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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

#441

Post by hnfong »

grog454 wrote: post #421
ramblerman wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look we all know how the world works so please, spare the BS. By all means do your job, and hit your metrics. But this is just a dark pattern, which comes up with some new product boundaries so you can default these settings back to on. There's a certain arrogance to coming into HN of all places and offering a sales explanation that it's actually in our benefit.

It's unfortunate that this post is being downvoted and considered a "personal attack" (debatable) as it seems to be one of if not the only comment suggesting the most likely explanation: a Google employee trying to maximize engagement / usage metrics for their feature without really thinking through the broader implications. This seems much more likely to me than a grand conspiracy to sneakily collect more peoples' d…

I also fail to see where the personal attack lies...

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

#442

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

wakeupcall wrote: post #434
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait... i am using an android and i skipped google login. i use aurora store/fdroid for apps, newpipe. why can't you sent up android without google? i am running android 11 btw,

I assume it's possible, the question is what gets crippled. When I last tried this (earlier than android 10), one example that I remember is that you could add contacts, but not modify them without contact sync. It didn't have to be google's ("of course" - I worked it out by setting up davx), but functionality was crippled nonetheless. I was using lineage+microg+aurora for a while, and while I could certainly get aro…

look. i have bben using "backup all" a small app that imports and exports vcf and other formats. served me well between 3 phone changes. i gt it, people want fast fast stuff, impatience and all that but its not difficult

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

#443

Post by Arcsech »

dang wrote: post #375
ramblerman wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look we all know how the world works so please, spare the BS. By all means do your job, and hit your metrics. But this is just a dark pattern, which comes up with some new product boundaries so you can default these settings back to on. There's a certain arrogance to coming into HN of all places and offering a sales explanation that it's actually in our benefit.

Please don't cross into personal attack. You don't need it to make your substantive points, and it poisons the ecosystem. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

I don’t see a personal attack here.

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

#444

Post by loonster »

poppytaker wrote: post #60
loonster wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave search is crap. It feels like DDG when it first launched. I want to like it, but the index it uses is old. I often get links that don't work.

I use Brave and ddg (depending on browser). Brave is only worse when it comes to location specific searches, otherwise for general searches I'm agnostic between the two. Still fallback to !g bangs on every couple of days.

I've gotten several results were the link is no longer valid.

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

#445

Post by dang »

Arcsech wrote: post #443
dang wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't cross into personal attack. You don't need it to make your substantive points, and it poisons the ecosystem. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

I don’t see a personal attack here.

You have a point—maybe not really a personal attack, but still aggressive and poisonous and therefore not what we want here.

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

#446

Post by mikro2nd »

mikro2nd wrote: post #124
kornhole wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the spiral of businesses based on personal data. They are pressured to meet quarterly earnings targets. As more people flee with their data, they must squeeze more out of what they have and can get. They are trying to diversify into business services and hardware, but those are struggling even though often heavily discounted. Their tarnished reputation is making it harder for customers in those markets to tru…

"quarterly earnings targets" It's worse than that: It's YoY revenue growth targets that really matter to the stock price, hence the never-ending push to put more ads into places you never expected to see them. FWIW I've pretty-much given up on YouTube due to the aggressive ad insertions.

Replying to myself so as to add the following quote from Rudy Rucker that seems to me terribly apropos:

"I never really understood the ideas in economics, in fact I almost failed to graduate from college because I couldn’t stand going to economics lectures. Hate, hate, hate the stuff. It’s like studying Bible stories or pseudoscience—economics has so little connection to daily reality. For instance, it’s completely obvious that companies can’t in fact grow forever, year after year, without hitting some debilitating limits. But the so-called value of a company is based on how much they grow from quarter to quarter. Economics as practiced by bankers is complete horseshit, but they’ve bought out all the politicians, so nothing reasonable ever gets done. In the long run, of course, the situation will resolve itself. Meanwhile we’re seeing a resurgence of the dystopic SF novel!"

