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Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

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Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#61

Post by cogman10 »

kylevedder wrote: post #56
cogman10 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let me bring up some of the exceptions I can think of. Recently, a woman got an abortion and part of what the prosecution used against her was data collected from facebook. With google's tracking, is it not unlikely that a government body could subpoena them for search histories? (which, they do already) to look for questions like "has this individual asked about abortions recently?" Perhaps you view that as moral…

At an object level, "not having XYZ actions occur from the government" is a problem with the government, not any tech company. You almost certainly live in a western style democracy, and so you possess mechanisms to modify the government behavior (if you don't, I suggest moving); it's absurd to complain about tech companies when you're actually upset with the government. This does doubly so when the primary threat to…

> is a problem with the government, not any tech company. You almost certainly live in a western style democracy, and so you possess mechanisms to modify the government behavior (if you don't, I suggest moving)

Yeah, I'll get right on voting for the candidate that has "limit the tracking of data by internet companies" as one of their issues. I mean, come on. This is a niche issue that has little public awareness. To suggest "Oh, you just need to vote better" is simply laughable. I (and I'm guessing most people) don't live in a government where you can simply vote in new laws or regulations, we vote for candidates and whether or not those candidates care about privacy rights is a crap shoot. Most people don't have a cursory understanding of how data tracking works.

This is a google problem. They don't have regulations pushing them to track their users in a way that makes their data easily accessible and consumable by government agencies. There aren't regulations out there forcing it. This is made evident by Apple's run ins with the FBI because their encryption wasn't crackable.

And frankly, while this is an issue, there are so many other issues I care about politically that a candidate running on the "limit google tracking" platform wouldn't have enough to win my vote. It's important, but so are so many other issues of the day.

> You've not suggested a workable alternative business model that, on balance, provides more net good.

More net good? Or more profit for google? These are not the same things.

I did, in fact, suggest an alternative business model, ads without tracking. One that was particularly popular throughout the internet right up until google took things over with doubleclick.

Again, this is not a business model that will be as profitable, but you are conflating "good" with "profit".

And as a counter example, duck duck go appears to be doing fine even though they aren't tracking users like crazy.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#62

Post by kylevedder »

kornhole wrote: post #55
kylevedder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they do not see how it is affecting them I'm an adult who understands tracking tech and in particular Google's level of tracking quite well (I used to work on AdWords), and I'm one of these people -- tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running. Visual or audio representations of the amount of data they're collecting are hardly an ar…

The visualization is useful for those who already understand how it harms them and society. If someone likes to be watched and controlled, this type of visualization is not of much value.

"if you know you know" isn't an argument. This is just empty rhetoric -- dogmatically asserting that tracking ads damage society and that I'm being controlled by it is a pretty strong claim, and a claim that requires evidence to support it.

If this is the typical quality of your privacy argumentation then it should be no surprise that your children don't buy your arguments.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#63

Post by [deleted] »

leodriesch wrote: post #45
7373737373 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come there isn't a single open source captcha solution?

I’d say captchas are reliant on not being open about their detection methods, otherwise they would be easier to game. AFAIK the image selection is only part of determining you’re a human, the other part is tracking your mouse movement and so to see if you’re real.

[deleted]

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#64

Post by scubbo »

kylevedder wrote: post #56
cogman10 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let me bring up some of the exceptions I can think of. Recently, a woman got an abortion and part of what the prosecution used against her was data collected from facebook. With google's tracking, is it not unlikely that a government body could subpoena them for search histories? (which, they do already) to look for questions like "has this individual asked about abortions recently?" Perhaps you view that as moral…

At an object level, "not having XYZ actions occur from the government" is a problem with the government, not any tech company. You almost certainly live in a western style democracy, and so you possess mechanisms to modify the government behavior (if you don't, I suggest moving); it's absurd to complain about tech companies when you're actually upset with the government. This does doubly so when the primary threat to…

I've never seen such a concise and well-articulated statement of this position. Thank you for presenting it! I instinctively disagree with it, but I can't actually provide a coherent and convincing counter-argument, which is probably a sign that I need to think more on it. Thank you for that prompt.

The best counter-argument I can think of is:

> the claim that only Google (or, "only organizations large enough to require ads as revenue support") can provide these services is false - Open Source solutions (like OpenStreetMap, etc.) provide "good-enough" value. That is, the drop in value from "premium shiny BigTech solution" to "less-fully-featured Open Source privacy-respecting solution" is smaller than the gain in value from the associated privacy-aesthetics.

That's a subjective statement that applies on a case-by-case basis (is Google Maps more socially valuable than Google Drive?), and won't be true for everyone - perhaps, not many people.

EDIT: for a more fully-described alternative business model - https://spreadprivacy.com/duckduckgo-revenue-model/

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#65

Post by kradeelav »

kylevedder wrote: post #43
kylevedder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they do not see how it is affecting them I'm an adult who understands tracking tech and in particular Google's level of tracking quite well (I used to work on AdWords), and I'm one of these people -- tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running. Visual or audio representations of the amount of data they're collecting are hardly an ar…

This a bit orthogonal so I put it in a separate comment, but let me be even more aggressive and do a bit of offense: I've read a lot of the "pro privacy/anti tracking" arguments over the years, and (outside of a few exceptions) they almost always hinge upon some aesthetic dislike for companies having this information, rather than having any material justification for why it's harmful. But attacking ads and ad trackin…

Putting aside the business model side of it (I can't speak for that), I agree with you about pro-privacy arguments tend to be annoyingly insufficient on the material justification ... when I can think of plenty.

