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Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

businessinsider.com

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Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#171

Post by Tarragon »

izacus wrote: post #148
vageli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

> 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). No, that information is collected as part of the "points" discount card and then sold to advertisers together with your credit card transation data.

You don’t have to give them the points card.

Also, I know an engineer that was inside a monstrous grocery chain many years back. Back then the payment and loyalty systems were separated by technical measures and firing level policies. If you used a CC without a points card they were not able to associate it to any kind of account.

Obviously the CC processor could but they didn’t get a list of purchases.

Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#172

Post by bogwog »

ppf wrote: post #153
bogwog wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should simply pass laws to make their business model illegal (at least the evil parts), and let them sort it out. If they go under because they can’t adapt, well tough luck. There will be tons of smart businesses, investors, and individuals eager to chase all the new opportunities the death of Google would create. And since the evil business models are illegal, the ones that come next will (probably) not b…

Exactly which parts of their business model should be illegal? It's pretty standard Silicon Valley stuff - give away your product until there is no competition left, then you can do what you like.

> Exactly which parts of their business model should be illegal?

For starters, this part:

> give away your product until there is no competition left, then you can do what you like.

The free market doesn't work without competition, and that's a blatantly anti-competitive practice. Just because a lot of SV companies do it, doesn't mean it's right.

But really I was referring to their data collection practices, and doing things like intentionally making it difficult for users to find privacy controls. No matter which way you look at it, that's harmful to consumers.

Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#173

Post by ocdtrekkie »

bozzcl wrote: post #163
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple collects location data solely to help you. They've built themselves no financial benefit to collect it, so they keep it only on the device and discard it as much as possible, while still providing all the features users want. If you want a location tracker on iOS, you can install one, but it's not a condition of using their mapping product. Google has a financial incentive to violate your privacy, and all of it…

As an ex-Android user who switched to an iPhone because of privacy concerns, I’d still like sources and hopefully proof for these claims. The more I think about it, the more I suspect trusting another big tech company with my privacy with no material proof other than their word might have been foolish.

It can be difficult to vet closed source applications, but I think this policy describes a truly stark difference between the two: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212039

Whereas every location ping is seen by Google as an opportunity to attach data to your account, Apple Maps goes beyond not tying to your account, but regularly trying to make it difficult for them to tie the activity to any sort of cohesive profile entirely.

Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#174

Post by fvv »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #74

Google had a brilliant advertising business with AdWords originally, where the ads were simply based on the search term and not a bunch of Orwellian surveillance on the person searching. From the research I've seen, all this privacy-invading crap doesn't even improve ad performance much - it's small incremental gains at best. And per this article, those gains are clearly coming at the expense of user trust and goodwi…

I think that big corp must always grow (in earnings ) or various manager hierarchies start having problem.. sometimes this need forget to consider ethic , trust , monopoly , roots , ...

Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#175

Post by EastSmith »

nwellnhof wrote: post #141
QuadrupleA wrote: post #74

Google had a brilliant advertising business with AdWords originally, where the ads were simply based on the search term and not a bunch of Orwellian surveillance on the person searching. From the research I've seen, all this privacy-invading crap doesn't even improve ad performance much - it's small incremental gains at best. And per this article, those gains are clearly coming at the expense of user trust and goodwi…

> From the research I've seen, all this privacy-invading crap doesn't even improve ad performance much Which research? From my experience, personalized ads perform ~50% better than non-personalized ads. This would also explain why Google and Facebook are fighting tooth and nail to keep their tracking infrastructure.

DuckDuckGo have said that they make less money, because they use only the search term not other data/tracking.

But they still make money.

Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#176

Post by justbrowsing_ »

howzitallworkeh wrote: post #95
sunstone wrote: post #3

I've had a string of Google phones going back to the Nexus 5x but, for the very reasons laid out in this article, my next phone will likely be from Apple. That will be my first Apple product.

Unfortunately, you will find iOS bad in different ways. For example: you cannot install NoScript, or anything like it, on an iOS browser. You must choose between "all JS on" or "all JS off", and third-party browsers like Firefox are crippled because Apple forces all iOS browsers to use their WebKit engine under the hood. The myriad of Safari "content blocker" apps are also pretty dismal, and often expensive. So ad-bl…

Firefox "Focus" browser does the trick for ad-blocking and erasing history on iOS. No tab support though.

Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#177

Post by SuoDuanDao »

azalemeth wrote: post #168
JCM9 wrote: post #13

There’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…

One thing I've been meaning to do for a while is try to use a 'hardcore' AOSP 'de-googled' Android rom, like ParanoidAndroid. I've no idea how much of a pain in the arse this will be. Heck, being rooted causes enough unexpected "why do you not work" moments for me. If anything, I feel Google has got more hostile to the privacy-conscious user over time. The trouble with privacy as a product is that it's _very_ hard to…

now i wonder to what degree apple's public refusal to unlock a particular phone for the FBI was a publicity stunt...

Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#178

Post by Drew_ »

arkades wrote: post #31

Earlier this week there was a post regarding Google and its utilization of private health information. A number of Googlers came forward to describe how very seriously Google takes user privacy and keeping inappropriate data from being shared across silos. I got the overall impression of Googlers taking the position of “you guys don’t know how seriously we take peoples privacy.” If any of those Googlers would please…

I think its pretty straight forward that privacy protection for Google means protecting the data it has collected from their users. Not refraining or preventing itself from collecting user data. Google protects the privacy of your information from outsiders (and insiders) not from its own apps and services. That is what's meant when Google says they "take their user's privacy very seriously". And its obvious that this is true because this practice is effectively just protecting their business model.

Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#179

Post by throwawayboise »

izacus wrote: post #148
vageli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

> 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). No, that information is collected as part of the "points" discount card and then sold to advertisers together with your credit card transation data.

But to what benefit? I use a discount card at my local supermarket. It also saves me anywhere from $0.10 - $0.40/gallon on gasoline. Beyond getting lower prices, I don't see any personalized marketing tied to my use of the card.

Re: Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

#180

Post by kache_ »

sunstone wrote: post #3

I've had a string of Google phones going back to the Nexus 5x but, for the very reasons laid out in this article, my next phone will likely be from Apple. That will be my first Apple product.

I went through this and then realized that apple hardware is not meant for people who like to actually do things with their computers
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