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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

#91

Post by stefan_ »

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…

As far as I can tell you have entirely made up that claim. Nobody says that at all. What's going on?

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

#92

Post by burkaman »

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…

> 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".

Please be more specific about who you're criticizing here. Presumably not ProPublica, as they've been reporting on Google privacy issues for 10+ years. I'm also not sure what you mean by "emotional trigger word" - this story is about illegal and unethical activity by a major corporation that stopped as a direct result of ProPublica's investigation. Who are these "most people" that care about this story but not any other privacy issue?

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

#93

Post by theptip »

theptip wrote: post #44

> This means Google may have turned over such critical information as unique mobile phone IDs, IP addresses, location information and details about users’ interests and online activity Can someone help me to understand this? I thought Google kept this kind of user-preference (interests/activity) data to itself, and used that as the sauce powering its ad auctions. If you run a site, GA will give you IP, location, etc.…

Ok, I found some answers.

The original research is linked in the OP: https://adalytics.io/blog/sanctioned-ad-tech-user-data -- this is much more informative than the ProPublica writeup. It includes a technical explanation of what's going on.

Basically, the accusation is that a sanctioned Russian company is listed as an advertiser ("Demand Side Platform") on Google's real-time bidding platform for ads. This means they get a blob of data for each impression that there is a bid on (this is "the bidstream data"):

> These can include: The URL, website, or app the consumer is on, Information about the consumer’s device, The consumer’s geo-location, The consumer’s IP address, Various demographic or behavioral attributes about the consumer (as supplied by the ad exchange or third party data brokers), such as gender, age range, or job occupation

These user IDs are anonymized but there's machinery to link the bid data to a cookie that the advertiser already has in their own system ("cookie matching").

They provide some evidence that even though RuTarget was OFAC sanctioned in April, Google may still be providing them the bidstream (and therefore presumably is selling services to an OFAC-sanctioned entity). This would be quite surprising if so, since a company like Google surely has processes to monitor the OFAC watchlist and automatically deactivate companies that are sanctioned.

My summary here is that the ProPublica article is incomplete and that makes it a bit misleading; reading the article one would assume the Russians were getting a dump of de-anonymized data, whereas in fact the finding is around them getting access to the bidstream, which is provides anonymized user data, that may in some cases be hypothetically de-anonymizable, or assist with other de-anonymization efforts.

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

#94

Post by burkaman »

remarkEon wrote: post #67
barrbid8 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I write an article about say the North Korean government stealing money, or murdering, I’m using an emotional trigger word and an “out group”? Have you ever watched Russian domestic tv, which is incidentally 100% controlled by the government? You’d find a new appreciation for emotional triggers and out groups!

I think the point made by the original comment is that Google has been doing this basically forever, and the privacy concerns are unrelated to the fact that a Russian Ad company took advantage of them. While a Russian Ad company doing this is bad, people are only paying attention to it now, because Russia being bad[er than usual] is part of the current socio-political environment, so the activity has a higher S/N.

> people are only paying attention to it now

But that isn't true.

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

#96

Post by hutzlibu »

refulgentis wrote: post #87
dbtc wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Source?

Mainly because of Goebbels and co:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reich_Ministry_of_Public_Enl...

"At the time the German word ‘Propaganda’ was value neutral."

English "propaganda" sounds the same .. and therefore got the negative connotation as well.

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

#97

Post by remarkEon »

burkaman wrote: post #94
remarkEon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point made by the original comment is that Google has been doing this basically forever, and the privacy concerns are unrelated to the fact that a Russian Ad company took advantage of them. While a Russian Ad company doing this is bad, people are only paying attention to it now, because Russia being bad[er than usual] is part of the current socio-political environment, so the activity has a higher S/N.

> people are only paying attention to it now But that isn't true.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to make a statement on whether that claim is true or not. If you're asking, I think it's true but only to a small degree and only with certain cohorts (those likely to be emotionally inflamed or attached to the Russia issue). This website has seen lots of Google privacy articles pushed to the front page and No. 1 for a long time now, so it seems suspect this phenomenon is that common here. I have no idea how true that is outside of this self-selected group. It's possible it's true to a much larger degree in the general public, who are either unaware or don't care about the other privacy issues Google is (becoming?) famous for.

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

#98

Post by burkaman »

remarkEon wrote: post #97
burkaman wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are only paying attention to it now But that isn't true.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to make a statement on whether that claim is true or not. If you're asking, I think it's true but only to a small degree and only with certain cohorts (those likely to be emotionally inflamed or attached to the Russia issue). This website has seen lots of Google privacy articles pushed to the front page and No. 1 for a long time now, so it seems suspect this phenomenon is that common here. I hav…

It isn't true, almost everyone is concerned about privacy: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-an...

I'm sorry I'm not accusing you specifically, it's just very aggravating to hear people proclaim how ignorant "the public" is and how only they are wise enough to understand the real issues.

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

#99

Post by BrainVirus »

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.

It's interesting that you focused on this particular aspect of my message and replied with an assertion that rests on a whole stack of shaky assumptions. One, that I was talking about reporting of Russia's cyber activities. Two, that the reporting of such activities is generally accurate. Three, that accurate reporting cannot serve propaganda purposes. Such comments derail discussions, and it did exactly that here.

My point was that there is a logical discrepancy in how most people process statement about privacy. When presented with a specific example of an "outgroup" violating their privacy, there is quick condemnation and outrage. When presented with an example of an "ingroup" doing the same, people usually respond with some non sequitur like "I have nothing to hide". However, somehow, people mentally disconnect these two cases and see them as different. The reality is, they are profoundly connected. The simple fact is that after your private data has been collected and stored, you don't get to choose which group gets it.

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

#100

Post by avgcorrection »

judge2020 wrote: post #4
avgcorrection wrote: post #2

> Last April, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators sent a letter to Google and other major ad technology companies warning of the national security implications of data shared as part of the digital ad buying process. They said this user data “would be a goldmine for foreign intelligence services that could exploit it to inform and supercharge hacking, blackmail, and influence campaigns.” The US (or insert ) for sure…

The letter: https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/4/a/4a3293...

An interesting thing about that letter is the atrocious typography.
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