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Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

bradfrost.com

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Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#271

Post by KhanMahGretsch »

dontnotice wrote: post #181

It's always surprising how much comments and postings in these parts are vehemently in opposition to data being usefully incorporated into these apps and services, I remember a recent post about how Google's passive on device music identification worked on the Pixel 2 which turned hostel. I understand that certain types of people are attracted to certain topics but it's still somewhat jarring when in a technology dis…

I think the article primarily addresses the tone-deaf way in which Google addresses the user, not so much the practice of gathering data and providing useful suggestions to the user "like magic", which does indeed have it's benefits.

There's an implied deal that the user will provide their data to Google so they may profit from it, and in return they will provide you with a service free-of-charge. The article, and some anecdotes here in the comments, indicate that Google can be a little needy and tone-deaf in prompting the user to provide them with even MORE data, at times. Instead of passively collecting data, they appear to actively prompt the user to feed their machine, which is very annoying and creepy in the author's opinion.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#272

Post by beojan »

amelius wrote: post #170
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…

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.

With many of their services (Search in particular), the data is precisely what makes the service so good.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#273

Post by ovao »

fenwick67 wrote: post #253
soared wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google didn't just look at the fact that you were searching for tents online to serve you that ad. They looked at how old you are, what time of day you are most susceptible to clicking on ads, who your friends are and what they like, your address, your preferred colors and letters... It's possible that they figured out you just broke up with your SO and use shopping as a coping skill, so it was time to pull out the…

> google doesn't do things like look at your specific address, preferred colors, etc Who are you to say they don't try and figure out your favorite color based on all of their input data? If Google shared exactly how their secret sauce advertising algorithms work, they'd be out of business. > You can opt out of all behavior based advertiser very easily: http://optout.networkadvertising.org and http://optout.aboutads.…

Is trying to derive a person’s preferences from tangentially-related data immoral, or does it only become immoral when it’s done in an attempt to sell a product?

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#274

Post by bastijn »

Chaebixi wrote: post #230
amelius wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. I am one of Google's real customers, I bought an expensive phone from them, but, to quote Josh Marshall: > One thing I’ve observed with Google over the years is that it is institutionally so used to its ‘customers’ actually being its products that when it gets into businesses where it ac…

Are you? Or did you just pay them peanuts for a tracking device that helps them make many times your peanuts with their real (real) customers?

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#275

Post by soared »

fenwick67 wrote: post #253
soared wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google didn't just look at the fact that you were searching for tents online to serve you that ad. They looked at how old you are, what time of day you are most susceptible to clicking on ads, who your friends are and what they like, your address, your preferred colors and letters... It's possible that they figured out you just broke up with your SO and use shopping as a coping skill, so it was time to pull out the…

> google doesn't do things like look at your specific address, preferred colors, etc Who are you to say they don't try and figure out your favorite color based on all of their input data? If Google shared exactly how their secret sauce advertising algorithms work, they'd be out of business. > You can opt out of all behavior based advertiser very easily: http://optout.networkadvertising.org and http://optout.aboutads.…

DNT headers broke when microsoft decided to enable it by default, so they became meaningless.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#276

Post by bastijn »

throwanem wrote: post #245
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…

> it serves the common good No, it serves Google.

> It serves Google and the common good.

There. Fixed it for you. You can’t deny the benefits it brings to the average person having all this information a (google) search away.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#277

Post by stinos »

throwanem wrote: post #245
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…

> it serves the common good No, it serves Google.

First I was like "no, it does serve the common good". But on second thought: replay to 30 years ago, and there weren't really problems. Word-of-mouth combined with places closing because they were just too bad too survive worked fine. So maybe the common good doesn't need serving the Google way.. Possible real benefit is you can get super-detailed reviews from many different people. But I'm not sure there really is a need or market for that (well, except Google).

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#278

Post by TeMPOraL »

bognition wrote: post #110
Raphmedia wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My memory is terrible enough that I can't do those things myself. One could argue that your memory is terrible because you know you can rely on those services.

Or maybe these services provide us augmented cognitive abilities beyond that of a disconnected human.

That is indeed the point of technology.

Personally, my only gripe is that those technologies tend to heavily depend on cloud and SaaS, which make you a slave of the whims of a third party, that is unreliable and often doesn't have your best interest in mind. Those same tools could be equally empowering without that dependency.

Re: Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

#280

Post by Siemer »

cm2187 wrote: post #225
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…

I'd be completely fine with all that even if it was turned on by default and if there was a simple off button. The point of the author of the article is that it is a permanent struggle with privacy settings. It's the same on Windows 10. There are like 30 registry entries one needs to change to turn off the spying, and they keep adding more. Like the author, this is a game I just have no appetite playing.

Meh. Open Google Maps (the app responsible for all of these notifications). Go to settings > notifications > your contributions. Turn off everything. Done. It's just one app being a bit too nosy. Nothing like the OS that tried to silently re-enable the privacy settings I turned off in an update.
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