Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

thebigtech.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 221 posts

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#11

Post by livre »

intricatedetail wrote: post #7

Why can't governments make tracking illegal? These companies that manipulate population into buying products they don't want or need are the mythical "broken window". Nobody mention how all this online business contributes to global warming. Factories produce useless products, that need to be stored, delivered, disposed of...

>Why can't governments make tracking illegal?

Why would they? These companies are collecting the data the government wants, it's a free service for the government and they only have to ask for the data when they need it.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#12

Post by mrweasel »

an_opabinia wrote: post #3

The value of the location based tracking is overrated. Anyway, if you post an image to Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp, the EXIF data has your location, or it can be solved from the content of the image.

With the exception of people who travel a lot, I really don't see why location, beyond what users enter into Facebook themself, would be particular useful.

That seems to be the theme with Facebook, they collect a ton of information that isn't obviously useful. So what do Facebook know that the rest of us don't? Because the engineers at Facebook aren't stupid, they must have a reason for collecting all this stuff. Perhaps it's just in case they might find a use case some day?

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#13

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

What is the point of "broad" location? Cant this be deducted from your cellular network? Wouldnt that save the trouble of keeping your GPS completly off ?

I saw on some new android phones something called "privacy features" which would mean not giving access to contacts for example. The problem is all apps know you are using this feature and they nag you to turn it off. Whats the point then? How I want the thing to be, "oh, the contacts permission is given but nothing here. Oh well. ". Same for location and SMS and other stuff.

I remember old ios, circa ios 5-6 had app permissions behind a password. I would take family phones and lock down location and contacts behind a password (it couldand inapp purchases prevent access to store and iTunes and browser if I remember) so for giving kids this this would be great.

That has never come to android.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#14

Post by marcodiego »

intricatedetail wrote: post #7

Why can't governments make tracking illegal? These companies that manipulate population into buying products they don't want or need are the mythical "broken window". Nobody mention how all this online business contributes to global warming. Factories produce useless products, that need to be stored, delivered, disposed of...

> Why can't governments make tracking illegal?

Because then they won't receive a few million $$ in donation for the next campaign.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#15

Post by spoonjim »

motoboi wrote: post #4

So we basically are seeing that google was "right" from their point of view in securing a mobile OS. Facebook maybe thought this day would never arrive and could have avoided that by doing their own mobile OS too. Well, maybe they declared this battle as lost and focused on the next one: VR. Problem is that VR took too long to arrive and death on mobile can kill Facebook?

Facebook realized that no amount of money was going to will a third mobile OS into existence. cf. Microsoft.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#16

Post by intricatedetail »

motoboi wrote: post #4

So we basically are seeing that google was "right" from their point of view in securing a mobile OS. Facebook maybe thought this day would never arrive and could have avoided that by doing their own mobile OS too. Well, maybe they declared this battle as lost and focused on the next one: VR. Problem is that VR took too long to arrive and death on mobile can kill Facebook?

Let's hope Google will also get banned from collecting data. It's time This advertising predatory business ends.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#17

Post by akmarinov »

motoboi wrote: post #4

So we basically are seeing that google was "right" from their point of view in securing a mobile OS. Facebook maybe thought this day would never arrive and could have avoided that by doing their own mobile OS too. Well, maybe they declared this battle as lost and focused on the next one: VR. Problem is that VR took too long to arrive and death on mobile can kill Facebook?

VR's probably not going to be bigger or even equivalent to mobile, so they should've tried harder.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#18

Post by harikb »

bushbaba wrote: post #6
motoboi wrote: post #4

So we basically are seeing that google was "right" from their point of view in securing a mobile OS. Facebook maybe thought this day would never arrive and could have avoided that by doing their own mobile OS too. Well, maybe they declared this battle as lost and focused on the next one: VR. Problem is that VR took too long to arrive and death on mobile can kill Facebook?

Question is does google still collect the location data. And are they acting monopolistic here. My understanding is that even the latest version of android phones home your location in real-time. Which google uses itself for ads.

> Which google uses itself for ads

Do you have a source? Google providing a location-based service for Android OS functionality is different from using it for ads.

Re: Google’s new popup will further weaken Facebook’s advertisement business

#20

Post by jraph »

speeder wrote: post #5

Whenever I read articles like this, I get more and more horrified. I mean, I know that adtech spy on us a lot, but I didn't knew for example that using Bluetooth while the app is shut down was possible. Makes me very wary even of dumbphones, for example I bought a dumbphone recently, and yet it came with Facebook and Google Assistant both pre-installed.

if it has facebook and google assistant, isn't it really an (Android) smartphone which looks like a dumb phone?
Post reply on HN