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Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

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Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#171

Post by 6d6b73 »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #105

People in this thread are clutching their pearls about invasion of privacy and are going on about how they won't do any free work for Google yet hardly any of them has voluntarily given a dime to Google in return of the tons of services they get from it. Where do you think all the reviews come from? Who puts information about traffic cops on Waze? From a million monkeys smashing keyboards?

Yeah poor Google.. They don't get a dime from people yet somehow they are one of the most valuable companies in the world..

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#172

Post by ehsankia »

gerash wrote: post #161

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…

This is a notification problem, not a privacy one. These people are just annoyed that the app is sending them too many notification, and are outraged at an entirely different thing. Google Maps' whole job is to know your location; it having the location data is as much of a privacy violating as a hospital having your heart rate.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#173

Post by geofft »

ehsankia wrote: post #162
geofft wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> In using the device with the GPS enabled, you are agreeing that the device can know and use this data.

Why am I agreeing to that? For what purposes can they use the data?

As in your example - it's not about whether they know the data, it's about what they do with the data and whether they have my permission to do things with it. It is obvious to me that a website has permission to send reply packets to my IP. It's somewhat obvious that it has permission to keep short-term logs for technical debugging, with strict access controls and audits (stricter if it's something like an adult site that would be embarrassing/sensitive if it leaked). It's definitely not obvious that they have permission to share the IP internally for the employees' amusement, even leaving aside external sharing.

It's the same with location services on my phone - it's obvious that if I have GPS on, and I open the map app of my choice, and it says "This app would like your location" and I say yes, I want that app to have my location. It's also obvious that I want the cell phone towers to be able to route calls to me. It's not obvious that I want the company that happens to write my phone's OS to use my data for marketing / profit purposes.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#174

Post by pdelbarba »

cosmotron wrote: post #133
pdelbarba wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Everyone says there is an option under "Notifications" but I only see "People & places" and "Ride services".

I have Maps version 9.69.1 running on Android 8.1. I see the following options in Maps' "Notifications" menu: Traffic, Commute, Transit, Navigation, Your contributions, People & places, Ride services, Offline maps, New on Maps. From these, the "Your contributions" seems to have the majority of toggles that people are discussing in this thread (e.g. "Adding your photos", "Contribution ideas", "Questions about places",…

I'm also on 9.69.1 but I think my problem is that I'm running Android 5.0.1... Not sure why the options would differ between OS versions though.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#175

Post by peterwwillis »

ptasci67 wrote: post #154
fenwick67 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are billboards or radio stations or television channels unethical to you? Because they are also trying to "manipulate" you into buying things. Advertising is not inherently unethical. I want people to buy my product so I need to raise awareness of it, encourage people that it is the best, make them feel like they need it. I would even go so far as to say that Google's default anonymized model makes this far better. M…

> Are billboards or radio stations or television channels unethical to you? Because they are also trying to "manipulate" you into buying things.

For the most part, yes. Most of the products people are trying to sell you are bad for you, wasteful, and generally corrosive to the fabric of society, because most of us just don't need it.

You don't need potato chips, soft drinks, plastic shoes, a new game app, furniture, a new car, a new movie, makeup, a new credit card, a new mobile phone, a new tv/internet/mobile plan, or over the counter drugs. If you did, you'd just go and find it. Advertisers push you to buy the things you don't need, and similar to taking medicine you don't need, this can hurt you. It hurts your health, it hurts your wallet, and it pushes unreasonable expectations on you by convincing society to expect them.

Advertising and marketing are not always bad for you. But for the most part, they are. Irregardless, we live in a consumer society. If we didn't constantly buy cheap shit, our economy would probably tank, and China wouldn't be the new biggest global power. It's kind of ironic that some day we will be making tennis shoes for them, whereupon money spent on advertising in the US will actually lower.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#176

Post by deong »

zzzcpan wrote: post #153
kajecounterhack wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as centralized companies go Google is one of the better ones. It's unfortunate that so much power accrues to only a few entities. But slamming Google is like slamming a side effect of a bigger problem: many markets are naturally winner takes all and vertical integration confers enormous benefits. I don't see much of a way around this but many feel stronger regulations to protect consumer data should be enacted…

> many markets are naturally winner takes all I don't think this is true. "Winner takes all" is a predatory behavior and it is only possible with enormous concentration of wealth. Otherwise markets become full of small players and fair competition.

Some markets do. There are many examples of markets that don't -- enough that there's a recognized term for it ("Natural Monopoly").

I would argue that the level of knowledge, talent, and engineering and scientific resources required to do what Google does forms a pretty effective natural barrier to a bunch of small players being able to compete.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#177

Post by ehsankia »

pdelbarba wrote: post #17

Disregarding the privacy issues, I find this to also be insanely annoying. I want notifications to be important. Not a bunch of spam that ultimately equates to advertising.

How is notification spam a "privacy issue"? Can we call this by what it is, a "notification issue"? Yes, you can turn it off, but by default, it's slightly too aggressive. If it could be a bit less spammy, I'm sure people wouldn't get frustrated and turn it off entirely.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#178

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

rhizome wrote: post #125
someguydave wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your cell phone cannot function without actually knowing where you are (to some approximation) at all times. This information is known to the phone company, at the very least. The phone company almost always records and retains that information. Similarly, you cannot communicate to anyone on the internet without using an IP address, which your counterparty must know and nearly always retains.

Your cell phone cannot function without actually knowing where you are (to some approximation) at all times. That's like saying a transistor radio needs to know where broadcast antennas are, which is obviously absurd.

Transistor radios are receivers only. Cell phones are transmitters that move between various fixed receiver cells. At the very least the phone company knows what cell any given phone is currently connected to. In practice they know the locations and signal strengths of all the cells in range of the phone, which allows triangulation to within a few dozen meters, at worst.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#179

Post by rdiddly »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #65
saulrh wrote: post #42

I'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…

Also, if they were behind a configuration option and defaulted to on, most people would be fine turning it off and forgetting about it. This seems to be about lack of control. It's good for developers to think carefully before they ship products that do things with no way of being told not to. EDIT: Welp. Apparently these settings exist. I don't understand the point of the blog post then. Why is it so upsetting, if y…

It's "upsetting" (a strong word not used in the post) to new users because the default is "on" and that's the first impression they get when they turn the device on. Which is the sound of Google blowing it and sending people back to the Apple ecosystem, not necessarily the sound of someone crying.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#180

Post by lern_too_spel »

millstone wrote: post #120
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if they were behind a configuration option and defaulted to on, most people would be fine turning it off and forgetting about it. This seems to be about lack of control. It's good for developers to think carefully before they ship products that do things with no way of being told not to. EDIT: Welp. Apparently these settings exist. I don't understand the point of the blog post then. Why is it so upsetting, if y…

Because if you turn it off in one place, it just starts happening in another: Yah. I disabled Google Maps tracking, then Google Search started notifying me about places I was near.

It's not Google Maps that's doing the tracking. He turned off notifications in Google Maps, not location history, which does the actual tracking that other apps consume.

He agreed to location tracking when he first set up the phone because the first run setup explicitly asks whether he wants that on or off.

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