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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

#431

Post by dbmnt »

I couldn't help but notice there's a second Google privacy fiasco in the top 10 on Hacker News today. The other topic is about Google Maps no longer allowing navigation without the wifi scanning permission on Android:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30167865

Within the last week or so I also noticed that the YouTube homepage -- the content shown at https://www.youtube.com/ when I'm signed in -- has switched to a mostly empty page demanding I turn on YouTube watch history:

https://imgur.com/a/45PxHZm

They literally removed all the content from the YouTube homepage in order to beg for permission to track history...

It's kind of hard to believe these moves are a coincidence. There seems to be a shift across multiple products, specifically Maps, YouTube, and Google Workspace.

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

#432

Post by akie »

autoexec wrote: post #408
akie wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to avoid them wherever possible. There are quite a few decent alternatives for many of their core services.

You can't escape google. I've seen even government websites require code from Google's servers. Just like if you choose to never sign up for facebook account they'll still create a secret profile for you and populate with every scrap of data they can learn about you from other facebook users as well as from data purchased from data brokers. We can choose to limit our direct participation with these companies (and tha…

What you can do is the following:

0. Use Firefox, not Chrome

1. Install an ad-blocker (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...)

2. Install ghostery (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery/)

3. Install Cookie Auto-Delete (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...)

4. Use Google Container (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...)

Then start advocating using https://plausible.io/ over Google Analytics in your own sites where possible, and use https://search.brave.com/ or https://duckduckgo.com/ for search.

For e-mail there are many options besides gmail.

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

#433

Post by vertis »

stephenr wrote: post #427
vertis wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was this thing in Melbourne cafes for a while (and maybe still, I'm not in Melbourne any more), where you would walk in and order your usual from other cafes "a large Flat White" and the barista would go "We only make coffee in one size". At which point I would walk out and go to another cafe. The same experience, "I want coffee in a certain way", "we know better than you and will only serve you coffee how we l…

Isn't that just a case of only having on size of cup though?

I have heard that reason. It fals apart when you take your own Keep Cup (etc) and it's still a problem. The problem with having an amazing coffee culture is that you end up with a bunch of coffee shops that think they know better than the customer.

If they want to run their businesses like that, that's fine. No objection. I'm sure they'll find plenty of customers. It might even be me depending on how desperate I am. But it's accepting that it's not going to work for a segment of their potential market.

Another example is cash-only/card-only, the former of which I now find much more obnoxious. That's a decision they're allowed to take, but it removes a segment of customers (it's different to the "Google knowing better" in the original post). I will likely not go back to a place that's cash only, because I don't usually carry cash any more.

Depending on the country you can walk into an office supply store and walk out with a cheap terminal (Square, SumUp, etc) that will allow you to take payments so it's nowhere near the "6 weeks wait and a merchant bank account" that it was when card payments were in their early years. Which means it's just lazy. It's lazy and it's pushing that laziness onto your customers, who have to go to the ATM.

Disclaimer: This varies country to country. In germany it's much more common to have to pay cash, because they have some long term, anti-tracking hang-up that go back to the cold war (at least that's my understanding).

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

#434

Post by wakeupcall »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #301
wakeupcall wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're using android, is it actually possible not to? I'm not using any google product except android at this point. I need to use a few apps that require the BS of safetynet, and when this happens you're pretty screwed. I remember some years ago I was still able to setup an android phone without a google account, but it was so _intentionally_ broken there was no point. People suggest Apple, but apple is just as b…

wait... i am using an android and i skipped google login. i use aurora store/fdroid for apps, newpipe. why can't you sent up android without google? i am running android 11 btw,

I assume it's possible, the question is what gets crippled. When I last tried this (earlier than android 10), one example that I remember is that you could add contacts, but not modify them without contact sync. It didn't have to be google's ("of course" - I worked it out by setting up davx), but functionality was crippled nonetheless. I was using lineage+microg+aurora for a while, and while I could certainly get around it, it's _not_ what I would expect from something I just bought and want to run without a google account.

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

#435

Post by stephenr »

vertis wrote: post #433
stephenr wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that just a case of only having on size of cup though?

I have heard that reason. It fals apart when you take your own Keep Cup (etc) and it's still a problem. The problem with having an amazing coffee culture is that you end up with a bunch of coffee shops that think they know better than the customer. If they want to run their businesses like that, that's fine. No objection. I'm sure they'll find plenty of customers. It might even be me depending on how desperate I am.…

> The problem with having an amazing coffee culture is that you end up with a bunch of coffee shops that think they know better than the customer.

Is this really "knowing better"? I mean, if you want a bigger coffee, and are taking your own cup: just ask them for two, and put it in the same cup.

The card issue has another aspect you're not considering: credit card networks charge fees. There is no inherent fee to accept cash.

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

#436

Post by dandellion »

basisword wrote: post #180
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 reason for splitting this into two separate settings is understandable. >> ...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 tracked for all Google services. This is unacceptable. People have already opted out or been opted out by their admin. If they want to opt back in now that the setting is more granular,…

Linkedin does the same thing with email subscriptions every six months. I wish it was made illegal and companies got fined for pulling this crap.

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

#438

Post by marssaxman »

dandellion wrote: post #436
basisword wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reason for splitting this into two separate settings is understandable. >> ...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 tracked for all Google services. This is unacceptable. People have already opted out or been opted out by their admin. If they want to opt back in now that the setting is more granular,…

Linkedin does the same thing with email subscriptions every six months. I wish it was made illegal and companies got fined for pulling this crap.

This is why I deleted my linkedin account 10+ years ago.

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

#439

Post by tekknik »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #386
joshuamorton wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. We’re talking about people who have already switched it off. No, we're talking about accounts who already had it (as part of broader setting) disabled for them, in a context where the data in question can (contractually) only be used to provide the service anyhow. > 2. There is no need for any tracking to implement this. It can be done on the client. Pray tell me how you can do client side search history recomme…

Easy, just store your search history in a Blockchain and pull it down every time you log in.

Why a blockchain? Or is this sarcasm?

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

#440

Post by tekknik »

zht wrote: post #271
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 feel sort of bad for this comment. The reason is because the reason given is perfectly sound. “We have to split this out because of perfect reasonable reasons like laws, data retention policies, etc etc”. And everything afterwards is pure unadulterated propaganda. I don’t know if the commenter knows how patronizing they sound. “We did this for you because even though you’ve previously explicitly opted out, we think…

> ok fine but medium rare steak is the best way to enjoy it so I made it medium rare despite what you previously explicitly told me enjoy

Well considering it’s a felony to cook or consume some steaks above medium rare I may do the same.

Kidding of course :P

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