Live data from Hacker News

Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

mako.cc

321–330 of 400 posts

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#321

Major vendors have realized this as well, and are putting less information in their emails as a result. If you’re my customer and a Gmail user and I send you order details, financial/credit info, any number of things I might know about you that Google might not know already, Google learns that about you from me. Instead, I’m going to send you an email that prompts you to come back to my site or app to get your tracki…

I don't know what you're talking about. I get order confirmations from retail stores all the time with full details of my order, every item listed in full detail, last 4 digits of credit card used, etc.

I see no change in this over time, nor do I know why companies would even care that an e-mail provider (including Google) would be able to read that information. I don't think this phenomenon exists at all.

The only thing I can imagine you referring to is companies having the tracking link open to their own page rather than directly to UPS/FedEx etc., but that's for totally separate reasons that you can see from Narvar's marketing.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ensure that mail gets delivered Email is intrinsically an unreliable service, and always has been. It's a "best-effort" service. But at least email is honest about it up-front, and tries to address reliability in the RFCs. Not that Google cares much about RFCs.

That was in reference to regular mail. USPS was one of the first fed agencies and mail was one of the few original functionals of the central government. On top of USPS being one of the largest agencies, there is also legal protection against tempering with mail and usps has its own enforcement branch. In case of email, it probably should simpler. Gov only serves as an address book, essentially. But does minimum of t…

OIC, sorry. It crossed my mind that's what you meant, but I said "Nah".

As far as USPS anti-tampering and enforcement goes: . The postmen robbed me silly, and there was no process to get it fixed.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#323

I think this is everywhere. In India, people in the departments, especially the Governments usually ask, "What is your Gmail?" Almost everyone uses Gmail here and it is extremely rare to find their own custom domain. I'm actually surprised that the Government Departments do not have a service that takes care of these! They will fine Google but almost all of the government email IDs are Gmail. I was one of those that…

I find it utterly astounding that not a single government has started an email service yet for its citizens, with all the legal protections of actual mail and such. They wouldn't even need to run it, just create a legal category like "This account is officially registered to X and serves as a legal email account" that companies can apply for if they meet some standards.

First, why would they when they don't need to because private companies already provide it for free?

Second, the government is now on the hook for not just failures and outages but all security and privacy breaches.

So it's basically all risk and no reward. It makes sense governments wouldn't want to touch that.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#324
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good rule for email is, treat writing email as if you're speaking publicly. ...and if you treat it that way, then it's not a "horrible medium" (for "publicly", I would prefer to substitute "on the record"). If you don't like email, that's cool; there are plenty of other messaging services you can use instead. But: - Your bank doesn't use them - Your friends don't use them - They are usually proprietary and opaque -…

> - Your friends don't use them Nobody under like 40 uses email for personal communication. Yeah it's a legacy medium for stuff like your bank, maybe it's the least terrible option for B2B communication, but email has largely been replaced already.

It's the default: you need an email to make all those other accounts. Everyone has an email (assuming they have internet at all). Not everyone has a goofacetwat account, or whatever the newest thing is.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you happen to have any actual cases you can point me to? I see this all the time in HN but it's never beyond "a buddy of mine said that he didn't do anything wrong and somehow they got locked out forever with no recourse". Or it's someone saying that happened to themselves, and then they say they never did anything bad with their gmail. Which may or may not be true?

One good case I can think of is Crinacle. Very popular for his audio measurements site and does YouTube. His Google account got flagged for something suspicious, Google had it shut down and without good explanations. He can't even get help through YouTube support and while the old channel remains, the Google account behind it appears disabled today. The only choice he had was to file a request that lead to nowhere an…

"The only choice he had was to file a request that lead to nowhere and he basically had to start with a new account and channel."

Incorrect.

Yes, that was, indeed, the only choice he had that was free, and from his living room, but he did have other choices.

Specifically: serving google with proper legal papers from his own lawyers that require responses. That costs google money. The money just keeps adding up and eventually a real person who has decision authority will look closely at the issue and fix the issue.

Assuming, of course, that the banning was improper - which I think we are all stipulating here ...

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it known that domain registrars are better than GMail in this regard? Not asking sarcastically, but I had my domain taken over by registrar(not released to public, just registrar took control of it) after few week of notice when auto renew failed to charge my credit card, and my credit card was working fine elsewhere. Also many registrar like Namecheap cancelled subscription for Russian customers during this invas…

Now you know why there are still some people that still take "web3" seriously. It's the only system where you are not at the mercy of some external entity to be always benevolent. Seriously, ENS and Handshake alone should be enough of a reason to silence all of those who keep repeating "but blockchain has no real world applications".

It has its own problems though: what if you lose access to your key?

The other day someone suggested making real estate NFTs. What happens if the "owner" of some real estate loses their key?

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#328

Major vendors have realized this as well, and are putting less information in their emails as a result. If you’re my customer and a Gmail user and I send you order details, financial/credit info, any number of things I might know about you that Google might not know already, Google learns that about you from me. Instead, I’m going to send you an email that prompts you to come back to my site or app to get your tracki…

I never thought about it like that. I've always considered it inconvenient to not have my order details in my email history when I do a search of all emails looking for when I bought a thing or something. Especially if I dont remember where or what.

I do appreciate the privacy that can come with that. However I think I still prefer being able to search my email history for receipts and other info. Or at least opt into receipt coming in email.

I'm too lazy to catalog things manually but I do on occasion want to search for things a little easier.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#329
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're splitting hairs. Sure, your carefully constructed "microtheys" don't have the power you fear. But someone does [1]. And they act. And have. [1] As currently constructed, it (probably) requires a 51% attack by staked ETH owners. There's a lot more wealth concentration on the blockchain than you think there is, this isn't a lot of actual people!

> someone does. Who?! Give it a name, or set of names. I'm all for healthy skepticism, but you are far from it. > There's a lot more wealth concentration on the blockchain First, with Ethereum you need 67% of the staked ETH to make an attack on the network. Second, stakers do not have power to change consensus rules. They are not able to dictate how people transact (not without losing their take) and they are not abl…

> Third, do you understand that even if one single entity had that much power to launch an attack of the network, it would not be in their interest to do so?

If that were true, then why was the Ethereum network attacked and forked last month?

I think what's happening here is that you've confusing "blockchain consensus" with "not evil", because you trust the giant faceless organization making decisions about the future of your activity in their system to act in something approximating your personal interests.

Just like people trust Google and Microsoft with their email. Get it now?

As to which entities are "really" more trustworthy, I'll just drop this link and flee: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#330
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you change your security model from gmail to a registrar you need to redo the risk assessment, or rely on someone else to do that risk assessment for your (i.e. base your decision on third-party recommendations/best practices). A free service is covered under very different customer protection than a paid product, but your country of origin matter as does the country where the registrar is located and the country…

Can I get a recommendation on a service that bills?

If you live in Sweden, yes. Outside of that area I don't know. I can only guess that enforcing bills is something that is much harder once you pass national lines.
Post reply on HN