The way I see it is Google is offering a free and optional yet pre-installed service, namely Google maps, and is sometimes asking its users to contribute to its POI dataset.
It'll be both good for Google and its users if the information about a restaurant is accurate or the gas prices for a gas station is up to date.
The notifications could be sent way too often and I get that would be annoying but the whole concept isn't that bad.
Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
161–170 of 399 posts
Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
#162The idea that you'd have any location privacy while carrying around a cell phone is absurd. Both iPhone and Android devices record location history, and your network provider always has a rough guess of where you are. It may be annoying that Google is very persistent about trying to build its maps dataset, but the suggestion that it's not happening on other devices is crazy.
There's a huge and meaningful distinction about the technical ability to violate your privacy, and actually doing so, and trust (slash non-creepiness) is largely about not doing so when you could. For instance, the fact that my roommate can open my bedroom door at any time does not mean that I have no privacy when making phone calls in my room; it means that I have privacy because I trust my roommate not to do so, ex…
I don't understand how "knowing" your location data is violating your privacy. If you visit an adult site, and the adult site "knows" you're on there, is that violating your privacy? Obviously not. What would be violating your privacy is if it publicly told everyone about that data.
Unless you can find concrete evidence that Google publicly and directly makes this data available to others, how is this a violating of your privacy? In using the device with the GPS enabled, you are agreeing that the device can know and use this data.
Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see a huge difference between "will violate my privacy if served with a valid subpoena" and "will violate my privacy to make money on a daily basis". (And, for what it's worth, Apple has fought against a valid subpoena for iPhone data that they did technically have the capability of answering.)
true enough! Just good to know what data is where and accessible by whom. I am pleased that the publicity (mainly from Snowden release) has led some businesses to fight subpoenas and/or warrants in court. I definitely don't count on them to keep doing it, pretty easy for them to silently comply (even _without_ a warrant/subpoena) without publicity, as most everyone has generally done until recently (and I suspect sti…
I mean, I'm also less worried about attacks by the government than attacks by private corporations. The government literally has a monopoly on violence. If they want me to have a bad day, I will have a bad day and there's nothing I can do about it. But there are lots of other threats worth protecting myself against.
Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maps app -> Settings -> Notifications -> Your Contributions (and uncheck boxes as desired). The controls exist.
But does that mean Google stops collecting the data? Sure, no notifications, but will they still know what restaurant I just walked past?
Yes; you can see the location history Google has been collecting at https://www.google.com/maps/timeline
But it's easy to stop collecting and/or delete location data; see https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687
Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
That'd be "Google Opinion Rewards" ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... ), and it does periodically throw surveys out about your travel history.
Do they actually pay users a fair wage for their time?
I get about 50c of credit for each survey which takes about 15s, so that comes out to $2/min or $120/hr which seems pretty fair. Of course, you can't actually do hours of these things.
Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
#166Google are a deeply, deeply unethical company and all of their employees are complicit. On a more practical note, I live in apartment above a restaurant. My phone now asks me to review this restaurant every time I come home and wants me to post photos I take in my apartment to the restaurant's map page. Now that OSM data is as good as Google and Maps.Me is a good enough client, my next phone will be completely de-Goo…
Deeply unethical because it asks you to leave a review?
Clearly the worst thing in the world is for anybody to know you exist without your explicit approval. It's a very special kind of ethics.
Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
#167The idea that you'd have any location privacy while carrying around a cell phone is absurd. Both iPhone and Android devices record location history, and your network provider always has a rough guess of where you are. It may be annoying that Google is very persistent about trying to build its maps dataset, but the suggestion that it's not happening on other devices is crazy.
Dear Googles, stop asking
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6745525
Privacy is the capacity to define, have respected and defend, boundaries on personal intrusions. Google and other surveillance capitalism companies expressly fail to allow such limits to be stated, and silently change settings, or subvert them.
Enough already.
Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
#168Waiting for the first person to post something along the lines of: 'And why shouldn't Google do $x? It's part of their fiduciary duty to their shareholders, and anyone who doesn't like it can opt to exercise their rights as a consumer and use another product. I personally love having $x as part of my life and feel it is indispensable. Haters gonna hate. (where $x could be 'bashing babies in the head with a clawhammer…
I’m the first to argue against the “fiduciary duty”, but don’t take the down votes as a badge of honor, but rather as an indicator that you propped up a straw man and proceeded to have your way with him. Nobody wants to see that.
Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry, what makes Google so "deeply unethical?"
They're an advertising company that gets most of its profits by collecting personal information about people and trying to manipulate them into buying things. Sounds pretty unethical to me.
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Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch
#170I'm going to be completely honest here: If these things were behind a configuration option and defaulted to off, I'd have gone into my phone and turned that option on. I want to leave reviews for restaurants as I'm walking out of them - it serves the common good and doing it immediately is better for memory. I want to remember to download offline maps when I'm about to go somewhere where I won't have coverage. My mem…
I can similarly say: If I could pay for the services of Google with money instead of with my data (which will be used in ways I cannot imagine or control), then I'd gladly do that.
Why? Well, the problem with Google is they have an incentive to do bad things to us, simply because we are not the real customer.