“We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.” • Hacker News Board

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#121

Post by enraged_camel » Sat, May 30, 2015, 8:45 AM UTC

vdaniuk wrote: post #106

Animats wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been able to understand why anyone with a clue uses Gmail. I just have all my devices sync to an IMAP server provided by an ISP. Android phones have a perfectly good IMAP client. No ads, reasonably good spam filtering, and reasonably good search capability.

Sorry, I don't understand your reasoning. Why do you trust your ISP more than Google? ISPs have much more shady practices and are able to match your online and real persona with 100% accuracy. If you care about privacy, why do you use Android(non-cyanogen I assume)?

>>Why do you trust your ISP more than Google?

Presumably because the ISP doesn't generate the vast majority of its revenue from targeted ads based on information it collects from them.

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#122

Post by nothrabannosir » Sat, May 30, 2015, 8:46 AM UTC

overgard wrote: post #93

> If you’re not interested in a tailored experience you can adjust your preferences at any time I don't mean to nitpick language, but does this sound incredibly condescending to anyone else? They might as well have written "If you're a paranoid loser I guess you can have the shitty experience where we don't try to ham-fistedly guess at your interests" The funny thing is I think if they just didn't speak in idiotic PR…

100% agree, but I can't help but make note: if a company the size of Twitter ever had the audacity to talk about "feeding families" I would go ballistic.

Who is your family---the entire state of Nevada? If your family is eating that much, you don't need targeted ads but a doctor.

Twitter just wants to maximize profits. Fine, but if you're gonna be honest: be honest.

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#123

Post by dorgo » Sat, May 30, 2015, 8:53 AM UTC

FlaceBook wrote: post #73

fny wrote: post #42

Raise your hand if you feel like this is an unwarranted breach of privacy, but you have a gmail account and heavily depend on Google services. Raises own hand. I was so trusting and willing to give away my emails to Google when I was a kid (despite being fully aware of their intentions), but now, even though privacy infringements from all these other companies disturb me, I'm still a hypocritical sheep in Google's he…

I have around 10 gmail accounts, each of which only receives random junk from various sites and mailing lists. I create compressed, encrypted archives that contain only random data, and use them to fill my "drive". Google is welcome to analyze as much of that as they want.

Is there one program which can create such archives? Or do I need one for generating, one for encryption and one for compression?

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#124

Post by Nullabillity » Sat, May 30, 2015, 9:00 AM UTC

timthorn wrote: post #108

cm2187 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me that's even worse. You are stuck with your ISP. What if you move home to a place where this ISP isn't available? There are commercial email providers in jurisdictions that do respect privacy. And it usually only costs the price of a couple of coffees per year.

You're not locked in if you own the DNS registration.

You're still depending on the ISP's archives.

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#125

Post by Rainymood » Sat, May 30, 2015, 10:10 AM UTC

I hate how this is opt-out instead of opt-in.

I can see why they want to do this but it just feels kind of icky or something.

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#126

Post by andybak » Sat, May 30, 2015, 11:03 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #103

fny wrote: post #42

Raise your hand if you feel like this is an unwarranted breach of privacy, but you have a gmail account and heavily depend on Google services. Raises own hand. I was so trusting and willing to give away my emails to Google when I was a kid (despite being fully aware of their intentions), but now, even though privacy infringements from all these other companies disturb me, I'm still a hypocritical sheep in Google's he…

I've never been able to understand why anyone with a clue uses Gmail. I just have all my devices sync to an IMAP server provided by an ISP. Android phones have a perfectly good IMAP client. No ads, reasonably good spam filtering, and reasonably good search capability.

All this talk of 'having a clue' - where exactly in my daily list of conflicting and competing daily priorities should I put "Worry about Google profiling me via my email content"?

Advertising aside, I also understand there's a valid argument that we should all use strong encryption and secure email to give (those of us that need it) the benefits of herd immunity against government snooping. However - once again it's a not terribly high up my list of things to worry about right now. That makes me a slightly worse person on par with not recycling enough and leaving my electronic devices on standby overnight.

I willingly - and I hope knowingly - accept the trade-offs in using GMail. At least 3 people in this thread think I'm lacking in clue. Can someone please explain to me why?

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#127

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, May 30, 2015, 11:20 AM UTC

FlaceBook wrote: post #100

userbinator wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like pretty typical obfuscatory doublespeak to me. "tailored" really means "targeted" and "experience" is a word used so often that it has lost almost all meaning. The other words that evoke an almost visceral reaction of disgust for me are "offers" and "deals".

It's a disruptive synergistic cloud experience!

You mean it's a disruptive synergistic cloud experience offer!

There seems to be some kind of institutional mental illness that forces corps to think of users as exploitable prey who can be herded down a value-extracting marketing funnel, and not as people who want a service.

It's disturbingly common, IME.

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#128

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, May 30, 2015, 11:26 AM UTC

Nullabillity wrote: post #124

timthorn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not locked in if you own the DNS registration.

You're still depending on the ISP's archives.

Building your own Postfix server isn't hard. (It's certainly not easy, but it's not too hard either.)

If you're paying someone for hosting anyway it's a few days of extra work from a cold start to set up a server on Linode or Digital Ocean and become your own ISP/hosting co.

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#129

Post by JimDabell » Sat, May 30, 2015, 11:41 AM UTC

spc476 wrote: post #68

ironsides wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and if you are rolling your own are you having any issues with spf or spam flags?

I run my own email server [1] using Postfix. I use greylisting [2][3] and it easily stops 50% of all spam. I looked into adding SPF, but decided against it as the effective rate was too low [4]. I've also recently looked at RBL [5] and while there were a few false positives (enough that I decided against immediately adding it) what it did catch was quite impressive [6]. Oddly enough, if I simply drop email addressed…

I think ironsides was referring to sending email, not receiving it. Sending email from a mail server without a good reputation can often land your email in spam filters these days.

It's all very well saying that the amount of spam you get is manageable, but that doesn't really matter if your own outgoing email becomes unreliable because you aren't using a recognised provider.

Re: “We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed.”

#130

Post by JimDabell » Sat, May 30, 2015, 11:43 AM UTC

djent wrote: post #27

thought_alarm wrote: post #24

> > What is Twitter using my app graph for? > Twitter is using your app graph to help build a more tailored experience for you on Twitter. No thanks. > Some examples of how we may use your graph data include: > - Improved “who to follow” suggestions that share similar interests No. > - Adding Tweets, accounts, or other content to your timeline that we think you'll find especially interesting Good lord, no. > - Showin…

Amazing they're doing all this trying to make their service "better," yet they continuously show me a feed of content I resent.

> they continuously show me a feed of content I resent.

Then why do you use Twitter at all?