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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

#221

Post by pishpash »

mihaaly wrote: post #117
nixass wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't wanna ruin the conversation here but: > Great question This is exactly how politicians (or whoever is doing something nasty) will start the answer on sensitive question. Shady business.

I agree, the tone of the answer is very 'pretending to be user firendly while doing what is good for us', I cannot trust it. Not to mention the marketing logic of 'forcing users to try out new features', like if it was a positive thing not negative. Quite user hostile tone it is in my view.

Google has pioneered "forcing users to try out new features" ever since they invented forced software updates. That's not new.

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

#222

Post by southerntofu »

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…

I don't mean to judge your argument, but Google is well-known to be part of the USA military industrial complex by now, and to be very friendly with the Chinese government. If you're a journalist investigating anything else than sports competitions results, you may want to consider (for your personal safety) never to use services by such companies. When i say such, i do mean other companies close to the US gov (Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft), but i do mean also other companies close to other governments (Qwant/Orange/etc in France).

If you work at Google, and think you're doing something good for humanity, please take a step back, look yourself in the mirror, and consider doing any other job instead. Arguably, even becoming a mercenary would have less negative impact overall than working for Google, because Google is not responsible for killing a few people but rather for bringing technological armaments (surveillance/AI/hosting) to governments and corporations killing millions.

For the survival of humankind and millions of other species, we need to dismantle all corporations and governments before they're done destroying earth and its ecosystems.

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

#223

Post by tremon »

reustle wrote: post #25
hydrogtehd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Auto play is the worst. I also hate the turning on chimes Not auto-muting when restarted/woken up Blue led Bright electronics. It seems that everything is designed to scream at the user.

Black marker really helps to tone down blue LEDs btw.

Did that with the TV in my bedroom. Even the red stand-by led was impossibly bright. It turned out that the remote sensor was located behind the same glass :/

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

#224

Post by dwighttk »

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…

> means the vast majority of users don't even have the chance to try the feature out to figure out if it's useful for them.

Then make a case for them to turn it on, don’t use a dark pattern.

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

#225

Post by robertlagrant »

herio wrote: post #203
robertlagrant wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably just like all your corporate Slack or Teams chat history, or your emails, the things you did on company time remain the property of the company you're employed by.

Not always the case. At the European company I work there are many rules and regs on who can legally access employees email, depending on the country of the employee. Luxembourg and the Netherlands can be really tricky for example and they are not the only ones. It's not automatically solely owned by the company.

I'm sure it's not, and that's quite interesting, but I was speaking in the context of GDPR.

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

#226

Post by blip54321 »

riverguardian wrote: post #120
twhb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comments and the email both are written like nobody really wants tracking off, at least not if they know what’s good for them. Is that what you believe?

I think "tracking" is a bit misleading here. It's product (search) usage activity. None of the Workspace data you provide is ever used outside of Workspace, nor is it used for any other purpose than for the benefit of you and your users (we can't create machine learning models from your data to improve the experience for other customers, for example, without your prior consent), and that data is never used for ads.

... just like the strong privacy guarantees on Yahoo Mail, before Yahoo ran into financial hard times?

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

#228

Post by matkoniecz »

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…

> with the hope that more people will feel comfortable getting the benefits

Nope.

What you are doing is illegitimate spying on people. People who managed to find obfuscated setting and explicitly requested to stop logging private data.

I hope that this action will result in yet another fine for Google, this time measured in billions of euro.

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

#229

Post by matkoniecz »

roylez wrote: post #177
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…

It is amazing that you still have positive karma.

I have not downvoted it as I see it as a nice example of why Google should be receiving fines in billions of euro.

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

#230

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

riverguardian wrote: post #120
twhb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comments and the email both are written like nobody really wants tracking off, at least not if they know what’s good for them. Is that what you believe?

I think "tracking" is a bit misleading here. It's product (search) usage activity. None of the Workspace data you provide is ever used outside of Workspace, nor is it used for any other purpose than for the benefit of you and your users (we can't create machine learning models from your data to improve the experience for other customers, for example, without your prior consent), and that data is never used for ads.

> I think "tracking" is a bit misleading here.

I think it's misleading for other reasons. Namely, I can't be 100% sure that if I turn it off, I won't be tracked - or if you just stop display the tracking data you gather anyway.

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