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Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

propublica.org

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Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#11

Post by [deleted] »

balderdash wrote: post #9
pessimizer wrote: post #8

Is this really a complaint that a single, well-established Russian ad company got the same information from Google that they would give to any US company with an email address? This is part of the cognitive dissonance that insists that Russia has the most effective intelligence services in the world, that can manipulate elections at will and subsume every US social movement to spread its propaganda, but is too stupid…

So your argument is that companies and people should not follow the law or do what’s right because people can circumvent their efforts?! “Why’d you sell vodka to that 12 year old? Ahh well it’s trivial for them to go out and get a fake ID…so I don’t bother checking ID”

[deleted]

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#12

Post by jaywalk »

pessimizer wrote: post #8

Is this really a complaint that a single, well-established Russian ad company got the same information from Google that they would give to any US company with an email address? This is part of the cognitive dissonance that insists that Russia has the most effective intelligence services in the world, that can manipulate elections at will and subsume every US social movement to spread its propaganda, but is too stupid…

This company was explicitly sanctioned, which means American companies are not allowed to do business with them. So yes, it's really a complaint.

Sure we can't catch everything, but we can at least stop the obvious stuff like this.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#13

Post by burkaman »

pessimizer wrote: post #8

Is this really a complaint that a single, well-established Russian ad company got the same information from Google that they would give to any US company with an email address? This is part of the cognitive dissonance that insists that Russia has the most effective intelligence services in the world, that can manipulate elections at will and subsume every US social movement to spread its propaganda, but is too stupid…

No, the complaint is that it was illegal to work with them.

> RuTarget was later listed in an April 6 Treasury announcement that imposed full blocking sanctions on Sberbank and other Russian entities and people. The sanctions mean U.S. individuals and entities are not supposed to conduct business with RuTarget or Sberbank.

> [Google spokesperson Michael Aciman] acknowledged the Russian company was still receiving user and ad buying data from Google before being alerted by ProPublica and Adalytics.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#14

Post by cato_the_elder »

hericium wrote: post #3

HN is flooded by "archive.ph" campaign which injects Russian (and other) tracking scripts to copies of crawled 3rd party sites and requires JS to load on Firefox/Linux (and some other browsers) while pretending to be "archiving".

It does do archiving, and it does it very well. It's fast, provides short URLs, blocks ads in the archived pages, tries to bypass paywalls and login walls, and resists censorship. That's why people use it.

And it's funded by ads, so yes, it does have tracking scripts, just like a good chunk of the internet.

If you are privacy-conscious (or just don't like ads), then you can use uBlock Origin to get rid of them.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#15

Post by tut-urut-utut »

pessimizer wrote: post #8

Is this really a complaint that a single, well-established Russian ad company got the same information from Google that they would give to any US company with an email address? This is part of the cognitive dissonance that insists that Russia has the most effective intelligence services in the world, that can manipulate elections at will and subsume every US social movement to spread its propaganda, but is too stupid…

Google has a deep issue here. It shows again and again that they aren't concerned about legalese.

- don't check if their customer is on the sanctions list.

- make it possible for their GA users to ignore GDPR

- knowingly ignore tax regulations to own benefit

- many other illegal practices / dark patterns / monopolistic behaviour

At this point, it's clear that Google being Google is not going to change of itself, as long as it is allowed to proceed like this. The only solution is to regulate Google and force it to comply with legal systems, using billion dollar fines if nothing else works, and splitting Google to avoid further monopolization.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#17

Post by Jolliness7501 »

As all business focused companies, Google and its shareholders cares only for money. If they only could, they would sell newborn children as target practice for muscal cолдат-s. All sanctions can be easily avoided with resellers and “good will” from management and creative paperwork. Here they even didn't try.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#18

Post by BrainVirus »

The sad thing about news like this is that most people only pay attention at all because they've been bombarded with anti-Russian propaganda, not because this showcases Google's awful anti-privacy practices. Despite years of warnings, examples and analysis of where this can lead, the only thing that matters in the end is some emotional trigger word that makes the public think they are dealing with an "outgroup".

The cherry on top of it all is that ProPublica uses Google Search for their website. I am moderately sure that after I post this someone will jump in to comment and defend this practice, showing nothing has been learned.

Privacy is important precisely because after your data has been collected and stored, there is no telling where it will end up and what it will be used for.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#19

Post by blackhaz »

Jolliness7501 wrote: post #17

As all business focused companies, Google and its shareholders cares only for money. If they only could, they would sell newborn children as target practice for muscal cолдат-s. All sanctions can be easily avoided with resellers and “good will” from management and creative paperwork. Here they even didn't try.

Google should be made to donate a few $M (or 10s/100s) to help defend Ukraine then, although it's still a completely shitty situation that a country fighting for its freedom is being "traded" for the temporary economical benefit of certain parties.

How about Western telecom carriers and IT resources stop providing services to Russian military complex? We still have Western telecommunications providers supplying IT and communications services to companies directly related to Russian Ministry of Defense and its war machine.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#20

Post by pdimitar »

What the hell does the recent Russian hostility has to do with this? Sanctions? You mean that the privacy laws that have been ignored and laughed at are not a bad enough violation? Apparently it's not, huh.

Google and Facebook have been extremely anti-privacy since practically their inception but suddenly NOW it's a problem because an attached Russian company has been doing what Google has been enabling any company to do, for decades?

Gosh. If that's how humanity can be made to react to public safety issues that I am seriously not impressed by our race, to put it diplomatically and mildly.

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