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Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

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Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#261
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of us What is this us?

The average HN user is more likely to use Firefox and have 2+ Google accounts than the average person. Very straightforward stuff.

Source?

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is far more likely that Google found the new site from telemetry from Chrome than it is a random bot, owned by Google scanned the site within seconds.

Google also runs their own public DNS servers which afaik Chrome defaults to. They can just sit server side waiting for DNS lookups of domains they've never seen before and queue them up for the Google bot. No browser telemetry needed.

> Google also runs their own public DNS servers which afaik Chrome defaults to.

The statement that Chrome does not honour the networking stack's DNS settings does not agree with my observational data. I run pi-hole DNS and Chrome absolutely fails to load domains blacklisted there.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone reading this on Chrome should switch their browser today. Get off of Gmail while you're at it. There is no perfect alternative, but all those reasons why you think you can't switch don't add up to anything a fraction as bad as what Google is doing.

What's a good alternative to gmail? Fastmail? Protonmail? Other? I don't mind paying a small subscription.

I use hey.com

You have to get used to their system but now I prefer it compared to Gmail

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#264
post #43

> Re: forced Chrome logins. Don't need cookies if you own the browser! ( https://twitter.com/fasterthanlime/status/145209451374118912... ) The swindle with FLOC was pretty obviously tied in this, but people still went in circles discussing whether it's private or not, and downvoting those who said FLOC is a trap. Let's consult the plan, nothing is even secret about this: - Google disables third-party cookies, crippli…

Woah, so if a user is logged into chrome, Google has permission / is able to track all web activity for that user?

The feature is called "Google Signals." Here are documentation links to how it's use in Google Ads & Google Analytics.

Ads: https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662856#zippy=,when-yo...

Analytics: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9445345?hl=en&re...

tl;dr If logged in to Chrome, your Google Account can be used as an "identity signal" in place of a first-party cookie. This allows cross-domain and cross-device tracking.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#265
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google also runs their own public DNS servers which afaik Chrome defaults to. They can just sit server side waiting for DNS lookups of domains they've never seen before and queue them up for the Google bot. No browser telemetry needed.

> Google also runs their own public DNS servers which afaik Chrome defaults to. The statement that Chrome does not honour the networking stack's DNS settings does not agree with my observational data. I run pi-hole DNS and Chrome absolutely fails to load domains blacklisted there.

This is configurable, the default is to use the default network stack.

Settings > search for Use secure DNS for DNS-over-TLS.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#266

I sometimes wonder, what if there was a universal governing principle, that was simple to enforce, obvious, formulated in few words, so that everyone understands it. All those priveleges which every of theese corporations enjoy, some simple, like not publishing schematic for 1000$+ device, some complex, like making backroom deals harming millions of people in a some insignificant and obscure way daily, like showing c…

Of course this exists, it is called socialism. But our society is so deep into consumerist propaganda that it has lost the ways to evaluate anything that doesn't presume capitalism.

I suspect that worshiping "The Rule of Law" as an unadulterated good is responsible for a lot of the corporate overreach we observe in the past few decades. When we construct a social fiction that state is just one among many actors, and must be bound by rigid rules and justify its actions, that Bermuda is basically an equal partner to the US, it just naturally leads other entities to malignant behavior

Of course the corporations will reverse engineer the legal code to get away with as much as they can. Of course they will evade taxes. Of course there will be a slow creep, where previously borderline illegal behavior is now the best practice adopted by everyone, and therefore unenforceable

If there's a sovereign on top of the hierarchy that doesn't have to answer to anyone, the corporations are way more docile, as seen in China or FDR-era USA, and proactively align their goals with the goals of the society

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a journalist who is worried about the possibility of being sued for defamation really needs to consider using alleged in reporting. The truth is an absolute defense to defamation. If you are confident in your reporting, and especially if you have good lawyers, then you don't need to hedge. (Source: was a lawyer who used to do some of this work at one time in my life) Edit: If you are just reporting second-hand o…

It doesn't matter how strongly you believe in your work. The law (at least in the United States) is "innocent until proven guilty". Until it goes to court, they are presummed innocent. The phrase "alleged" is put in to all reputable journalists work because they follow the law.

"Presumed innocent" refers to the government not being supposed to punish an unconvicted defendant beyond what's practically necessary for safety (though reading up on pre-trial detention is... illuminating). It does not mean if we look at Jason Voorhees covered in blood that we all have to say "well, he's not yet gone to trial, so it's really only an allegation of murder."

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#268
post #8

What can we as people in top 1% with 1) information about big tech abuses 2) skills to fix this do? Individually we can use browsers like firefox or brave and probably donate time or money to them, but I think it's not enough. I think we would need something like a movement against those abuses, but probably the biggest win would be a business model that could win with them in the free market. Is this possible? Has a…

I tell everyone about Firefox and uBlock Origin. Blocking YouTube ads is enough of an argument to convince anyone to at least try it out. I've never seen someone who didn't love the ad-free web experience. It's actually safe to just install this software on random computers: people's quality of life will be invisibly yet thoroughly improved, they will notice that things are just better even if they can't explain why.…

> It's actually safe to just install this software on random computers

+1, i actually did this a couple times on some friends computer when i noticed they hadn't any blocker installed (although i did tell them afterwards).

Let's run a crowdfunding to rent some maleware on shady forum to install ublock origin without consent :)

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#269
post #8

What can we as people in top 1% with 1) information about big tech abuses 2) skills to fix this do? Individually we can use browsers like firefox or brave and probably donate time or money to them, but I think it's not enough. I think we would need something like a movement against those abuses, but probably the biggest win would be a business model that could win with them in the free market. Is this possible? Has a…

I am very much interested in furthering this discussion. Every so often there is something big like this in the news, we talk about it for a few days and then forget about it. Nothing substantially changes. No big consequences for the guilty. How do we fix this?

Stop using their junk. Delete your facebook, switch to fastmail or protonmail. Join patreaon and support content creators directly. There are plenty of things you can do you just have to start doing them.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#270
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter how strongly you believe in your work. The law (at least in the United States) is "innocent until proven guilty". Until it goes to court, they are presummed innocent. The phrase "alleged" is put in to all reputable journalists work because they follow the law.

Innocent until proven guilty is more of a criminal trials thing. Balance of probabilities applies for libel. I'm not in the US, but suspect it is similar to the UK where reporters will use "alleged" if they're using the legal defence of "qualified privilege" - which allows them to repeat potentially libellous allegations without themselves being sued for libel. In the case of reporting on documents (especially those…

Thank you for explaining this in an easy to understand way, my understanding all this time up until now (I'm also in the UK) was that until allegations get proven in court, they are only allegations! I guess there are different standards for criminal and libel trials
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