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Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

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Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#181

Post by specialist »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #141
specialist wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> location data to be saved or used during a web search Does location data even help with relevance? During road trips in 2018, location relevant results were turrible. Too many times I'd have to manually add my current location. eg "dog parks albuquerque nm" Sorry, no, I don't care about Dog Park Pub and Office Supplies in Duluth MN. Absolutely enraging.

It seems to work with chains, at least. e.g. a search for "home depot" turning up the close ones with location turned on.

Ya. My guess is that proper nouns are weighted much heavier than distance when displaying results. I also guess that indexing of stuff gets worse in smaller markets.

I vividly recall wanting to pick up some flowers while driving north of Phoenix. Google was useless. No local businesses. Just national chains and stuff from other time zones. Infuriating.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#182

Post by lights0123 »

asjkaehauisa wrote: post #176

All is about threat model. I really would love to switch to firefox but afaik it's less secure. So who would hurt me more, so random dude or corporation? My choice is simple. It's the same with all messengers. I use facebook messenger (because everybody around me use it) and i know that they collect a lot of data (and have acess to my chats). For me, still threat isn't facebook but my acquaintances who use weak passw…

> afaik it's less secure

Firefox doesn't have a Spectre vulnerability that allows websites to read crossorigin images, videos, and JS that won't be fixed for another month or 2 :)

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#183

Post by pdkl95 »

gumby wrote: post #116
why_Mr_Anderson wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. (Cardinal Richelieu)

Our company has decided we no longer need whiteboard interviews as we just contract with Google for candidates' search history (filtered for technical issues only of course!). (In case anyone thinks google sells search history retail: this is a joke...at least for now).

They wouldn't sell browsing histories; that data is a valuable asset. They would follow the model used by most "AI" products: an "AI"/"smart" service that launders candidates' history data into an opaque score. The hiring company's workload is reduced to mapping a score value onto their hiring plan, and Google will make a carefully worded claim that they are not selling personal information.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#184

Post by ssss11 »

Crazyontap wrote: post #131

I guess the majority of people on HN already know this more or less. The problem is still this: We still don't have good alternatives to Google's products and services. 1) Android: Google still owns all our phones. Even on rooted phones it hard to remove google services that god know send so many requests containing whatnot to the eeee addresses. Just install no-root firewall and you will be amazed the amount of pend…

Also Chrome/Chromium.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#185

Post by gumby »

pdkl95 wrote: post #183
gumby wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our company has decided we no longer need whiteboard interviews as we just contract with Google for candidates' search history (filtered for technical issues only of course!). (In case anyone thinks google sells search history retail: this is a joke...at least for now).

They wouldn't sell browsing histories; that data is a valuable asset. They would follow the model used by most "AI" products: an "AI"/"smart" service that launders candidates' history data into an opaque score. The hiring company's workload is reduced to mapping a score value onto their hiring plan, and Google will make a carefully worded claim that they are not selling personal information.

A shrewd distinction.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#186

Post by karinakarina »

Crazyontap wrote: post #131

I guess the majority of people on HN already know this more or less. The problem is still this: We still don't have good alternatives to Google's products and services. 1) Android: Google still owns all our phones. Even on rooted phones it hard to remove google services that god know send so many requests containing whatnot to the eeee addresses. Just install no-root firewall and you will be amazed the amount of pend…

For search: Use Startpage - gives you Google results with privacy.

For email: Most people have multiple emails - work, school, personal, from the early 2000s. It's not out of this world to switch to an encrypted email service.

Android: Never used it because I like iPhone. And, iPhone is a pretty great alternative to Android - definitely more private. But isn't there GrapheneOS and LineageOS?

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#187

Post by e40 »

leokennis wrote: post #171
Crazyontap wrote: post #131

I guess the majority of people on HN already know this more or less. The problem is still this: We still don't have good alternatives to Google's products and services. 1) Android: Google still owns all our phones. Even on rooted phones it hard to remove google services that god know send so many requests containing whatnot to the eeee addresses. Just install no-root firewall and you will be amazed the amount of pend…

There is one good argument for Google, and that is it’s free as in beer. For most people, any price over $0 is a dealbreaker. However, assuming you’re willing to pay for privacy, switching e-mail is super easy. For example, from the Fastmail UI, you literally log in to your Google account and all your mail is transferred to Fastmail. Switching to DDG? It’s 95% as good. Switching to Apple Maps or OSM? It’s 95% as good…

Switching to DDG? It’s 95% as good.

I would say for personal stuff (ie, non-programming) it is. For programming, I continually have to switch back to google. DDG is way worse for me. Maybe it's just me, but the types of things I search for just don't work on DDG and I've wasted way too much of my time looking for answers using DDG, only to find them quickly with Google. It totally frustrates me, because I would much rather use DDG.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#188

Post by karinakarina »

livre wrote: post #68
ricardbejarano wrote: post #11

Controversial opinion: Half the data Chrome collects is harmless, and the other half is up to the user to give up: - Location data: you are asked and must approve for Chrome to use (at least on macOS) - Financial data: you must enter it manually and click "save for future use". Could it be better? Sure! But I think DDG is exaggerating here. We're not _that_ bad.

Location data is sent by default to the default search engine and there's no way to disable that unless you deny location permissions from the OS to Chrome. If you want to use a map and give permission only to that (Bing maps for example) you have to allow Chrome to gather location data which will also be sent to the default search engine (usually Google). There's only the illusion of choice there (you can change the…

Or use a private search engine.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#189

Post by abandonliberty »

leokennis wrote: post #171
Crazyontap wrote: post #131

I guess the majority of people on HN already know this more or less. The problem is still this: We still don't have good alternatives to Google's products and services. 1) Android: Google still owns all our phones. Even on rooted phones it hard to remove google services that god know send so many requests containing whatnot to the eeee addresses. Just install no-root firewall and you will be amazed the amount of pend…

There is one good argument for Google, and that is it’s free as in beer. For most people, any price over $0 is a dealbreaker. However, assuming you’re willing to pay for privacy, switching e-mail is super easy. For example, from the Fastmail UI, you literally log in to your Google account and all your mail is transferred to Fastmail. Switching to DDG? It’s 95% as good. Switching to Apple Maps or OSM? It’s 95% as good…

> any price over $0 is a dealbreaker.

The user pays for Google in the end, just not consensually. It's a closed loop. All the money ultimately comes from the users. Product or politics, all advertisers are expecting to get some return.

Unfortunately it's in human nature to not want to pay. Search needs to be a utility that we all fund to make it the best tool for society.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#190

Post by jefftk »

nojito wrote: post #134
specialist wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> location data to be saved or used during a web search Does location data even help with relevance? During road trips in 2018, location relevant results were turrible. Too many times I'd have to manually add my current location. eg "dog parks albuquerque nm" Sorry, no, I don't care about Dog Park Pub and Office Supplies in Duluth MN. Absolutely enraging.

Nope. There was a study released that location targeting in ads only works 40% of the time

link?
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