Is it unusual to have such terms in a hardware device? I'm guessing that Google loses money on the hardware but makes up the difference in other ways (i.e. personal data, etc). But, other industries use the same model without such terms. Are they trying to lock down identity so that it almost always has a one-to-one relationship with the device?
Don’t Mess with The Google
261–270 of 504 posts
Re: Don’t Mess with The Google
#262This is a big wake up call for me. I have everything in google: Drive, email, voice, docs, sheets, etc. I was actually about to sign up for Fi. The convenience of everything in one place is great. But I don't think I had quite thought through a disaster like this. With this article in mind, need to reevaluate. I guess either regular local backups and/or diversification of service providers would be a good step.
Especially so, with the rising gig economy. To more and more people, their digital assets and how and when they access them are how they make money.
Re: Don’t Mess with The Google
#263Most people are missing the important piece here: The terms of service is preventing you of doing whatever you want with a physical product you bought. The F!. You bought the phone with full retail price. You didn't break any laws (as far as I understand it). Why does Google has a say on what you can do with "your" phone. 2018: You can't sell your phone (as a used phone). 2020: Google Drone picks up user phone from h…
Google doesn't have a say on what you can do with your phone.
Google does have a say on what you can do with their service.
These people were clearly trying to game the system. Google caught them red-handed and has now exercised their rights.
Re: Don’t Mess with The Google
#264Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google and don't have any real context into why this occurred. Speaking as myself, a private citizen. I work in Spam & Abuse and it's possible that this is the result of some clustering algorithm that was trying to take down sharders / phone buying rings. It's very possible that the SWEs responsible didn't consider this possibility (that legitimate customers would be used to shard purcha…
If you watch an old tech talk re: Google disaster recovery topic, the Googler explains that a user's info is never fully deleted because it's too expensive to do so given back-up duplication is processed multiple times in multiple locations and sometimes over multiple technologies. In other words, cancel your google account today and your data may be "deleted" but it's really, as in actually really , still on magneti…
It would be easy to setup a backup system where all backups are encrypted with a set of randomly generated keys. (1 key for each user/service pair or something). The keys are going to be (relatively) tiny, so they could be kept on non-archival storage.
If a user's data needs to be deleted for whatever reason, simply discard the user's corresponding encryption keys. That way you can effectively wipe the user's archive without needing to touch the tapes themselves.
Re: Don’t Mess with The Google
#265This should be illegal
Good grief, I'm off to backup my shit now
Re: Don’t Mess with The Google
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very possible that the SWEs responsible didn't consider this possibility "Very possible"? More like "guaranteed". Everybody who pays the slightest bit of attention knows Google has a gigantic blind spot when it comes to thinking through the consequences of algorithms and automation. And there's no sign that the company is interested in fixing that, ever.
Wait until they get into the thought police business for some real interesting situations. All jokes aside, for those who remember, it's pretty amazing what Microsoft got punished for ( bundling a browser with the OS, with no other restrictions) compared to what Apple and Google get away with.
Try this one http://craphound.com/scroogled.html by Doctorow.
Re: Don’t Mess with The Google
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you watch an old tech talk re: Google disaster recovery topic, the Googler explains that a user's info is never fully deleted because it's too expensive to do so given back-up duplication is processed multiple times in multiple locations and sometimes over multiple technologies. In other words, cancel your google account today and your data may be "deleted" but it's really, as in actually really , still on magneti…
How is that compatible with legal requirements for deletion? I think that, at least in Germany, you can demand that a company delete all data associated with you, and the company has to comply with it. (Whether German data protection law applies in Google's datacenters is a wholy different story though.)
It's not required in Germany either. The data protection law allows to "lock" data instead of really deleting it from all devices. And IMO that's the only sane solution to deletion requests.
Otherwise, any kind of backups would be unlawful for a company.
Re: Don’t Mess with The Google
#268Rule Zero: Never rely on a URL that you don't control. Use your own domain name for your e-mail addresses. Use your own domain name for canonical links to content. If you control the URLs, you do not depend on any one provider. Rule One: If you only have one copy, you have no copies. It is an act of faith to assume that a Youtube video or a file in Google Drive will remain available, just as it's an act of faith to a…
Does anyone provide a service to set this scheme up easily? I'd pay $$$ if all of my 'cloud' content and accounts could be migrated to something like this. I just don't have the time to set it up or manage it.
Re: Don’t Mess with The Google
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bundling a browser with the OS that had 98% of all user share at the time. neither Apple not Google come anywhere close to that market domination with their iOS or Android systems. Also the case was much more broad that just the browser it was for software that runs on the OS. Antitrust is not just about what a company does but mainly about what other alternatives are out there. In Microsoft's case there were no othe…
Google only has about 85% marketshare in phones, 96% in Search, still problematic. And Producer rights are affecting Consumer rights. Without a free market, we're all worse off — the only justified monopoly is a governmental one.
Key word here is "phones". 85% of phones is still less than half of all users seeing as mobile just surpassed desktop use sometime in 2015.
And no, producer rights are not affecting consumer rights since this is a free market. I don't care how many Russian search engines or vertical product marketeers go out of business. They are going out of business because they are not offering a good enough service and I don't want google or any other search engine to channel my experience in not good enough channels just to keep their business afloat. that is not free market. When I and a plenty like me like a service we keep using it no matter if Google promotes it or not. If google had the power you are fear-mongering about we would not have FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Re: Don’t Mess with The Google
#270Most people are missing the important piece here: The terms of service is preventing you of doing whatever you want with a physical product you bought. The F!. You bought the phone with full retail price. You didn't break any laws (as far as I understand it). Why does Google has a say on what you can do with "your" phone. 2018: You can't sell your phone (as a used phone). 2020: Google Drone picks up user phone from h…
You're free to sell the phone, you're just not isolated from the consequences of doing so. Google are fully within their rights (since they wrote their rights, in the agreement you clicked through) to terminate your account at their whim.