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

#447

Post by pmontra »

nightski wrote: post #91
pmontra wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fall back to !g when I don't find what I'm looking for. It happens too often for technical things. And Google is the only one that handles "verbatim searches". At least I'm splitting my trail of data between two companies.

I hear people say this but I haven't even desired to use a !g for several years now (good riddance). I wonder if it is for certain types of tech.

I found an example right now.

I looked on DDG for _ubuntu turn on a usb disk after it was switched off_ and it didn't return anything related to the query. I added !g and Google gave me [1] as the second result.

[1] https://superuser.com/questions/1626369/power-off-external-d...

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

#448

Post by Handytinge »

vertis wrote: post #365
zht wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel sort of bad for this comment. The reason is because the reason given is perfectly sound. “We have to split this out because of perfect reasonable reasons like laws, data retention policies, etc etc”. And everything afterwards is pure unadulterated propaganda. I don’t know if the commenter knows how patronizing they sound. “We did this for you because even though you’ve previously explicitly opted out, we think…

There was this thing in Melbourne cafes for a while (and maybe still, I'm not in Melbourne any more), where you would walk in and order your usual from other cafes "a large Flat White" and the barista would go "We only make coffee in one size". At which point I would walk out and go to another cafe. The same experience, "I want coffee in a certain way", "we know better than you and will only serve you coffee how we l…

I spent decades in Melbourne and ordered flat whites from hundreds of cafes and not on ever had this response.

Surely this is a singular experience you had and not the commonality you're implying it to be?

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

#449

Post by vertis »

Handytinge wrote: post #448
vertis wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was this thing in Melbourne cafes for a while (and maybe still, I'm not in Melbourne any more), where you would walk in and order your usual from other cafes "a large Flat White" and the barista would go "We only make coffee in one size". At which point I would walk out and go to another cafe. The same experience, "I want coffee in a certain way", "we know better than you and will only serve you coffee how we l…

I spent decades in Melbourne and ordered flat whites from hundreds of cafes and not on ever had this response. Surely this is a singular experience you had and not the commonality you're implying it to be?

There are thousands of coffee shops of various calibres, so I'm not even remotely suprised that two people could have different experiences. I definitely had it happen at more than one coffee shop. It definitely wasn't all of them, or even a majority. For example:

> 9. Market Lane Coffee: Queen Victoria Market

> The only milk baristas serve is full fat cow’s milk, the coffee only comes in one size, you have to put your own lid on your takeaway, a cappuccino or latte costs $4.80, and there is always, always a line. The seasonal blend offers a full-bodied, hazelnut-heavy cup with apple undertones.[1]

That is not the one I remember it happening at, but it serves to illustrate. The other thing that used to happen sometimes is "We only use full-fat milk". I hadn't remembered that until I tried finding a reference for the cup sizes.

[1]: https://www.timeout.com/melbourne/restaurants/the-best-coffe...

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

#450

Post by wnoise »

a-dub wrote: post #402
wnoise wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Talking over" is something that just doesn't apply to one reply on an asynchronous threaded forum.

does it detract from op's point and instead attempt to steer the conversation somewhere else? (which, incidentally, is also derogatory?) when people behave that way in live conversations, i'm equally unimpressed.

The harm to a live conversation of talking over someone is clear. There is no harm here, only a digression that can be ignored or not as participants wish. The OP had as much time and space to make their case. Again, threaded forums are not live, linear conversations, and have different characteristics for what is healthy and useful. Replies, even contradictory ones, are not interruptions. There is not one conversation going on, but many, and the conversation cannot be steered unilaterally without agreement from others to not engage in the original conversation.

In general, there is nothing wrong with detracting from someone's point (though there can be in specific instances). The point may be ridiculous and need detracting!

There is also nothing wrong with being derogatory when appropriate. Some speech is indeed bad and should be called out -- were you not doing just that? (Though I, of course disagree that the speech you were objecting was in any way bad).

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