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Google is FUBAR

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Re: Google is FUBAR

#81

Post by JanezStupar »

cletus wrote: post #50

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…

On one side I always used Google service under presumption that Google is already collecting and analyzing all of its data as a complete profile.

On the other hand I really dislike the way Google is heading.

In the olden days when Google was dumber having high Google Fu allowed you to get required information faster and with greater accuracy. When Google was dumber you could use its flaws to get where you wanted.

Today it just picks whatever it believes is what you are searching for and wont budge. This is especially annoying when you are just starting out on a search of a topic you know nothing about and need a random factor to get going.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#82

Post by joebadmo »

ellyagg wrote: post #61
joebadmo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is people don't really understand the context of "Don't be evil." If you read Steven Levy's In the Plex , or any first-hand account, really, you realize it's more about always thinking about the user experience first. It has nothing to do with personal information. As far as I know, when "Don't be evil" was coined, they used little to no personal information to provide search results.

That doesn't really seem to agree with Paul Buchheit's quote on the wikipedia entry regarding the topic, where he said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out," adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent." I'm pretty sure the plain m…

I got out the book and checked, and actually you're right, it was a more general statement than just about UX. (It was meant to be a frank and memorable statement that applied across the board, from UX to the greater good.)

On the other hand, it was mostly an internal motto, and wasn't public until Eric Schmidt slipped it into an interview. It didn't become a public statement until it had already received a lot of press.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#83

Post by tbatterii »

incongruity wrote: post #67
cletus wrote: post #50

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…

> As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results. This is something you can opt out of (to some extent with privacy controls, otherwise with logging out). Except adwords is in this mix. This makes it one step closer (or is it already upon us?) for ads to be targeted to me based on the contents of emails I send and receive. To me, email is one of the more personal and private things that I…

any time I read an email in gmail, I look to the right and I see adsense. it's been there for as long as I can remember. I always assumed that what you are describing might happen already has since it's rather obvious that the ads are trying to be somewhat relevant to the email I'm reading. Is it somehow worse because it shows up on your search results page too?

Re: Google is FUBAR

#84

Post by Drbble »

bytefactory wrote: post #69
GoCatGo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's a bit of exaggeration when people gets worried about privacy when they voluntarily submit the data to the very machines they fear. Don While a valid point, I signed up to g+ and then logged out permanently as I didn't want all my data submitted to a single company (i.e. Google has my search, calendar and gmail) I don't like that they have so much in one spot already but I certainly wasn't going to give the…

I can't believe people are making such a fuss about a non-issue. Google isn't being 'evil' by aggregating data from all its properties. I'm surprised they hadn't been doing this already! Think about it. If you owned Facebook and Microsoft, wouldn't you want to co-relate the data in Facebook with Windows? For example, to see how many users of Windows 7 use Facebook, and how it affects bounce rates? Do you think compan…

You are conflating "evil" with "unprofitable" and obviously missing the point as a result.

Also, you can opt out of ad targeting, not tracking. Huge difference.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#85

Post by joebadmo »

5l wrote: post #65
joebadmo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is people don't really understand the context of "Don't be evil." If you read Steven Levy's In the Plex , or any first-hand account, really, you realize it's more about always thinking about the user experience first. It has nothing to do with personal information. As far as I know, when "Don't be evil" was coined, they used little to no personal information to provide search results.

I find it interesting that a motto so straight forward a child could understand now requires knowledge of the context and history in which it was coined in order to interpret it correctly. From the Wikipedia article[0]: Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out," adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, e…

Unfortunately, things like privacy policies and appropriate use of personal information aren't as straightforward, even for children. "Theoretically, there's no difference between theory and practice," right?

Also, if you think the concept of evil is easy or straightforward, well, let's just say I'm a proponent of a broad liberal arts education.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#86

Post by rexf »

spindritf wrote: post #76
alexgartrell wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results. For the majority of users, Facebook/Twitter results are more relevant than Google Plus results. There's nothing in the rule book that says you can't leverage a successful property to promote another, but it's unfair to everyone to try to pass that off as a move to increase relevance in search results. Disclaimer: I'm a Facebook engineer who…

> For the majority of users, Facebook/Twitter results are more relevant than Google Plus results. Seems like Google would like to change that.

That implies that Google is going against the user's best interests by providing less relevant search results today with SPYW.

Which I'd agree with. In my own network, Fb > Twitter > G+

Re: Google is FUBAR

#87

Post by rhino42 »

bishnu wrote: post #78
incongruity wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results. This is something you can opt out of (to some extent with privacy controls, otherwise with logging out). Except adwords is in this mix. This makes it one step closer (or is it already upon us?) for ads to be targeted to me based on the contents of emails I send and receive. To me, email is one of the more personal and private things that I…

But...Google already scans your email for AdWords.

But at the moment those ads ate only email-relevant when served to your email- that's my understanding

Re: Google is FUBAR

#88

Post by cheald »

scottkrager wrote: post #75
cheald wrote: post #58

What strikes me the most about this whole debacle is that people have complained for ages that Google doesn't "get" social. Its products have been poorly integrated and incongruent. Then, when Google says "Okay, we're going to integrate the balls off of everything, and provide a single consistent experience across all our products", people pitch a fit. It seems they can't win either way. This is a necessary step in f…

My issue with it is mostly in the visual implementation. I had hoped that Google would be more subtle about it, instead I look at the SERPs and see them shouting at me.

I think that's a fair point. Some people like the simpler search results. Does the SPYW toggle solve that complaint for you, though, or is there a deeper problem that I'm missing?

Re: Google is FUBAR

#89

Post by talmand »

spindritf wrote: post #66
Ecio78 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they already mine your email to show ads to you, they already do everything he talks about, they're just now going to let you have access to it through search instead of having to go to mail/reader/youtube/etc individually Uhm ok tell me if you like this scenario: * I'm fed up of my employeer so I'm sending tons of jobs applications from my personal gmail account * I dont write these mails while at work, but sometime…

> of course in this case I should've logged out from google Yes, exactly, what is to stop anyone from just going through your sent mail if they were already willing to go through your web history?

I believe he was saying he would not have accessed his email on his work computer at all, he would then log into Google for other reasons and not open his mail. But Google would then go ahead and show him something related to his email account that he did not want.

Leaving his computer logged into his Google account and his employer sitting down to go through the account, such as sent mail, is a different matter.

The solution to all this is to never use personal logins for anything on a computer you do not control 100%.

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