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Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#131

Post by SecurityLagoon »

chaps wrote: post #122
riverguardian wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh it certainly doesn't require a complete search history. That's why Workspace search history will have 18-months retention by default (which is aligned with Google's policy in general) that you can change down to 3 months if you so choose (and if your Web and App Activity setting has retention set to 3 months, we'll also automatically carry that forward to Workspace search history). You can always turn the setting…

Wow. I'm genuinely struggling not to respond with something aggressive and mean, just because of how calloused your lack of interest in preserving the privacy of others is. This is a bad feature that should not be turned on by default. You're effectively enabling the ease of search warrants of journalists and activists' search history, where they think this sort of thing is turned off. It's fucking shameful. Look at…

It's search history in Workspace, which is data Google already has associated with you and your organization. The difference between retention of Workspace and general Google search history is huge. If you are worried about your searches in Workspace being cached you should probably not be using Workspace for that data.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#132

Post by chaps »

SecurityLagoon wrote: post #131
chaps wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I'm genuinely struggling not to respond with something aggressive and mean, just because of how calloused your lack of interest in preserving the privacy of others is. This is a bad feature that should not be turned on by default. You're effectively enabling the ease of search warrants of journalists and activists' search history, where they think this sort of thing is turned off. It's fucking shameful. Look at…

It's search history in Workspace, which is data Google already has associated with you and your organization. The difference between retention of Workspace and general Google search history is huge. If you are worried about your searches in Workspace being cached you should probably not be using Workspace for that data.

This is pure apologetics.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#133

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

riverguardian wrote: post #77
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually mostly reasonable, but then why default on instead of either keeping the closest existing setting or asking?

Great question. The premise here is that search is an integral part of the product experience of using Google Workspace. We don't offer controls that separate each piece of functionality within Workspace products. The reason there _is_ one governing both Workspace and non-Workspace data (the current Web and App Activity setting) is mostly historical in nature, and the fact that there are two existing controls (one fo…

> it's also why this email went out 60 days prior to the change

Do users have the ability to disable the setting when they receive the first e-mail, or do they have to wait until the setting is enabled then go back and disable it?

Are the users being notified, or just the admins? (The e-mail in the pastebin sounds like it went only to admins).

Will users be reminded when the setting changed, or is that left to the admin/do they have to remember that and disable it once the change happened?

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#134

Post by extr »

xg15 wrote: post #116
riverguardian wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question. The premise here is that search is an integral part of the product experience of using Google Workspace. We don't offer controls that separate each piece of functionality within Workspace products. The reason there _is_ one governing both Workspace and non-Workspace data (the current Web and App Activity setting) is mostly historical in nature, and the fact that there are two existing controls (one fo…

> The premise here is that search is an integral part of the product experience of using Google Workspace. We don't offer controls that separate each piece of functionality within Workspace products. The reason there _is_ one governing both Workspace and non-Workspace data (the current Web and App Activity setting) is mostly historical in nature, and the fact that there are two existing controls (one for the admin, o…

I disagree. I think the point is reasonable. I personally find it useful to refer to my past searches/activity, especially in a professional context, and it would be unintuitive to me if such a feature was turned off by default.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#135

Post by [deleted] »

SecurityLagoon wrote: post #131
chaps wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I'm genuinely struggling not to respond with something aggressive and mean, just because of how calloused your lack of interest in preserving the privacy of others is. This is a bad feature that should not be turned on by default. You're effectively enabling the ease of search warrants of journalists and activists' search history, where they think this sort of thing is turned off. It's fucking shameful. Look at…

It's search history in Workspace, which is data Google already has associated with you and your organization. The difference between retention of Workspace and general Google search history is huge. If you are worried about your searches in Workspace being cached you should probably not be using Workspace for that data.

[deleted]

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#136

Post by gumby »

SecurityLagoon wrote: post #131
chaps wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I'm genuinely struggling not to respond with something aggressive and mean, just because of how calloused your lack of interest in preserving the privacy of others is. This is a bad feature that should not be turned on by default. You're effectively enabling the ease of search warrants of journalists and activists' search history, where they think this sort of thing is turned off. It's fucking shameful. Look at…

It's search history in Workspace, which is data Google already has associated with you and your organization. The difference between retention of Workspace and general Google search history is huge. If you are worried about your searches in Workspace being cached you should probably not be using Workspace for that data.

You don’t always have a choice.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#137

Post by SecurityLagoon »

chaps wrote: post #132
SecurityLagoon wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's search history in Workspace, which is data Google already has associated with you and your organization. The difference between retention of Workspace and general Google search history is huge. If you are worried about your searches in Workspace being cached you should probably not be using Workspace for that data.

This is pure apologetics.

No, it is pure logic. I moved my presence off of Google services because of privacy concerns. I am not being an apologist at all.

The point is that if you are hosting your data on Google services this setting makes little difference to your privacy footprint.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#138

Post by cik »

riverguardian wrote: post #70

Hello hello, PM for the feature checking in here. amf12's reply is quite on-point. Web and App Activity is designed to store search activity across all Google services, and we're splitting Workspace data out since it's governed by strict data handling guarantees, with the hope that more people will feel comfortable getting the benefits of better search in Workspace without having to opt-into search history being trac…

Active, soon to be former user here. Constantly moving things around, to at the very least temporarily hoover data from users is wrong.

The changes going on recently mean, that I'm finally eliminating my use of the G. I've dropped paid services. I'm dropping (paid) GSuite/Workspace/whatever it's now called for my family, and for a couple of businesses. I've embraced other search engines again - and they're surprisingly good enough, finally. I've suggested others do the same - and I can only assume that slowly, this will pick up.

Google has finally embraced being an evil data sponge - whether people want to hear it or not. Many of us have used your services, frequently pay for them - but want control over their use, and our data.

Stop changing the game along the way, stop making us the product.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#139

Post by chaps »

SecurityLagoon wrote: post #137
chaps wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pure apologetics.

No, it is pure logic. I moved my presence off of Google services because of privacy concerns. I am not being an apologist at all. The point is that if you are hosting your data on Google services this setting makes little difference to your privacy footprint.

...I understand what you're saying and there's no dispute in the fact that people shouldn't use these services knowing the privacy concerns. But like another poster said, some people just don't have a choice here. Many non-profits, activist groups, and journalists use google workspaces as part of their core.

This change is dishonest and gives little notice to people who have no choice in using these services for their work.

Re: Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

#140

Post by tomnipotent »

friedturkey wrote: post #128
chaps wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I'm genuinely struggling not to respond with something aggressive and mean, just because of how calloused your lack of interest in preserving the privacy of others is. This is a bad feature that should not be turned on by default. You're effectively enabling the ease of search warrants of journalists and activists' search history, where they think this sort of thing is turned off. It's fucking shameful. Look at…

PR and damage control isn't effective if the employee in charge is like "oh shit dudes our company screwed up!" I think any google employee that comes in here and starts agreeing with the complaints would quickly find themselves out of a massively overpaid job the next day.

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