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Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

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Re: Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

#41

Post by TillE »

I noticed fairly recently that YouTube has undeniably started tracking my watch history even though I've had watch and search history turned off forever, and it's still turned off with (apparently) no data in it.

On the front page, there are constantly recommendations of videos which I have just watched (not liked, commented, only watched). Old, new, whatever. Videos which would be quite random if I hadn't just watched them.

I stopped using Chrome a long time ago after similar observations of how it tracks usage. Good thing I don't really do anything sensitive with YouTube.

Re: Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

#42

Post by orangecat »

ForHackernews wrote: post #33
Spooky23 wrote: post #6

There's a usability aspect to this. If you disable location services for Yelp, it's pretty unfriendly -- it chooses to make it as difficult as possible for you to use the app to get you to turn location back on. The Google approach for Maps is more pragmatic IMO -- lower resolution location data makes sure I don't get a McDonald's in Finland when I'm in Kentucky. The hard thing is that I don't want Yelp, Google, etc…

Maybe people could just live with having to search: " near " if they want to get geographically relevant results. It doesn't seem that terrible to me.

That's terrible for usability, especially since you're almost always going to want better resolution than "anywhere in or around city X".

Re: Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

#43

Post by RL_Quine »

TillE wrote: post #41

I noticed fairly recently that YouTube has undeniably started tracking my watch history even though I've had watch and search history turned off forever, and it's still turned off with (apparently) no data in it. On the front page, there are constantly recommendations of videos which I have just watched (not liked, commented, only watched). Old, new, whatever. Videos which would be quite random if I hadn't just watch…

I have noticed the same using their app, which is the only place I can't easily block them from doing so.

Re: Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

#44

Post by whatch »

TillE wrote: post #41

I noticed fairly recently that YouTube has undeniably started tracking my watch history even though I've had watch and search history turned off forever, and it's still turned off with (apparently) no data in it. On the front page, there are constantly recommendations of videos which I have just watched (not liked, commented, only watched). Old, new, whatever. Videos which would be quite random if I hadn't just watch…

Recently I've disabled search and watch history, and home page content became very similar to the Trending tab in my country (i.e. pure garbage). Also I've lost ability to resume playback from last known position across devices, so had to turn watch history on back. And it made my home page great again.

Re: Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

#45

Post by on_and_off »

whatch wrote: post #44
TillE wrote: post #41

I noticed fairly recently that YouTube has undeniably started tracking my watch history even though I've had watch and search history turned off forever, and it's still turned off with (apparently) no data in it. On the front page, there are constantly recommendations of videos which I have just watched (not liked, commented, only watched). Old, new, whatever. Videos which would be quite random if I hadn't just watch…

Recently I've disabled search and watch history, and home page content became very similar to the Trending tab in my country (i.e. pure garbage). Also I've lost ability to resume playback from last known position across devices, so had to turn watch history on back. And it made my home page great again.

doesn't that make sense though ?

If there is no watch history, not possible for google to make recommendations ? or am I missing something ?

Re: Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

#46

Post by badRNG »

nickff wrote: post #21
RedComet wrote: post #17

Some sensible government intervention would be nice. Into Google and most of these tech giants, actually. Who ever thought that our cyberpunk future would be such a lame and mundane dystopia.

Do you think that the same governments which are against cryptography will actually look after your privacy? They'll probably require a pop-up that asks: "Is it okay if Google keeps your data, or should we just send it to the NSA?".

I feel that arguments along the lines of "why should we have governments protect consumers on 'x' if they willingly do 'y'" aren't really helpful, and feel akin to whataboutism.

For example, yes, I expect "The Government's OSHA" to enforce worker safety laws, even if "The Government's Police" later winds up brutalizing workers during a strike.

The Government isn't this unified entity, it's more a collection of disparate organizations often embroiled in disputes with each other, each representing various stakeholders who's interests are often in contradiction with one another.

Re: Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

#47

Post by whatch »

on_and_off wrote: post #45
whatch wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I've disabled search and watch history, and home page content became very similar to the Trending tab in my country (i.e. pure garbage). Also I've lost ability to resume playback from last known position across devices, so had to turn watch history on back. And it made my home page great again.

doesn't that make sense though ? If there is no watch history, not possible for google to make recommendations ? or am I missing something ?

It does.

My point was that for me disabling history disabled _good_ recommendations based on my activity (and some other features), which is different from anecdotes in parent and sibling comments.

Re: Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

#48

Post by mnutsch23 »

After reading this article, I signed into my account. I found that even though I turned off tracking in Google years ago, it still kept my old history.

The article says that Google turned on auto-delete for new accounts by default as the result of a lawsuit. However, if your Google account is older than x years, then they still keep all of your location history unless you go in and manually choose to delete it. Even then, I no longer trust that Google will actually delete it.

Re: Even Google engineers are confused about Google’s privacy settings

#50

Post by molticrystal »

TillE wrote: post #41

I noticed fairly recently that YouTube has undeniably started tracking my watch history even though I've had watch and search history turned off forever, and it's still turned off with (apparently) no data in it. On the front page, there are constantly recommendations of videos which I have just watched (not liked, commented, only watched). Old, new, whatever. Videos which would be quite random if I hadn't just watch…

Well Chrome does have an installation identifier that was/is transmitted only to google properties.

That would explain the behavior you describe. Google says it is only for tracking experiments and tests, but I doubt even they know what everybody is doing with it, and perhaps you were a member of an experiment where they used it to track you.

"Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID" [0]

An article about it was here [1]

Discussion on hackernews was here [2]

[0] https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/467#issuecom...

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/05/google_chrome_id_numb...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22239641

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