Put simply, it enables massive power inequalities that threaten to be permanent, if they aren't already. Several living examples:

* Black advocates have already raised attention to pre-emptive tracking mixed with AI to "anticipate" crimes committed by "at risk" individuals (read, racial profiling) when this goes against everything that the Constitution stands for re: presuming innocence.

* The recent controversies with Roe that another sibling comment is a textbook example about how information mined from menstrual apps or location services can be used to criminalize women seeking an abortion.

* On a similar tangent, there was a case early on in adtech's history when a young woman who was pregnant and hiding it from the people she lived with got found out because ads about baby supplies were shown to them (after she had searched up the items). People's living situations can be volatile and this could have been fatal for her if they were sufficiently abusive enough.

* Health/Medical apps tend to be especially obscene with tracking - collecting data on the most medically vulnerable (eg disabled people) and letting that data be resold often times means locking them to a sub-standard life because jobs and insurance can and will discriminate in obvious and subtle ways if they know about certain medical conditions, if they can get away with it.

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#66

Post by dogman144 »

kylevedder wrote: post #40
kornhole wrote: post #10

A common explanation I get from people with poor digital hygiene is that they do not see how it is affecting them. Making the imperceptible perceptible is a great concept for more innovations. I have sent the kids in my house logs for their devices from the DNS blocker I have running on our network, but it was too much for them to digest. Perhaps I should work on a visualization tool of all the data that shows impact…

>they do not see how it is affecting them I'm an adult who understands tracking tech and in particular Google's level of tracking quite well (I used to work on AdWords), and I'm one of these people -- tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running. Visual or audio representations of the amount of data they're collecting are hardly an ar…

This is a snapshot of the cognitive dissonance that causes AdWords to keep growing despite the people building it being smart folks.

It doesn’t affect me and I like free stuff, so seems fine.

There isn’t a missing logical leap in the middle. The tracking is self-evidently anti-democratic.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#67

Post by nano9 »

7373737373 wrote: post #42
jnsaff2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, their captcha is everywhere for starters. Obviously a lot of other deps too.

How come there isn't a single open source captcha solution?

I've noticed hcaptcha being used more widely.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#68

Post by arrosenberg »

kylevedder wrote: post #40
kornhole wrote: post #10

A common explanation I get from people with poor digital hygiene is that they do not see how it is affecting them. Making the imperceptible perceptible is a great concept for more innovations. I have sent the kids in my house logs for their devices from the DNS blocker I have running on our network, but it was too much for them to digest. Perhaps I should work on a visualization tool of all the data that shows impact…

>they do not see how it is affecting them I'm an adult who understands tracking tech and in particular Google's level of tracking quite well (I used to work on AdWords), and I'm one of these people -- tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running. Visual or audio representations of the amount of data they're collecting are hardly an ar…

“Free services” are not free. They are ad-subsidized, and thus anticompetitive. They are affecting your life by messing up the competitive market economy. The fact that you value them greatly means you should pay for them, which you are - with your limited attention span. Its an insidious price to pay.

You may accept this bargain, but most of us hate it, and are not being offered a competitive market alternative to this version of reality.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#69

Post by scubbo »

kylevedder wrote: post #56
cogman10 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let me bring up some of the exceptions I can think of. Recently, a woman got an abortion and part of what the prosecution used against her was data collected from facebook. With google's tracking, is it not unlikely that a government body could subpoena them for search histories? (which, they do already) to look for questions like "has this individual asked about abortions recently?" Perhaps you view that as moral…

At an object level, "not having XYZ actions occur from the government" is a problem with the government, not any tech company. You almost certainly live in a western style democracy, and so you possess mechanisms to modify the government behavior (if you don't, I suggest moving); it's absurd to complain about tech companies when you're actually upset with the government. This does doubly so when the primary threat to…

Putting this in a sibling comment because it's tangential to my more-relevant response about an alternative business model.

---

The claim that citizens of western-style democracies have mechanisms to modify government behaviour is technically true, but meaningless. The average Western citizen has more chance of becoming an Astronaut or solving a Millenium problem than they do of effecting real govenmental change without access to extraordinary social capital or Super-PAC-level donations. Especially given that most western-style democracies' mechanisms consist of "pick which of these two broad bundles of choices you want to support" (as cogman10 pointed out, "the candidate who is opposed to data-tracking" does not really exist as a viable option; and even if they did, they would need to have a broad platform of popular positions, not just that one) - so if the option you want is not offered, you not only need to change voting behaviour to support it, you first need to create that option out of whole cloth.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#70

Post by dogman144 »

kylevedder wrote: post #43
kylevedder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they do not see how it is affecting them I'm an adult who understands tracking tech and in particular Google's level of tracking quite well (I used to work on AdWords), and I'm one of these people -- tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running. Visual or audio representations of the amount of data they're collecting are hardly an ar…

This a bit orthogonal so I put it in a separate comment, but let me be even more aggressive and do a bit of offense: I've read a lot of the "pro privacy/anti tracking" arguments over the years, and (outside of a few exceptions) they almost always hinge upon some aesthetic dislike for companies having this information, rather than having any material justification for why it's harmful. But attacking ads and ad trackin…

> rather than having any material justification for why it's harmful

Material - During the bombings in Austin, Google provided a blanket location/data dump to the police of everyone with Google accs within x-miles of the event. That data, regardless of linked to the bombing in the end, is kept by Austin PD and likely the FBI, forever. You have given the police a warrantless log of citizens basically based on “well they use Google and live in Austin.”

If you don’t see the glaring material issues, that explains a lot about why Google is Google.

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