Disclaimer: I work for Google and these views are only my opinion, etc. From my perspective, Google's goals are aligned with improving the world by offering information services. Search, Gmail, Maps, Translate, basically all of the Other Bets, etc.--it's easy to imagine that the people behind them are more concerned with impact on the world than on generating profit or consolidating Google's power. To me, Facebook ha…
Come on. It’s getting kind of ridiculous how many Google employees are showing up in these discussions saying “oh, if you work at Facebook, you’re horrible! but people at Google are really trying to make the world a better place.” I turned down a job offer from Facebook because after a lot of thought I decided I couldn’t work at such a company. I didn’t even apply to Google because Google’s attitude towards privacy a…
> Does the average person with an Android phone really know their location is being uploaded minute by minute to Google?
It doesn't seem like you have any idea how Google actually captures user's location data. Not only does Google give you the full ability to control and delete your location data [1] but the data collection is not on by default (though applications like Maps will prompt for it) and the data is always anonymized when used and most importantly the data is never shared with commercial third parties (though I believe Google may make anonymized data available to researchers whose projects pass certain ethical checks).
This data is used to drive projects like Maps and 'Popular Times' and real-time directions that people really, really like.
So while you seem to want to paint Google as manipulating people to harvest their data and sell it to the highest bidder (what Facebook basically does) nothing could be further from the truth. Facts matter.
I would personally say when it comes to handling user data Google is probably the most ethical and rigorous company in the world. I can't think of any other company that goes to such great lengths to protect user data as much as Goog does. It's been remarked many times that your data stored in Google's network is more secure than your data stored in NSA's network. Certainly you'll never see anything like private employees tracking their spouses using Google's data [2].
And here's the thing: Facebook is also pretty damn secure when it comes to user's data. Obviously they fucked up with their API but again I think a sober review of most American tech companies will show Facebook doing more to protect user data. You should be much more concerned with many of the fly-by-night websites that pump out fake news or sell cheap Chinese goods to people who don't know better. In fact it's these websites whose sole purpose is to suck up user data for profit.
The real point here of course is that while it may feel good to bash Google and Facebook it is not the best use of energy. What the US needs is what the EU is doing: real privacy regulation with real teeth that applies to any organization whose site serves American citizens.
But somehow I don't see that happening any time soon, right?
[1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?hl=en
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog...