Google+ broke our trust • Hacker News Board

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#161

Post by briandh » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:11 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #116

acjohnson55 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a big difference. As ubiquitous and powerful as Google is, the US government is vastly more powerful, and I think it's vastly more dangerous without accountability.

Well, perhaps more dangerous in theory. In practice, the biggest role the federal government has played in US history is that of liberating people from the tyranny of private businesses: first with slavery, then Teddy Roosevelt vs. the robber barons, the Civil Rights Acts (that prohibited private businesses from discriminating based on race), and most recently the (unfortunately not-so-successful) fight against priva…

> that's pretty much the only thing the US government does

Besides waging bloody, unnecessary war (War of 1812, Mexican War, Spanish American War, Vietnam War, Iraq War); instituting explicitly racist immigrating policies; waging a disastrous War on Drugs at home and abroad; instituting protectionist trade policies on behalf of rent-seeking corporations and unions; busting unions; interning thousands of innocent Japanese Americans; the mass expropriation from and relocation of thousands of Native Americans; and hundreds of less memorable abuses, not to mention its complicity with several of the ills you mentioned, yeah, sure, "pretty much the only thing" the US government has done has been protecting us from "the tyranny of private businesses".

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#162

Post by DanBC » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #133

pron wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand not wanting the NSA to snoop your correspondence. I can't understand letting Google do that for years, analyze it, profile you and sell that information to just about anyone, but then thinking that the NSA is the final straw.

Google can't put you to jail. NSA (and the government) can.

Google leaking your real / alternate identity can get you killed or fired or beaten or arrested, and that's just for being transgender or homosexual.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#163

Post by Pxtl » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:18 PM UTC

My problem with Google+ isn't the unification of Google's social platform. That makes absolute sense. The problem with Google+ is that it's way too opinionated.

It's a platform, not a product. A platform has to bend to the needs of its users, and those "users" aren't necessarily the people posting the comments - it's also the people hosting the comments on their YouTube pages and whatnot.

I appreciate wanting Plus to be backed by a "real" ID, but pseudonym support that fully anonymizes the user (and controls over whether pseudonymous users are allowed to post to your pages) should have been a day 1 feature, for example.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#164

Post by briandh » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:19 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #57

clsec wrote: post #34

I jumped on board early when I received an invite. I despised FB and was looking for for something that might actually resemble the tribe.net model of freedom and anonymity. Unfortunately, I was told that I had to use my real name and signed up accordingly. Everything was going along fine for about the first 9 months until I got into a small flame war with a woman in Canada about Scientologists (I used to work for so…

I can understand not wanting the NSA to snoop your correspondence. I can't understand letting Google do that for years, analyze it, profile you and sell that information to just about anyone, but then thinking that the NSA is the final straw.

Among other differences, your relationship with Google is consensual, or at least largely so. The most extensive data collection Google does requires you to explicitly interact with its properties; tracking via ads and embeds often enables the sites you visit to sustain themselves, and, even if you want to quibble about how "consensual" that is, is trivially mitigated via free, brain-dead-simple browser extensions.

Put another way: you can enjoy the internet yet have little or no data go to Google. You cannot use the internet or the telephone in the US (and even, to an extent, in many foreign countries!) without data going to the NSA, with questionable benefit to you.

edit: typo

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#165

Post by vidarh » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:23 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #123

vidarh wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anywhere where the article alleges that the data is for sale, but that it is saleable. One way of capitalizing on that, without selling the data, is to sell access to advertise on the basis of that data. The point is not to claim that Google is selling our data, but just another way of stating that we're the product, not the customer.

The point is to try to lump Google together with companies that literally do sell customer data, e.g., credit card providers, supermarkets, stores at the mall, magazine publishers... They literally sell your non-anonymized, non-aggregated data, period. It's an unfair lumping because what Google does is a far cry from that.

I didn't read it that way at all. I can see how it can be read that way, but it can likewise simply be read as making it clear that Google cares about advertisers rather than users.

