The description seems to suggest this is just changing how it works, but does this also remove the ability to disable web tracking in the process?
Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
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Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
#42Dear 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.
The sad truth is that the average person won't care
Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
#43What 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?
Spam in Gmail
Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
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've been using Brave search. It's actually a change for the better, too.
Brave search is crap. It feels like DDG when it first launched. I want to like it, but the index it uses is old. I often get links that don't work.
Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
#45Note: this seems to be about their paid "Workspaces" offering. I have a private paid domain email on Google Workspaces. I received their email and checked out their FAQs to see how it would affect me in terms of privacy.
Workspaces data is inherently said to be private under contract and not used for advertising or other Google purposes. Here are relevant snippets from their new FAQ:
- "Google never uses your data in Google Workspace core services for advertising."
- "Google Workspace search history includes search activity in Google Workspace services such as Gmail and Drive and is subject to the data protections that Google Workspace provides for users’ data."
Seems to me that other non-core services are not covered by it, which may be the reason for this split?
Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
#46That reads as "too many users were disabling our creepy shit, so we're re-enabling it!"
Google Maps did the same thing in its latest update. There's an undismissable modal that asks you to "enable Google location service to continue" which I very explicitly have off. They make it feel like a technical requirement; if you tap "no thanks" it cancels your nav.
Meanwhile the whole thing is obviously a charade because voice guidance and the GPS enabled map are happily running behind the modal!
Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
#47No post body was provided.
Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
#48No post body was provided.
Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
#49I 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…
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Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off
#50What 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?
It's not only Google; I've noticed this slow-but-accelerating decline for a few years now, and my theory is probably a bit too controversial even for HN, so I'll just be oblique about it: this is the result when hire people for who they are rather than what they can do. You end up with docile, obedient employees who don't care about anything other than the fact that they're working for Google and making $$$, and they're not going to push back against any decisions.