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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

#241

Post by dmitriid »

riverguardian wrote: post #120
twhb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think "tracking" is a bit misleading here. It's product (search) usage activity. None of the Workspace data you provide is ever used outside of Workspace, nor is it used for any other purpose than for the benefit of you and your users (we can't create machine learning models from your data to improve the experience for other customers, for example, without your prior consent), and that data is never used for ads.

> None of the Workspace data you provide is ever used outside of Workspace, nor is it used for any other purpose than for the benefit of you and your users

As recent court finding revealed this is most likely a lie, and even Googlers themselves don't know how to turn off pervasive tracking across apps.

If that setting was off it must remain off even if you "change product boundaries". Is this such a hard concept to understand?

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

#242

Post by 0xedd »

pmontra wrote: post #83
social_quotient wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Microsoft?

They have thrown the VSCode and WSL candies to the world and most of us don't notice anymore that they keep behaving as they always did.

You mean the metric hog that can only be turned off with a recompile? No, thanks.

Wsl, the barely usable product with breaking bugs, such as simple disk io, until wsl2 came to improve _some_ of the features? Nah.

The most detrimental change to IT, containers, still depends on hyper-v for networking in the latest version and can only build for the same kernel.

Cheap PR for garbage products to try and push PC monopoly.

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

#243

Post by maest »

jjulius wrote: post #24
reustle wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Oughta start taking bets on how long until this makes its way into Waze

Waze is already serving very aggressive modal-type ads mid-navigation.

I got a pop-up for a car repair shop 20 minutes out of my way, _mid-navigation_ with a big "add to route" option. Could not swipe it away, had to press a small 'x' button to close the ad. All this while driving and trying to figure out which way I should go the next intersection.

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

#244

Post by qqq111 »

southerntofu wrote: post #222
chaps wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I'm genuinely struggling not to respond with something aggressive and mean, just because of how calloused your lack of interest in preserving the privacy of others is. This is a bad feature that should not be turned on by default. You're effectively enabling the ease of search warrants of journalists and activists' search history, where they think this sort of thing is turned off. It's fucking shameful. Look at…

I don't mean to judge your argument, but Google is well-known to be part of the USA military industrial complex by now, and to be very friendly with the Chinese government. If you're a journalist investigating anything else than sports competitions results, you may want to consider (for your personal safety) never to use services by such companies. When i say such, i do mean other companies close to the US gov (Amazo…

No post body was provided.

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

#245

Post by [deleted] »

pilif wrote: post #171
greyface- wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You challenged the tone of the question, but you didn't attempt to answer it. Do you believe that nobody in their right mind would want this functionality turned off?

I'm relying on search history in my Google Workspace account every single day. It's very convenient and I have a feeling most people would agree with that. What is a double-edged sword is how this history is being used. If it's just about offering search history for each individual user, then it's not a privacy issue and strictly an improvement in convenience. Turning it on offers the convenience, turning it off, rem…

[deleted]

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

#246

Post by usrbinbash »

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…

The default for any data collection no matter what it is for, should be OFF.

End of discussion.

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

#248

Post by Lewton »

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 had my first DDG beats google moment yesterday

I searched for ‘low more guitar sound’ and top result was an awesome YouTube video recreating the guitar sound of Low - More (song with amazing guitar tone)

Went to my other computer that defaults to google, searched the same thing

Pages of irrelevant crap, searched for ‘low more %nameofyoutubechanbel’

Nothing

Searched for exact title of YouTube video

Nothing

Had to manually go to the YouTube channel and find the video myself

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

#249

Post by SyzygistSix »

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.

The problem to me isn't that they flipped the Don't Be Evil Bit off, but that they have to ability to turn it on and off. Giving any entity this much power is a bad idea in the first place. Even if they do not presently abuse it, eventually someone will. And that is not something I want to pass on to future generations.

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

#250

Post by throwawaymanbot »

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…

I guess no does not mean no huh. But Nice try to explain away when people have already chosen to opt out!
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