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

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

#101

Post by remarkEon »

burkaman wrote: post #98
remarkEon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting, I'm happy that more people are having concerns about this. I suppose it should be obvious that they are, since Apple started using that as a differentiation wedge between themselves and other tech companies.

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

#103

Post by cowtools »

avgcorrection wrote: post #72
barrbid8 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you must take it with a grain of salt, you can usually find a grain of truth.

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

#104

Post by jjulius »

hericium wrote: post #21
cato_the_elder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

>Advice to do so and use uBlock to block something that wouldn't be run on original site is ridiculous.

You generally browse the internet without the use of uBlock or something similar?

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

#105

Post by apstls »

BrainVirus wrote: post #99
apstls wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. M…

I admit I honed in on a detail in your comment that is mostly unrelated to your actual argument - an argument I fullheartedly agree with would not typically want to distract or detract from. However, after spending probably an order of magnitude more time on work related to Russian cyber activity than time spent with friends or family lately, I sometimes have a kneejerk reaction to phrasing like this.

Regarding the assumptions you list:

1. Information regarding Russian activities in cyberspace is the most relevant category of "possible" anti-Russian propaganda related to the topic you bring up, and what I believe most people will imagine when reading the words "anti-Russian propaganda" in your comment, regardless of whether or not you had it in mind when writing them.

2. Do you have an example of reporting on this topic whose primary points have proven to be inaccurate, even if unintentionally? I would go as far to argue that the amount of realized and attempted damage caused by Russian cyber actors, and the audacity of some of the operations, would significantly reduce the need for entities pushing anti-Russian narratives to fabricate or twist facts.

3. There is a chance that, after arguing the semantics of the word propaganda, you could convince me that accurate reporting of facts regarding cyber attacks against our nation could be technically viewed as propaganda, based on some definition that doesn't include terms like "misleading" or a book on the topic that I have not read. However, I don't think that really matters here, because for the significant majority of people the term "propaganda" carries implications of incorrect or misleading information, and I believe the effects of these types of claim can do much more harm than a comment derailing a conversation, like mine.

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

#106

Post by freeflight »

hutzlibu wrote: post #96
refulgentis wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This

During WWI [0], and even WWII plenty of countries would openly run propaganda ministries distributing government news.

Which most people considered legitimate news, as new information from afar was not very easy to come by back then.

After WWII a lot of Nazi crimes were blamed on the efficiency of "Goebbels propaganda", so the term became stigmatized. Which put people like Edward Bernays [1], who had been working in the propaganda business for decades and literally wrote the book on it, in a bit of pickle.

So he came up with the rebranding of "Public Relations", which is basically privatized propaganda. Turning it from something strictly governments do, to a service that can be bought by anyone with enough money.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsehood_in_War-Time

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

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

#107

Post by _uy6i »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #34
balderdash wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Guess you just ignored the “do what’s right” part of my comment, that’s convenient.

So please explain to me what part of a law that prohibits people from doing business with a Russian state owned enterprise doesn’t make sense?

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

#108

Post by refulgentis »

freeflight wrote: post #106
hutzlibu wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This During WWI [0], and even WWII plenty of countries would openly run propaganda ministries distributing government news. Which most people considered legitimate news, as new information from afar was not very easy to come by back then. After WWII a lot of Nazi crimes were blamed on the efficiency of "Goebbels propaganda", so the term became stigmatized. Which put people like Edward Bernays [1], who had been workin…

Thank you, this is thoughtful and considered. It took me a bit to understand exactly where it goes off kilter.

It's at "basically", namely "_basically_ privatized propaganda"

I see evidence someone did something that's defined as for the politics for the government during a war, then did similar work in private industry as not illuminating.

This is in fact expected. A quartermaster who now does logistics doesn't mean logistics is just a polite rebranding of supplying weapons

We also agree it is not evidence of a conscious rebranding of an entire field away from being named "propaganda" to "public relations"

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

#109

Post by encryptluks2 »

_uy6i wrote: post #107
encryptluks2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Guess you just ignored the “do what’s right” part of my comment, that’s convenient. So please explain to me what part of a law that prohibits people from doing business with a Russian state owned enterprise doesn’t make sense?

I could go on a tangent about how the US makes anti-BDS laws, but the reality is that sanctioned companies are not easy to follow and track, and Google ceased doing business as soon as they were alerted. You're hyperbolic statement indicated that you only cared about what was illegal, not whether they were making legitimate efforts to follow the laws.

However, sanctions don't necessarily indicate a moral implication... merely a political one.

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

#110

Post by apstls »

cato_the_elder wrote: post #83
apstls wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Selective and misleading reporting of facts is probably both the most common and the most effective form of propaganda.

Most people would point out that “misleading” is the operative word here.
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