I noticed that Google Search itself has very recently become much more aggressive about asking for location permission. Coincidence, or is collecting more location data someone high up’s KPI for the year?
maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
221–230 of 396 posts
Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
#222This is a fantastic example of motivated reasoning. This "change" (which apparently isn't even new) can have so many different reasons, some of which are less harmful and some of which are probably worse (privacy-wise) than the one mentioned here. There is no indication that re/mis-using permissions is specifically what they wanted to do here, there is also no example of them doing it right now. Don't get me wrong, t…
Recently I have been trying to recover my gmail account. Besides sending verification code to my phone number, it also sent a code to YouTube app, high on the list. I have lost access to my google account, so I cannot open my YouTube. So it sent a verification code to the exact gmail address I am trying to recover. The whole process is unreal. This YouTube verification thing is definitely new, I don't know the motivation behind it, it couldn't even detect if my YouTube App was activate or not (or maybe it knows I wasn't using YouTube, maybe it is encouraging me to log in YouTube or open YouTube. Either way, I am not impressed.
Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
If only there was a drop in replacement for Google Workspace… even if you use Fastmail for email you don’t have Google docs anymore and that’s a huge piece…
The worse problem is you give Maps location permissions and that can translate now to the 3 billion sites that use Analytics isn't it?
No, google-analytics.com is where analytics is being served from and sends tracking-requests to.
Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
My default mode is to trust everyone until they break my trust. Now that I am old, I have realized that trusting everyone by default is not a good idea, especially big tech. In cases like this, I think it is better to assume malice, even if we are proved wrong later. This is not our fault, this is big tech screwing with us repeatedly for years, with no shame or conscience
The way I see it, people deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their motivations but corporations don't.
Perhaps you mean persons deserve the benefit of the doubt? People seems to be the root problem.
I expect there is no difference between an individual and a corporation operated by a sole individual. If one is trustworthy, they will remain equally trustworthy if they happen to have a stock certificate in hand. The corporation isn't able to act autonomously. It acts with equivalency to the person it is represented by.
Large corporations, involving people, is where communication breaks down, which leads to unintended consequences that wouldn't necessarily be realized if an individual was acting alone. When you have people there are bound to be competing interests created in the confusion and it is not always a straightforward answer who is best to honour. Even where intentions are pure humans are bound to make mistakes in their choosing.
Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chrome uses DoT, if you have configured one of the well-known resolvers that do support DoT. Otherwise, it respects your local settings.
My point about Chrome is not that it can’t do DoH but by default it doesn’t so relies on the system settings which for the vast majority of users (not us geeks who explicitly opt in) never change and use ISP supplied values so DNS snooping is still a thing for the majority. Should a browser override system settings? That’s another question, because doing so can impact other things for the avg Joe. For example my mobi…
I understand your point, but anyway, no app, no browser should ever think that "it knows better" and attempt to fix what it considers incorrect. It may think that it protects the user, but in reality, it will break what the user configured. Private DNS zones are common, and if the browser ignores user configured DNS, they will break. And as I wrote elsewhere, just because the machine is configured to use 53/udp for a resolver, it doesn't mean that the resolver is forwarding over 53/udp too.
If you want to solve unsafe defaults, this is not the way. Pushing for configuring safe defaults is.
Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
#226This is a fantastic example of motivated reasoning. This "change" (which apparently isn't even new) can have so many different reasons, some of which are less harmful and some of which are probably worse (privacy-wise) than the one mentioned here. There is no indication that re/mis-using permissions is specifically what they wanted to do here, there is also no example of them doing it right now. Don't get me wrong, t…
1. The change does exist (although it apparently has been live for quite some time in some regions at least) 2. The change does have the effect of Google gaining more permissions (and subsequently more data) than previously 3. The author assumes that (2) is the (main) reason why (1) was done in the first place Regardless of whether (3) is correct or completely wrong - and regardless of whether the author truly believ…
> The change does have the effect of Google gaining more permissions (and subsequently more data)
There's a huge logic gap here. Obtaining more permissions doesn't at all imply obtaining more data when it's caused by an incidental change. Maybe the permissions aren't being used outside of the Maps context, or maybe it doesn't matter because the data was already be known.
Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
#227A bit reason for using separate subdomains originally is because there are security benefits.
If there is an XSS attack that leaks cookies from Google Keep, you would prefer that not get your cookie for Google Maps.
As browser security models have evolved, subdomains are no longer as isolated as top level domains, so I dunno...
Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
#228I recall from my time in Google Geo years ago that the idea of integrating Search and Maps was a big part of the "New Maps" release that happened around 2014. The rumor I heard was that someone (possibly even Larry himself) wanted to be able to have interactive maps directly on the search results page, so that the navigation from a search query to a map wouldn't involve even a page reload. So the big Maps frontend re…
This makes perfect sense product wise, if I'm searching "bakery" on my mobile phone I probably want the ones around me and not the generic location-agnostic google search of it, just like I would if I was searching on map. Matter of fact, this is actually something I do a couple times a month, search then clic the maps tab to see localized results then from them click the website result to find their webpage. As a te…
This is achievable with geolocation based on IP address, which is how it works on, e.g. a desktop web browser.
Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
DNS over HTTPS is the solution here.
Doesn't change the fact that the SNI is sent in clear text.
Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps
#230It's even worse with their iOS apps. I've tried to avoid logging into my Google account on Safari on my iPhone because I am scared of them tracking me, but I also wanted to use the Google Keep app for sharing a shopping list with my partner. But when you launch the Google Keep app, iOS asks you whether you want to allow the app to share data with "google.com". It turns out that there is no way to sign into the Google…
> It turns out that there is no way to sign into the Google Keep app without also signing into Google in Safari! If you're wondering why you're getting downvoted it's because this isn't true at all. I'm signed into (several) iOS google apps and my Safari browser is not signed into google.
Please tell me how!
All I know is that I was not able to sign into Google Keep without accepting the data sharing prompt, and I was signed into my Google account in Safari after logging into the Google Keep app. It was of course possible to sign out of Safari afterwards.
I don't know how to reproduce the issue. I've tried uninstalling the Google Keep app, to trigger the alert again, but when I reinstall the app it remembers my Google account!
I'm really surprised how hard it is to get these cookies or app preferences or whatever off my device after signing in once.
EDIT: It seems the Google Keep app stores my account in the iOS keychain and there is no way to delete the item from the keychain without deleting all data on the phone, so I can't reproduce the "new device" situation easily.
However, if I try to add a new account, I get the same dialog. It says something like (rough translation) "Google Keep wants to use google.com for logging in. If you allow this, the app and the website are allowed to share data about your person".
If I tap "cancel" in this alert, I can't log in.
So as far as I can tell, what I said is correct. Maybe it was different in the past, but this is what the situation on iOS 16 currently looks like.