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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

#241

Post by treeman79 »

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…

Worked in targeted ad tech for b2b. High dollar sales stuff.

Short version. It works really well. Like absurdly well.

Massive fear if browsers started limited cookies. As that would destroy the cash cow.

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

#242

Post by QasimK »

hobs wrote: post #33
leesalminen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TVs are so cheap now because of ad subsidies. That 42” panel wouldn’t cost $199 if it weren’t for ads.

That'd be a good point if there were companies offering the full price model, but unless you want to buy a commercial panel and do a bunch of hoop jumping yourself, you literally cant buy a TV without adware in it.

It would be great if we, the customers, were actually given a genuine, competitive choice. As you say, right now you literally don’t have a genuine choice.

There is precedent for this too. Amazon Kindles came (come?) with two options - one with ads and one without. The latter cost something like $20 more. That was good!

Having said that, I bought the one without ads and they increasingly, with software updates, devoted greater and greater screen space to the Amazon ebook store. I consider that to be an ad too (and arguably worse because of anti-competitiveness reasons).

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

#243

Post by jonny_eh »

kache_ wrote: post #180
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

> do things with their computers

Do we mean "do thing to their computers"?

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

#244

Post by twhb »

Tarragon wrote: post #171
izacus wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you use the same credit card at walmart.com and in a physical Walmart store, then your itemized in-store purchases will show up as orders in your walmart.com account. This is without providing any other form of ID.

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

#245

Post by adamcstephens »

ppf wrote: post #125
adamcstephens wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except SV investors actively avoid competition with the monopolies. They will try and disrupt for sure, but there’s a dead zone around monopolies.

Uber, Lyft, Air BnB, Paypal, etc etc, would beg to differ.

Uber and Lyft tackled local monopolies, sure, but not national or international ones. They also took a strategy of actively flaunting and breaking of laws in their growth. Not sure that’s a good form of disruption.

What monopoly did AirBnB tackle?

I’m guessing you’re suggesting PayPal went after Western Union? There are plenty of ways to exchange money though.

Would my point be better if I clarified the monopolies? Perhaps if we focus on national monopolies?

What VC money is going to challenge Facebook, Amazon or Google, or any area close to them?

https://financialpost.com/technology/inside-the-kill-zone-bi...

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

#246

Post by streamofdigits »

Surveillance capitalism will implode not because of its exceptionally bad karma but under the weight of its own economic stupidity. In the "Mystery of Capital" de Soto waxes lyrical about "why capitalism triumphs in the west and fails everywhere else": Spoiler alert, it is due to conceiving and protecting private property. Spoiler alert II: that was once upon a time in the west and it is no more. If wealth is built on a system that secures property and if that applies to land, tangible assets, intellectual property etc it sure as hell also applies to digital "land", information flows, data sovereign business models, entrepreneurial agency and all the value that those can in principle support. In fact the panopticon "platform" system, conceived by sociopaths and inflicted on western societies by corrupt politicians is more feudalism than capitalism in outlook (Complete with the modern day serfs plying the rented clouds). To those individuals salivating to be part of this malevolent trillion dollar club: a trillion is sizable "value", I'll grant you that. But its nothing like the value that would be generated if society as a whole was empowered to be part of a digital economy. You can also throw in democracy and humanistic ideals as a bonus.

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

#247

Post by deadmutex »

judge2020 wrote: post #219
deadmutex wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I am not a huge fan of company lock-in. Apple makes their money on hardware, so they try really hard to keep people locked in [1]. "c. However, Craig Federighi, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering and the executive in charge of iOS, feared that "iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones". (PX407, at '122.)" Yeah, Apple do…

They’re consumer friendly In a different spot than the competition. It’s pick your poison - privacy, or money.

The choice isn't binary though.

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

#248

Post by retpirato »

nojito wrote: post #142
nwellnhof wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Location targeting isn’t effective. https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/mksc.2019.118... Google are fighting tooth and nail to protect the illusion that their ads work.

See https://swisscows.com/web?query=pizza&region=iv. results do change depending on where you set your location to or if you don't set a location. Here's another one: https://www.qwant.com/?q=pizza&t=web&locale=en_GB

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

#249

Post by [deleted] »

GoofballJones wrote: post #230
julianmarq wrote: post #135

I saw some people saying that this makes them want to switch towards iphones next. I'm not gonna lie, I considered it for a moment too, like a year ago... But apple is now engaging in its own share of dark patterns and is now collecting data too. There have been multiple articles on the matter shared here even. Thinking that apple is better than google for privacy (or, even if it is right now , that it will remain so…

The difference is the "terms of service" on these things...something many, including many here, don't even bother reading. Apple specifically states they don't collect your data..which is why when there are times people find out that they have (like the time they were caught having real people listen in to Siri requests to see if they were accurate), all hell broke loose and there are several lawsuits about that very…

[deleted]

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

#250

Post by hackmiester »

kache_ wrote: post #180
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

I'm not sure what my computer has to do with my phone, from a user's perspective. I find Macs increasingly irritating and frustrating to use, but I am extremely happy with my iPhone.
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