start losing their citizenship by breaking the law?

By fake I mean a throwaway account made for the sole purpose of criminal activity. A thousand accounts created by a single scammer do not deserve the same privacy as your personal email account.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a setting hidden away in android allowing apps to scan local wifi/bluetooth networks even when wifi is turned " off ". Enabled by default of course.

What settings is that?

Security & Location -> Privacy -> Location -> Scanning

(Supposedly; I don't own an up-to-date Android device.)

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