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Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

theregister.com

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Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#71

Post by skytreader »

syshum wrote: post #60
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only institution on the planet that has granted itself the right to legally steal, plunder, and murder you... Rights that, legally, only have validity if people want them to. (In theory, in some countries.) In principle, Google is allowed to ignore the will of the people; in principle, the government is not.

None of that is true, in fact it really is opposite. Google has to entice people into voluntary exchange, yes the power is imbalanced but it is possible to remove yourself from google, thousands have. You can not remove yourself from government, if you try they will kill you. Google will not kill you if you stop using their services if I disconnect from my city utilities, if I stop paying taxes, if I grow an unapprov…

> many many studies have been done that prove the will of the people hardly ever changes the will of government

Studies such as? Citation needed.

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#72

Post by wizzwizz4 »

syshum wrote: post #60
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only institution on the planet that has granted itself the right to legally steal, plunder, and murder you... Rights that, legally, only have validity if people want them to. (In theory, in some countries.) In principle, Google is allowed to ignore the will of the people; in principle, the government is not.

None of that is true, in fact it really is opposite. Google has to entice people into voluntary exchange, yes the power is imbalanced but it is possible to remove yourself from google, thousands have. You can not remove yourself from government, if you try they will kill you. Google will not kill you if you stop using their services if I disconnect from my city utilities, if I stop paying taxes, if I grow an unapprov…

> yes the power is imbalanced but it is possible to remove yourself from google, thousands have.

And I was once among them. Except actually, using Google's “services” is mandatory if I want to obtain such luxuries as food and shelter in the area where I currently reside. I was required to shell out for an Android smartphone; me paying Google money (albeit indirectly) was mandatory.

> You can not remove yourself from government, if you try they will kill you.

What hell-hole do you live in‽ In my country, the government doesn't have the authority to kill anyone (except the military, unfortunately, but that's in some other country). It used to, and then people decided they weren't okay with that any more, and now it doesn't.

And where is disconnecting from your city utilities illegal – let alone physically enforced with guns‽

> so I am not sure what factual factual basis you have to claim that governments must follow the will of the people.

I said “legally” and “in principle”. Though, in many places, the governments actually do do what the people want; look into the Pirate Party in Europe, for just one example. (Also, suffrage movements… A lot of the time the government “goes against the will of the people” is when most people are apathetic about your cause; governments prefer the status quo, because most people don't like change.)

Fundamentally, I have zero say in what Google does. At least with the government, I get a vote.

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#73

Post by pydry »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #24
samizdis wrote: post #2

In hindsight, I find it hard not to feel complicit, having invited friends and family to Gmail back in the day when invites were a thing. I had actually believed Google's "don't be evil" line, when it launched what was a brilliant stripped-down search product. (And yes, I defected from AltaVista with the crowd. Oh, how I miss case-sensitive queries; how I miss all those relevant results.) I was far too gullible.

If you go back and read the stuff from Brin and Page at the time, they do actually go to quite some lengths explaining how crucially important it is for search results to be relevant, and the original PageRank paper even outlines methods for reducing manipulation from commercial interests. It's a jarring contrast to what Google is today. "[...] we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that i…

I vaguely remembwr there was already a search engine at the time google started where all the results were paid ads.

I forget what it was called though.

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#74

Post by ant6n »

pibechorro wrote: post #48
dtech wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what we should've done. Google for a long time won users by making almost objectively better products. It's only in the past decade or so that they started to abuse their monopoly. Putting the blame at government failing to enforce existing and create new anti-trust legislation seems much more sensible than blaming users picking the best products.

Not a monopoly. They are dominant. Start using duckduckgo and other similar sevices. The internet is still a free market. If you continue to use their products you are just whining. Become the change you wish to see in the world.

Duckduckgo search results are even less relevant than Google's.

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#75

Post by Terretta »

1cvmask wrote: post #39

I had written this regarding the rebranding of Facebook to Meta and the genius of the Google (Alphabet) co-founders extricating themselves from being the evil personas: “La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas." ("The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.")” ― Charles Baudelaire The smartest thing that the Google co-founders did is to step out of the "pictu…

> Email exchanges between National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander and Google executives Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt suggest a far cozier working relationship between some tech firms and the U.S. government …

Or, Alexander is just selling a product on the back of cyber threat consulting:

”At IronNet Cybersecurity, as the Founder, Chairman & Co-CEO and President, General (Ret) Keith Alexander provides strategic vision to corporate leaders on cybersecurity issues …”

https://www.ironnet.com/company/leadership/keith-alexander

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#76

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

syshum wrote: post #60
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only institution on the planet that has granted itself the right to legally steal, plunder, and murder you... Rights that, legally, only have validity if people want them to. (In theory, in some countries.) In principle, Google is allowed to ignore the will of the people; in principle, the government is not.

None of that is true, in fact it really is opposite. Google has to entice people into voluntary exchange, yes the power is imbalanced but it is possible to remove yourself from google, thousands have. You can not remove yourself from government, if you try they will kill you. Google will not kill you if you stop using their services if I disconnect from my city utilities, if I stop paying taxes, if I grow an unapprov…

> Google has to entice people into voluntary exchange, yes the power is imbalanced but it is possible to remove yourself from google, thousands have.

Eh, no, this is not true. I may have been in the vanguard of de-Googling ... but... For example, I go to a lookup page on a government website and they have embedded Google Re-Captcha. I disable Google scripts on e-commerce pages and it breaks unexpectedly at checkout. No, it it not possible to entirely eliminate Google, or any of the largest tech firms, from one's life.

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#77

Post by matheusmoreira »

samizdis wrote: post #2

In hindsight, I find it hard not to feel complicit, having invited friends and family to Gmail back in the day when invites were a thing. I had actually believed Google's "don't be evil" line, when it launched what was a brilliant stripped-down search product. (And yes, I defected from AltaVista with the crowd. Oh, how I miss case-sensitive queries; how I miss all those relevant results.) I was far too gullible.

I too believed this "don't be evil" nonsense. I made my Google account the center of my online life because I believed it. Migrating to more open technologies is proving to be extremely annoying now due to how entrenched it is in my life.

In the end, "don't be evil" wasn't really a principle, it was just Google's marketing and marketing cannot be trusted. Everything these people say is nonsense. We must watch what they actually do instead. Only actions matter.

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#79

Post by pessimizer »

syshum wrote: post #31
dtech wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what we should've done. Google for a long time won users by making almost objectively better products. It's only in the past decade or so that they started to abuse their monopoly. Putting the blame at government failing to enforce existing and create new anti-trust legislation seems much more sensible than blaming users picking the best products.

I find it highly ironic that in a thread about subjective evil one talks about granting more power to governments... The only institution on the planet that has granted itself the right to legally steal, plunder, and murder you... I am no fan of Google, but as much as I despise what google has become, I am do not have a rose colored view of the evil that is government to the point here I think that government could b…

You have a basic disbelief in using law to control corporations, which are government constructs themselves?

Re: Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated

#80

Post by onimishra »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #6

Saying society is screwed because ads are more expensive seems like quite a stretch to me. Looking at the NYTimes stock as an example it seems that they are doing pretty well these days (although some might argue their quality has gone down)

> (although some might argue their quality has gone down)

Isn’t that the entire thing the article argues? That journalism (real journalism, that is meant to keep those in power on the straight and narrow), suffers because not enough money goes to the actual journalists? Stock is the public’s perception of something’s value, but the actual value to society can not be measured in stocks.

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