Whether or not a subjective interpretation is that she is "trying to lump" Google together with these companies, she did not come straight out and make such an allegation in the article. When you then imply in your comment that she did, it's a bit rich to accuse her of "unfair lumping" afterwards.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#166

Post by Pxtl » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:23 PM UTC

motters wrote: post #55

wfjackson wrote: post #13

If there's one video that shows off the purposefully confusing Google+ and Youtube integration mess, its this one of a woman literally crying because of it. Warning: Strong language https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs

I can sympathize with the woman in the video because I also always kept declining to link my YouTube login to my G+ login. I'm also considering deleting my Google account, and I expect that due to the horrible Microsoft-style integration once I do that anything I might have uploaded to YouTube will also disappear.

I'm going to be a bit contrarian here: Google should have forced the issue and made it less painful. This "decline decline decline" business was a freaking embarrassment.

The correct approach is "Your youtube account is now part of your Google account. Create a Google account if you haven't got one already for this. If you need to use a pseudonym, you can attach a pseudonym to your Google account and that will carry your Youtube information".

No declining, because that was a soft promise that Google had trouble keeping.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#167

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:26 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #136

bane wrote: post #129

> Google+ embodied the Internet's cardinal sin: It broke everything it touched I think this is the most important single line of the piece. G+ was pretty broken from the get go despite some promising ideas. But instead of focusing around what was working, Google simply amplified all the broken garbage -- then spread it around everywhere, making everything toxic, cancerous. It's one of those many weird cases where you…

I think there was a more thought-provoking part than the "broke everything it touched" line: Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt told National Public Radio digital editor Andy Carvin in 2011 that if people don't want to use their real names, then they shouldn't use Google+. He explained that Google should be considered "an identity service" with Google+ as the foundation across all its products. Google, particul…

[deleted]

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#168

Post by vidarh » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:26 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #115

adam74 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is for sale. Just not in the way you thought it was.

No, see, that's not how words work.

That argument would have worked better if you'd not implied she'd written something she hasn't written above. If she'd made the direct claim that Google sells this data, you'd have had a point.

She didn't.

That she made claims about "saleable data" does not imply they've actually offered it up for sale.

See, that's not how words work.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#169

Post by Pxtl » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:27 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #83

nobbyclark wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the silently majority is tired of a panopticon of "look it me now" social services who's main use case is massaging users egos. Google should start over, Android-first (instead of web -first) and make the phone Addressbook / Google Contacts the focal point for everything social. Look at WhatsApp - it does exactly this - your phone number is your ID and your contacts is your social graph; how you interact with the…

> Google should start over, Android-first (instead of web -first) and make the phone Addressbook / Google Contacts the focal point for everything social. Look at WhatsApp - it does exactly this - your phone number is your ID and your contacts is your social graph; how you interact with them - who you call, message etc and when / where you do it - these are your circles I find this fascinating, as unless I'm misunders…

Exactly. If they'd required you use a real name under the hood but allowed you to present different pseudonymous "facades" for each Circle, and then let you just tie things like Youtube to a given facade? That would be wonderful.

It really seemed like that's the direction they had in mind at the start - understanding that you have familial relationships, online relationships, professional relationships, and letting you compartmentalize those.

But that was just an organizational tool. We needed it to be two-way - in that you need to control your identity as it relates to those circles.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#170

Post by 3rd3 » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:30 PM UTC

varelse wrote: post #159

tlogan wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Red flags were raised and simply brushed aside. People working at Google are smart (and majority that I know are smarter than me). Smart people are going to point that something is wrong. But they will not bitch too much because that will be "career-limiting move".

Not true, I was at Google at the time and many of us complained mightily on our internal forums. That said, there were a disturbing number of middle-level management types that would high five every move Google made, good or bad. And I think they turn into the echo chamber that gives idiocy like this its momentum.

The huge success of Facebook and Twitter, the Social Network movie (October 2010) and the introduction of Apple’s iTunes Ping (September 2010) probably added a lot to this momentum.