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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

#71

Post by Georgelemental »

barrbid8 wrote: post #53
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…

Reporting negatively on the Iraq war or blackwater or Facebook isn’t “anti American propaganda”. Just because you are anti establishment doesn’t mean you should instinctively support the Russian establishment which is incidentally many times more horrific and out of control than the people you claim are spreading “propaganda”. (I’m guessing NGOs, charities like amnesty international or anyone who reports on the war c…

> Reporting negatively on the Iraq war or blackwater or Facebook isn’t “anti American propaganda”.

Yes it is. Propaganda doesn't have to be untrue

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

#72

Post by avgcorrection »

barrbid8 wrote: post #53
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…

Reporting negatively on the Iraq war or blackwater or Facebook isn’t “anti American propaganda”. Just because you are anti establishment doesn’t mean you should instinctively support the Russian establishment which is incidentally many times more horrific and out of control than the people you claim are spreading “propaganda”. (I’m guessing NGOs, charities like amnesty international or anyone who reports on the war c…

> Reporting negatively on the Iraq war or blackwater or Facebook isn’t “anti American propaganda”.

Even if it is RT that is doing it?

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

#73

Post by theptip »

freeflight wrote: post #54
amelius wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a Russian agent starting an ad campaign targeted at Ukrainian people who are interested in weapon systems. But... the actual ads are about an innocent thing, like cat food. An Ukrainian clicks the cat food ad, is directed to the Russian agent's fake cat food shop, places an order and fills in their address. How is Google not leaking information here?

The whole "Google is not selling your data" excuse never held up to practical reality, it was always only a semantics argument along the lines of "They sell it, but not directly!" . This whole case exemplifies that very much, but it only garners attention due to who did it, Russia, not due to why and how this is actually possible.

I think it’s materially different though. Particularly when you contrast with the FB graph API and the Cambridge Analytica scandal where they were actually giving out the raw data.

There is a LOT more you can do with the raw data than with ads targeted on specific categories.

Like, I personally am never going to click the cat ad in the example above, but I very well could have had all my info leaked by a neighbor in my friend graph in the CA dump. So your ad-harvested data will always be sparse.

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

#74

Post by dbtc »

refulgentis wrote: post #66
dbtc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creation of the term "Public Relations" is an example of skillful propaganda.

Quoted post unavailable.

I am not "HN", just one human, one mind (more or less).

Communication is what we are doing here.

When you propagate a message to many people, then it's propaganda.

Once upon a time the word had no negative sense. Then it did, so they changed the job to PR.

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

#75

Post by theptip »

amelius wrote: post #51
jonny_eh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google allowed RuTarget, a Russian company that helps brands and agencies buy digital ads, to access and store data about people browsing websites and apps in Ukraine and other parts of the world In other words, they collected data via websites and apps, just like any other JS or native ad library does. This wasn't data that Google collected, then handed over. It's a misleading headline IMO.

Imagine a Russian agent starting an ad campaign targeted at Ukrainian people who are interested in weapon systems. But... the actual ads are about an innocent thing, like cat food. An Ukrainian clicks the cat food ad, is directed to the Russian agent's fake cat food shop, places an order and fills in their address. How is Google not leaking information here?

Is that even an AdWords category?

Can we get more specific on exactly what level of targeting is possible?

I see there is an attack here, but I’m still not exactly clear on the scope. I can’t see them getting very many conversions with a random cat food company. So did they dox 10 people? Or was this something that could actually get a meaningful amount of data?

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

#77

Post by Terry_Roll »

Well this just backs up something I've said before, that its possible to intimidate and harass individuals with the type of adverts only Google could deliver. Does that make Google an accessory to crimes, or does business to business provide the perfect cover?

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

#78

Post by rootusrootus »

cato_the_elder wrote: post #14
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.

So it blocks ads making the content producer money, then puts in some ads of its own along with trackers. This is good because?

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

#79

Post by _Algernon_ »

apstls wrote: post #25
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…

Accurate reporting of Russia's cyber activities is not propaganda.

Selective reporting of the truth is the best propaganda.

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

#80

Post by ShivShankaran »

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…

> that can manipulate elections at will and subsume every US social movement to spread its propaganda, but is too stupid and helpless to create a US front company

The first chapter of "Propaganda" is that the enemy is cunning and wicked while also weak and helpless at the same time.

It's also weird that Russia has been running out of ammunition for the last 5 years and is a weak enemy at the same time its able to fight a country supported by virtually the whole of west with NATO arms, NATO training and best of all NATO intelligence/spies with a sanction that was supposed to turn the "ruble" in to "rubble"

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