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Dear Googles: Stop asking

plus.google.com

161–170 of 261 posts

Re: Dear Googles: Stop asking

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never forget that you are not the customer, you are the product.

There is nothing magical about being the customer. Paying money doesn't stop anyone from creating a multi sided market that makes you the product. As anyone who subscribed to a magazine, purchased season tickets to a cultural organization, or seen an ad on an Xbox can attest. Also, you created an account an hour after this article was posted just to type a banal cliche that we've all had to endure endlessly?

Also : I'm a customer of my isp. Not too happy about them at all. In fact, I'm a lot happier being Google's product (and I would argue that at least in a few instances this is not true).

Re: Dear Googles: Stop asking

#163
So you get the worlds best and most powerful email inbox - for free - and the small price you pay is to be continually asked for PII and very subtle upsells on using additional, also free, services.

I don't know but that sounds pretty fair to me.

Re: Dear Googles: Stop asking

#164
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What memo? Do you have a link?

Searching "yegge memo" on google gives a plethora of relevant results. A copy of the full text can be found here: https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX

I'm not asking for myself as much as the community. Linking to things you reference to helps multiple people & makes the thread, site and your comments all that more valuable.

Re: Dear Googles: Stop asking

#166
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(323) 905 - 4259 ? Or do you believe when you give your phone number to Google, it's obfuscated, not indexed or searchable, and not permanently associated with you for their current or future use? Next step - has anyone confirmed your identity yet?

I was unpleasantly surprised to see your post deliberately undoing the GP's attempt to obfuscate his number. Is your goal to bully GP into supporting privacy? It doesn't matter the technical details of whether the number is easier to search, it's the intent I find disturbing about this.

>> Is your goal to bully GP into supporting privacy?

http://i.imgur.com/YLgZ7t6.jpg

No, it's to point out that once your privacy has been compromised, you might not be able to undo the damage.

Re: Dear Googles: Stop asking

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait wait wait, so your issue was that she'd have to accept a call? As in, have to talk to someone? As in, perform one of the most basic human interactions that is part of what makes us human? And that offends your senses to the point that you consider it intrusive? How antisocial are you? Who do you think YOU are that you can't have a simple chat with another human being. Are you the king of England? Le Roi? Is Goog…

I don't give my phone number to anybody who doesn't need it. Lots of places ask/demand it, but it's always actually optional. There's no law that says you have to have a phone, after all. So, there's no way I'm going to give up my phone number in exchange for a log-in on a free web-site.

If I knew your phone number, then I already gave it to Google and linked it to your real name, email, employer and other contact info - just so that my contact books sync between my devices, and your picture shows up next to your name on my phone. Ah, if you hadn't put up your picture, my phone uploaded the picture I had, and linked to your name.

Just so that you know. No need to worry about giving up what's already given up.

Re: Dear Googles: Stop asking

#168
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all accounts the consolidation and Plusification of Google's services is being driven from the top, by Larry Page specifically.

That a bad plan comes from a famous person doesn't make it any less of a bad plan. In the spirit of Google: +1 for people and +2 for companies now actively moving away from almost all Google properties because they're becoming so unpleasant and/or unproductive to use. I know they're all about being data driven and running empirical tests: that's why the {expletive deleted} page moves around every time I come back and…

Do you have any proof that significant number of people are moving away from almost all Google properties? This sounds very anecdotal.

Re: Dear Googles: Stop asking

#169
post #98
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And lastly, if someone steals your phone, with your a mail client on it, it is way easier for identity theft to occur, not harder. How exactly is this true? I encrypt my phone's hard disk and I encrypt all of my SMS communications (locally) with https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcri... It's no harder than if someone steals your laptop. The same measures you would use on a laptop (FDE, TLS) ar…

Because a common tactic kids are using ATM is a simple snatch and grab, right out of peoples hands. Heaps easier than taking a laptop as you might be standing in a crowd, they can approach you with speed, shunt you off balance and are gone. Phone doesn't lock while they run with it as they are touching the screen, they get away from the user and disable the security features. You are compromised, phone is compromised…

If your phone gets stolen, then you block your phone number with the carrier, and the thief can't get your SMS - so 2-factor security still works and protects you.

Re: Dear Googles: Stop asking

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got an idea: The hard part about setting up your own email server is, by far, ensuring deliverability. New/dynamic addresses tend to not be trusted by other mail servers, so that is really the most "dangerous"/time consuming part. So, why not do the following?: * Set up your home server to accept email. If it goes down for a few hours, hey, pretty much every mail server will retry for a few days, so you're pre…

"New/dynamic addresses tend to not be trusted by other mail servers" Running my own mail server for over a decade, and never had a deliverability problem. Of course, you shouldn't try to send from a dynamic IP, but what is a "new" address?

He means email addresses, not IPs I think.
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