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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

#101

Post by quartesixte »

datalist wrote: post #87
qbasic_forever wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail was a way, way, way better experience than Hotmail or anything else when it started (and even almost a decade later). Maps blew everyone's mind at launch too and instantly made an entire group of direction and mapping websites irrelevant. Google Earth was magical just spending hours trotting around the globe too. Reader (RIP) was by far the best RSS reader.

Maps and Earth were not in-house built but purchased.

WAIT WHAT?

[real time search ongoing]

Goodness how have I not known this?!

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

#102

Post by quartesixte »

asdff wrote: post #68
invalidname wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't build a significantly commercially successful product since gmail. Android was an acquisition. They are in panic mode since they realize growth will be over. Search has stagnated, they missed on social (repeatedly) and they have nowhere to improve. Ventures like the self driving car etc. were all an expensive detour. Google is the new Microsoft (or worse, Oracle). It's just a matter of time until the rest…

Every single enterprise company I know of pays for gsuite. Every university too. They could just lean into that.

? As far as I am aware, Microsoft Office is still the dominant, de facto platform of the corporate world.

Gsuite is the underdog here and I wonder if they’re having trouble with retention and new customer acquisition.

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

#103

Post by 3np »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #78
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.

I may be wrong or naive, but I see this move (offer search history that won't be used for advertising) as a good one. Looks like they are finally trying to diversify their business models and have their users as customers, not product. If true, that means our social pressure on Google (and Facebook, collaterally) is working, and we should keep applying it.

Still, it defaults to on, so if history is turned off and you miss the email, it will now be silently turned on.

The right thing to do would be to pop up a question asking if I want to opt in, keeping it to off if dismissed.

Considering all the other blocking modals Google is forcing me through as part of CAPTCHA when surfing the web, that should not be a big deal.

Opting an existing user into data retention without asking them is never defensible, and I imagine this will result in heavy fines in the EU down the line (after all, private individuals can be Workspace admins as well, it’s not strictly used by businesses)

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

#104

Post by Closi »

dismalpedigree wrote: post #29
lumost wrote: post #8

Earlier 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 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.

There are Firefox extensions that hide the ads which make a huge difference to search quality.

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

#105

Post by a-dub »

enriquto wrote: post #95
riverguardian wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question. The premise here is that search is an integral part of the product experience of using Google Workspace. We don't offer controls that separate each piece of functionality within Workspace products. The reason there _is_ one governing both Workspace and non-Workspace data (the current Web and App Activity setting) is mostly historical in nature, and the fact that there are two existing controls (one fo…

> Great question. The premise here is that search is an integral part of the product experience (...) I remember, as a youngster, a Google advertisement that was in the form of a math quizz. One of the questions was about how many colors are needed to paint the sides of an icosahedron. The next question was: "which colors would you choose? Why?" I was utterly fascinated by the, so far unknown, company that wrote this…

happy to hear that you found corporate marketing to be moving. unimpressed by disrespectful and nonconstructive talking over of someone right in front of them.

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

#106

Post by ComradePhil »

4ec0755f5522 wrote: post #69

I don't understand the confusion. Doubleclick ate Google from the inside. How can you possibly expect them to do anything else? Anything that favors your privacy, ever? They are in the business of consuming your data for profit. That is google's industry: consuming you. They are absolutely running with the motto "be evil". You think some checkbox in a "privacy settings" window is going to stop it?

I don't mind them consuming my "data" (i.e. knowing me better) for profit... for Google, that usually means they show you ads related to your search and relevant to you based on what it knows about you above all the results. Why do you think that's "evil"?

There are things that bother me. For example, blacklisting certain websites because people who have control over them tell them to, or removing certain things from auto-complete because of someone having control over them. But again, that doesnn't make THEM evil. It's the people who have gained control over them, mostly by threatening them of regulations (via disinformation in mass media) and most likely Epteinesque blackmailing of their executives.

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

#107

Post by quartesixte »

thunderrabbit wrote: post #92
tesseract wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This actually happens in Japan, and until now I assumed it was not advertising. I would translate it as "turn at the next left; where there is a ______." The ______ is often a convenience store. hmmmm!

The flipside though is that Japanese urban planning doesn’t use street names the way American/European countries do and literally the only marker is the local konbini at the corner.

And turn at the corner 2-chome 4-ban 5-gou isn’t a helpful thing either.

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

#108

Post by twhb »

riverguardian wrote: post #70

Hello hello, PM for the feature checking in here. amf12's reply is quite on-point. Web and App Activity is designed to store search activity across all Google services, and we're splitting Workspace data out since it's governed by strict data handling guarantees, with the hope that more people will feel comfortable getting the benefits of better search in Workspace without having to opt-into search history being trac…

Your comments and the email both are written like nobody really wants tracking off, at least not if they know what’s good for them. Is that what you believe?

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

#109

Post by Kliment »

codyb wrote: post #39
dismalpedigree wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yea I’m always amazed when I inadvertently search via Google for something these days.

Yeah, whenever I end up on google for whatever reason I get a nag screen to try to trick me into agreeing to their tracking crap (with no easy way to say "fuck off, no") and it seems to come back very frequently. I use ddg pretty much exclusively now.

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

#110

Post by foota »

tesseract wrote: post #18
monkeybutton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Verbal ads during navigation?! I haven't really been driving anywhere new since covid started so I must have missed it. What are they like? "Take the next exit for a delicious Big Mac!"

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

These aren't ads, they're intended to provide a point of reference for users.
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