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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

#191

Post by austinjp »

nixass wrote: post #89
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…

I don't wanna ruin the conversation here but: > Great question This is exactly how politicians (or whoever is doing something nasty) will start the answer on sensitive question. Shady business.

I agree. It's very jarring to me, coming across as insincere and faux-friendly. The sort of thing Mark Zuckerberg says in every product PR vid.

Another content here says that they'd say "great question" genuinely, which I don't doubt. And that's the problem, fakers have hijacked such phrases and mannerisms.

I also suspect it's a mannerism that's more common in some nations than others. In the US, conversations often seem overly polite to me e.g. the infamous "have a nice day", particularly in corporate settings. There's nothing exactly _wrong_ with that, it just comes across to me as insincere sometimes. I'd rather have an honest conversation, which can of course still be polite, while avoiding apparent insincerity. Cultural differences are subtle and profound! :)

Hmm.... thinking aloud... I don't speak Japanese, but if I could, I wonder if I'd find their famously uber-polite business-speak mannerisms jarring too?

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

#192

Post by bigiain »

quartesixte wrote: post #101
datalist wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

WAIT WHAT? [real time search ongoing] Goodness how have I not known this?!

The maps guys then pushed on to even greater heights with … Google Wave…

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

#193

Post by finite_jest »

dragonwriter wrote: post #130
nixass wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't wanna ruin the conversation here but: > Great question This is exactly how politicians (or whoever is doing something nasty) will start the answer on sensitive question. Shady business.

> This is exactly how politicians (or whoever is doing something nasty) will start the answer on sensitive question. That’s also true of most people who aren’t doing something nasty.

Maybe, but still

  P(doing something nasty | "Great question") > P(doing something nasty)

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

#194

Post by londons_explore »

twhb wrote: post #108
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?

The data actually backs this up... Autocomplete of searches for example is used for the vast majority of searches, and users who have it turned off complain they can't locate documents they've just saved (because they don't remember the location they saved them, and it doesn't list recently saved documents in the search dropdown).

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

#195

Post by [deleted] »

chaps wrote: post #189
tomnipotent wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's start with your earlier comments. > This is a bad feature that should not be turned on by default. Opine. Stating it matter-of-factly doesn't make it fact. > You're effectively enabling the ease of search warrants of journalists and activists' search history Here you pull the "think of the children!" card. All those poor journalists and activists using Workspaces. Your response is to bring up politically vulner…

I bring up that group because I'm a part of that group and work with people who have been targeted with subpoenas for simply investigating a company. This is something that effects me personally and the work I do that's deeply intended to help and inform the public. That you don't think protecting that group is a critically important thing for everyone is very telling. What's exhausting is having to keep up to date w…

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by tomnipotent »

chaps wrote: post #189
tomnipotent wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's start with your earlier comments. > This is a bad feature that should not be turned on by default. Opine. Stating it matter-of-factly doesn't make it fact. > You're effectively enabling the ease of search warrants of journalists and activists' search history Here you pull the "think of the children!" card. All those poor journalists and activists using Workspaces. Your response is to bring up politically vulner…

I bring up that group because I'm a part of that group and work with people who have been targeted with subpoenas for simply investigating a company. This is something that effects me personally and the work I do that's deeply intended to help and inform the public. That you don't think protecting that group is a critically important thing for everyone is very telling. What's exhausting is having to keep up to date w…

> that you don't think protecting that group is a critically important thing for everyone is very telling.

Again you take the worst-case interpretation, with a dash of ad hominem, to help you climb that moral high ground you seem fond of.

> about how we don't want these features

So you speak for the whole of Google's customer base?

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

#197

Post by danuker »

cik wrote: post #138
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…

Active, soon to be former user here. Constantly moving things around, to at the very least temporarily hoover data from users is wrong. The changes going on recently mean, that I'm finally eliminating my use of the G. I've dropped paid services. I'm dropping (paid) GSuite/Workspace/whatever it's now called for my family, and for a couple of businesses. I've embraced other search engines again - and they're surprising…

> I've embraced other search engines again - and they're surprisingly good enough, finally.

Or perhaps Google is crap enough. I no longer find anything useful when the search term overlaps with something for sale.

Even Wikipedia search is better in that case, and I skip directly to it.

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

#198

Post by jacquesm »

pingsl wrote: post #94
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…

- The ability of Google Workspace organizations to turn off “Web & App Activity” for all users will be removed. Why is this? The company should have control over how employees use the company assets.

Because the number of companies that disable this company wide is large enough that google believes that by muddying the waters like this employees will give them the loophole they need to get back at that data.

The proper way to do this is:

Admin level:

- default to off

- options

  - enable

  - disable 

  - allow the user to set this

    - default to off

    - default to on

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

#199

Post by chaps »

tomnipotent wrote: post #196
chaps wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bring up that group because I'm a part of that group and work with people who have been targeted with subpoenas for simply investigating a company. This is something that effects me personally and the work I do that's deeply intended to help and inform the public. That you don't think protecting that group is a critically important thing for everyone is very telling. What's exhausting is having to keep up to date w…

> that you don't think protecting that group is a critically important thing for everyone is very telling. Again you take the worst-case interpretation, with a dash of ad hominem, to help you climb that moral high ground you seem fond of. > about how we don't want these features So you speak for the whole of Google's customer base?

You clearly have no intent on trying to understand why people have issues with this, so I'm done here.

Best, friend.

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