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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

#31

Post by jollybean »

pdimitar wrote: post #20

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 t…

It's not about privacy from companies who want to sell you vitamins, it's about Russian government wanting to know who you are so they can target you with political misinformation etc..

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

#32

Post by bastardoperator »

Of course it did, it was profitable for them. Google doesn't care about laws, they have a mountain of lawyers and piles of cash that ensure they will never be held accountable at any level.

Get off Google if you can, you're the product, not the customer.

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

#33

Post by j0ba »

1shooner wrote: post #29
BrainVirus wrote: post #18

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…

>some emotional trigger word that makes the public think they are dealing with an "outgroup". What specifically are you referring to?

Isn't it obvious? Russia

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

#34

Post by encryptluks2 »

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”

I mean to be fair you sound like the type that if they made homosexuality illegal that you'd be the first to start reporting people cause you don't care of the crime makes sense only that it is illegal.

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

#35

Post by daniel_reetz »

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…

You don't need to create a front company if you can simply buy the data. That's shrewd, not stupid and helpless.

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

#36

Post by legrande »

downrightmike wrote: post #16

This is why I have a 3.7m entry dns block list, and a few other things. EFF ads.

What something like this: https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts

I find blocking at the DNS level breaks some sites, which is why in uBlock Origin you can whitelist a domain that is causing problems.

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

#37

Post by hericium »

cronix wrote: post #26
hericium wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to go to JS-infested copy of a site which original version does not _require_ JS? Advice to do so and use uBlock to block something that wouldn't be run on original site is ridiculous. If you guys do archiving, stop spamming HN with links that are fresh and don't need archiving, just to run your tracking on victims' devices for profit. How is it not just stealing content from other sites? > It's fast…

Neither. It bypasses paywalls and opens the discussion up to everyone, which is the main reason why it's used on HN, or the discussion on each article would only be between the (relatively few) subscribers of that particular site and those who haven't used up the "3 free views for this month" quota.

Horseshit.

Fire up search on the bottom on the page and tell me what percent of "archived" sites don't require JS at all (so don't have any "pay us or fu" overlays popping up). I can tell you right now that 0% of those tracking-infested archive.ph copies of original sites work without JS on Firefox on Linux and certain other configurations.

As in: without JS, you can't see the stolen content on archive.ph while you can see it w/o JS (in most cases) under original addresses.

Most recent comment-link from 16 minutes ago:

    > curl -s https://archive.ph/EHxch | grep \\.js

     

        
 //     .then(response => response.json());
Would you run those, mail.ru's and other tracking scripts await on the copy of original page.

This is your "discussion open to anyone"?

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

#38

Post by hericium »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #28
hericium wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to go to JS-infested copy of a site which original version does not _require_ JS? Advice to do so and use uBlock to block something that wouldn't be run on original site is ridiculous. If you guys do archiving, stop spamming HN with links that are fresh and don't need archiving, just to run your tracking on victims' devices for profit. How is it not just stealing content from other sites? > It's fast…

Archive links get posted in the comments to bypass paywalls and make sure the OP is available if the site gets hugged to death. It's not some conspiracy. Also, I usually see it used for sites that are absolutely bloated with javascript, so I don't know what you're stalking about there.

archive.org is an archive site

archive.ph is a tracking-infested stolen content hosting which replaces original ads for profit

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

#39

Post by jfim »

tjpnz wrote: post #23
downrightmike wrote: post #16

This is why I have a 3.7m entry dns block list, and a few other things. EFF ads.

I do too and it literally saved me not an hour ago. Why does Google publish guidelines on what is and isn't acceptable on their ad network when they don't fucking enforce any of them? They might not be distributing malware directly, but they're (IMV knowingly) allowing it to continue.

It's cheaper to write a set of guidelines and not enforce them than to enforce them, which might actually reduce revenue. The incentives for them are such that it's better for them not to enforce their own guidelines.

If Google was getting fined say $1000 per offending ad impression, they'd clean up their act really quickly. As it is currently, they don't have a real incentive to do so.

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

#40

Post by imiric »

> Google Play has policies in place that prohibit using this data for purposes other than advertising and user analytics. Any claims that advertising ID was created to facilitate data sales are simply false.

How do policies _prevent_ data sales exactly? Their policies can say whatever they want—if the data is available in the first place, it _will_ be misused, regardless of whatever your policies say. If your enforcement hinges on your detection algorithms that data is being misused, you can't guarantee that violations aren't taking place.

This is Google's Cambridge Analytica.

It's insane that these privacy abuses happen again and again, and people have no protection or ways of stopping it. At the very least, we deserve a cut of the profits they're making by selling our data on these scummy markets.

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