Google dropped the "don't be evil" motto in 2015 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
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Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a way it seems pragmatic. You say all the boundaries are being violated, you might as well get something out of it. Also I’m not sure there’s a lot of difference in loss of privacy and tapping or swiping a credit card.
> Also I’m not sure there’s a lot of difference in loss of privacy and tapping or swiping a credit card. Well for one thing, at least in my experience, most credit card transaction data does not include granular information about the transaction (like the list of groceries you bought).
I would like to know if this is still true.
Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google would be able to get a ton of revenue without tracking users at all. Selling ads based on search keywords would still work very well
Indeed, that's DuckDuckGo's main monetisation strategy right now, and it's working very well for them.
True and for others perhaps. But they still rely on the ad networks of, and passing data on to Microsoft (DDG, Ecosia....) or Google (Startpage).
Apologies for the self-promotion but there is another way: https://www.mojeek.com/support/ads/
Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
#104There’s a huge privacy battle on the horizon in tech. The initial scuffles are just the beginning. Google and Facebook’s business models depend deeply on being able to track information that consumers are increasingly unhappy to share. Both companies attempts to diversify their dependency on such info for their revenue have been broadly unsuccessful (Google fiber or a Google car anyone?). Meanwhile the likes of Apple…
> Both companies attempts to diversify their dependency on such info for their revenue have been broadly unsuccessful (Google fiber or a Google car anyone?) IMO, you're wrong on this one. Things like Google fiber/car are not ways to diversify Google's revenue. They are just more tools in their arsenal to keep collecting more data on users and improving their ads. By offering things like Google fiber, they ensure more…
I think there are three categories of projects at Google:
1) Working out how they can milk even more money out of their magic cash cow of online advertising by providing more opportunities to serve ads (YouTube, Gmail, Maps)
2) Protecting their magic cash cow (ads) from external threats, the main threat being a loss of tracking (Chrome, Android, Fibre, Google Analytics, Ok Google, Maps). (As an aside, if you use Chrome and want to avoid this kind of behaviour, please consider swapping to a truly open source non-tracking browser)
3) Trying to find another magic cash cow before the first one runs out of milk (Eg Google Cloud, YouTube Red)
Some things will fall into multiple buckets, for example Google Maps and Gmail offers both an opportunity to further track users and serve them ads - double whammy!
I suspect Google Cars are more about category 3, although have no doubt that they will be mined for data as much as possible to serve categories 1 & 2. Agree with your point on fibre - it looks like that is an attempt to own even more of the tech stack to provide even more methods to track.
Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
#105There’s a huge privacy battle on the horizon in tech. The initial scuffles are just the beginning. Google and Facebook’s business models depend deeply on being able to track information that consumers are increasingly unhappy to share. Both companies attempts to diversify their dependency on such info for their revenue have been broadly unsuccessful (Google fiber or a Google car anyone?). Meanwhile the likes of Apple…
personal data should be 2-party consent for every data sale transaction by law, not this ‘opted-in by corporate mandate and backed by regulatory capture and monopolistic power’ we have now. people should be able to negotiate a rate at which they’re willing to allow the corporation to sell their data, including not allowing it at all ever.
Can't we have a smart contract system where every company in possession of some user data can be asked to provide a machine-verifiable proof that it legally obtained that information?
Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
#106At the same time, Google think allways I'm in germany on work, because our company has just one large internet connection for all company users from the whole world. And google does not even let me change the country.
Yes that’s annoying. In the past you could use a country’s domain to choose Google’s localization but it’s not the case anymore. And their “ncr” (no country redirect) feature doesn’t work anymore.
It’s one of the main reason I’ve been using Duckduckgo more and more.
Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
#107To this day, if I scroll off screen on Google Maps and then hit the "center view" button I get nagged to allow Google to use my phone to wardrive even when wi-fi is turned off. It would be nice if I could use Google products without audibly wishing violent misfortune on their executives.
Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold. Full price TVs from eg. Samsung comes with ads and spyware nowadays. I would say the saying has stopped being accurate. Also, phones are paid for.
TVs are so cheap now because of ad subsidies. That 42” panel wouldn’t cost $199 if it weren’t for ads.
Or it would be that cheap but ads and spyware just give them more money for free now.
Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
#109I always find it funny how articles like this are behind a “privacy” cookie wall.
Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
personal data should be 2-party consent for every data sale transaction by law, not this ‘opted-in by corporate mandate and backed by regulatory capture and monopolistic power’ we have now. people should be able to negotiate a rate at which they’re willing to allow the corporation to sell their data, including not allowing it at all ever.
Can't we have a smart contract system where every company in possession of some user data can be asked to provide a machine-verifiable proof that it legally obtained that information?
sure, but it’s essentially a social/legal problem, not a technical one. the onus is on the company holding data to show the chain of consent, which doesn’t require anything fancy outside a purpose-built database.