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Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#21

Post by kornhole »

reustle wrote: post #5

What is going on inside Google? Far worse search results recently, verbal ads during Maps navigation directions, and stuff like this. Do they see some writing on the wall (eu pressure?) and they’re squeezing as much as they can while it’s an option?

This is the spiral of businesses based on personal data. They are pressured to meet quarterly earnings targets. As more people flee with their data, they must squeeze more out of what they have and can get.

They are trying to diversify into business services and hardware, but those are struggling even though often heavily discounted. Their tarnished reputation is making it harder for customers in those markets to trust them.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#22

Post by jjulius »

Groxx wrote: post #19
tesseract wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Turn after the Dunkin Donuts on the right onto Maple Street"

This has been in my app for a couple years - I hate it every time. Not only is it very clearly advertising, it's nearly always useless because the restaurant/whatever is barely or not at all visible on the approach to the turn. It's pretty clear they're going for paid landmarks, not useful ones (though I don't like landmark-directions either way).

Waaaaaaaiiiiittt, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold up. You mean the comment you're responding to isn't being sarcastic?

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#23

Post by reustle »

jjulius wrote: post #22
Groxx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been in my app for a couple years - I hate it every time. Not only is it very clearly advertising, it's nearly always useless because the restaurant/whatever is barely or not at all visible on the approach to the turn. It's pretty clear they're going for paid landmarks, not useful ones (though I don't like landmark-directions either way).

Waaaaaaaiiiiittt, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold up. You mean the comment you're responding to isn't being sarcastic?

No. I've been living outside the US since 2014 and just noticed it recently as I was back using driving directions. Seems to be at least once a trip, once an hour. Only ever uses large chain restaurants / banks as landmarks. Doesn't happen at all in Japan (yet).

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#24

Post by jjulius »

reustle wrote: post #23
jjulius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waaaaaaaiiiiittt, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold up. You mean the comment you're responding to isn't being sarcastic?

No. I've been living outside the US since 2014 and just noticed it recently as I was back using driving directions. Seems to be at least once a trip, once an hour. Only ever uses large chain restaurants / banks as landmarks. Doesn't happen at all in Japan (yet).

Jesus wept, that's asinine.

Edit: Oughta start taking bets on how long until this makes its way into Waze, and then how long until Google prevents us from turning Waze's voice nav off.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#25

Post by reustle »

hydrogtehd wrote: post #7
josephg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube recently did the same with autoplay. I hate autoplay with a passion, and watching the setting suddenly turn itself on again made me incoherently angry.

Auto play is the worst. I also hate the turning on chimes Not auto-muting when restarted/woken up Blue led Bright electronics. It seems that everything is designed to scream at the user.

Black marker really helps to tone down blue LEDs btw.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#26

Post by justin_oaks »

jjulius wrote: post #20
indymike wrote: post #6

Dear Google: you are becoming less likable by the second. For a long time you were the champion of user experience and you forced a lot of sleazy products to change or go out of business. Recently, it's like you've systematically discovered every dark pattern your evangelists once scorned. Please, please flip the don't be evil bit back to on. Evil Google is not very likable.

For me, the very extensive track record you allude to is more than enough to convince me that Google's never flipping the "don't be evil" bit back on. It's gone. Done. Sayonara. Adios. Bon voyage. Kaput. Fin. Au revoir. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I tend to agree. Companies don't seem to switch to being good once they go evil.

I would love it if someone could share a counterexample. I want it to be true that companies don't just turn evil but can become better too.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#28

Post by exhaze »

spc476 wrote: post #27

I often wish that Google's slogan was "Do Good" instead of "Do No Evil". It's easy to gloss over that "not".

Oh, it's even more interesting than that!

From Wikipedia [1]:

> Following Google's corporate restructuring under the conglomerate Alphabet Inc. in October 2015, Alphabet took "Do the right thing" as its motto, also forming the opening of its corporate code of conduct.[1][2][3][4][5] The original motto was retained in Google's code of conduct, now a subsidiary of Alphabet. In April 2018, the motto was removed from the code of conduct's preface and retained in its last sentence.[6]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#29

Post by dismalpedigree »

lumost wrote: post #8
indymike wrote: post #6

Dear Google: you are becoming less likable by the second. For a long time you were the champion of user experience and you forced a lot of sleazy products to change or go out of business. Recently, it's like you've systematically discovered every dark pattern your evangelists once scorned. Please, please flip the don't be evil bit back to on. Evil Google is not very likable.

On the other side, DuckDuckGo is becoming pretty reasonable. I now only need to flip back to google for some hard to search technical topics. DDG also brings up a ton more of the old internet, you get way more variety in the search results.

I have been using DDG for years. I inadvertently used google for a search (damn browser defaults) and i was genuinely difficult to find something relevant with the amount of ads cluttering it up.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#30

Post by social_quotient »

justin_oaks wrote: post #26
jjulius wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the very extensive track record you allude to is more than enough to convince me that Google's never flipping the "don't be evil" bit back on. It's gone. Done. Sayonara. Adios. Bon voyage. Kaput. Fin. Au revoir. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I tend to agree. Companies don't seem to switch to being good once they go evil. I would love it if someone could share a counterexample. I want it to be true that companies don't just turn evil but can become better too.

How about Microsoft?
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