Google is FUBAR • Hacker News Board

Re: Google is FUBAR

#51

Post by brudgers » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:30 PM UTC

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #19

maaku wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point--when the switchover occurs the ads accompanying regular google search will pull upon a profile which includes your GMail/Google Docs accounts as well.

Data from Google's enterprise products are not included in your ad profile. I can't imagine they will change that, or they will see a mass exodus from their platform. Just because something shows up in your (March 1st) search results doesn't mean it was used in generating the ad next to it.

>"I can't imagine they will change that, or they will see a mass exodus from their platform."

I have observed people tend to accept vendor lock in. Particularly when the migration costs are high.

Likewise, the cost of lost enterprise accounts would have to offset the revenue gained from mining the data...assuming of course that Google isn't already mining enterprise data.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#52

Post by mkr-hn » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:30 PM UTC

atomicdog wrote: post #37

spodek wrote: post #22

It just occurred to me a main reason they chose "Don't be evil" as their slogan. The foundation of the company is a slippery slope that will forever motivate it to get more personal information and to do more with it -- generally meaning profiting from that personal information in ways people don't know about. Also, they will forever be asked or demanded that information from governments and other companies who want…

>It just occurred to me a main reason they chose "Don't be evil" as their slogan. The foundation of the company is a slippery slope They came up with the "don't be evil" thing when they were young idealistic hipsters who just wanted to be different from the suit-wearing status quo. They had no idea of how big they would eventually become so it had nothing to do with reminding them of the "slipperly slope". The moment…

You've taken a nuanced interpretation and condensed it down into a generic, obvious, and uninteresting soundbite.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#53

Post by laconian » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:31 PM UTC

orenmazor wrote: post #43

why does it creep the crap out of me when google gathers personal information, but I dont care if facebook/apple do it?

Tech blog echo chamber?

Re: Google is FUBAR

#54

Post by spqr » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:32 PM UTC

I still use Google for Gmail and for a (now abandoned) Google+ profile, but I've switched to Bing for search. The results are "good enough". The benefit is that none of my searches are attached to a personally identifiable account.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#55

Post by mkup » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:34 PM UTC

I've been using "GMail for Domains" service for years to filter spam. Can anyone recommend a viable alternative?

I read e-mail in Portable Thunderbird, it's downloaded/uploaded via POP3/SMTP, so I don't have to browse the internet with Google cookies. Also I don't have Google+ account, and I have separate browser to access Analytics and Webmaster tools and AdWords. My main browser clears all cookies at end-of-session except ones from whitelisted domains, so I'm not bothered by the search query spying that much. They can bind search queries to my e-mail account only by the same IP address used in HTTP search and POP3/SMTP mail transfer.

One more question: does Chrome browser (on desktop) have some kind of builtin instance/installation ID it transfers to Google servers every time I connect? I use Firefox, but anyway.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#56

Post by spqr » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:34 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #50

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…

"If we know something of your interests (based on G+ and/or search), isn't suggesting more relevant content to you on Youtube (as a purely hypothetical example) a good thing?"

Sure, everything is harmless until it's not. Just yesterday I was on a conference call that was fairly boring. I was surfing in the background when suddenly I was reminded I didn't have my speakers muted by the sound of a massively loud Dulcolax laxative commercial from some asshat site that started up a video ad automatically. I couldn't shut it down for 7 or 8 seconds while the person talked about being constipated in full earshot of my conference call until I could find the mute button on the unfamiliar phone I was using.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#57

Post by 0xABADC0DA » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

amstr wrote: post #17

Destroyer661 wrote: post #3

I have a hard time understanding the whole deal everyone is making of Google finally combining the whole ecosystem they have into one nice package. I don't think the author knows that Google already knows what you use in Google docs, they already mine your email to show ads to you, they already do everything he talks about, they're just now going to let you have access to it through search instead of having to go to…

Apparently when Apple has a unified ecosystem, the purpose is to "perfectly tailor its devices to its users" but if Google does it, it's "maniacal" and "tyrannical"? The state of tech blogging is so, so poor.

Is the state of tech blogging so, so poor or do you just not agree with the conclusions? For instance:

"It must force Chrome and Google+ down the throats of users who are simply looking for a brilliant search engine."

Google just recently started showing Chrome 'faster internet' ads to Firefox users (before it was only displayed to IE users). This blog is a bit over the top especially with claims like "[Google] search engine that’s no better than Bing", but fundamentally I think it's right on the money.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#58

Post by cheald » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

What strikes me the most about this whole debacle is that people have complained for ages that Google doesn't "get" social. Its products have been poorly integrated and incongruent. Then, when Google says "Okay, we're going to integrate the balls off of everything, and provide a single consistent experience across all our products", people pitch a fit. It seems they can't win either way. This is a necessary step in fixing Google's broken approach to social and personalized information.

Personally, I like this direction. I really don't care Google will have the my same data in Picasa and Docs and Gmail. If anything, it's going to mean a better product for me. It's not like Google is suddenly sharing all this data with an external entity - it already had it. It already used it. Now it's just using it across multiple facets rather than limiting it to a single one. I'm just not sure I get the brouhaha. Maybe it's because I already use all those services as a single user, and have wanted better integration between them, so this just fits me better. Maybe I'm just ignorant about the implications. I'm not sure.

I do have to ask, though - if you have an issue with Google's having access to your data, why do you use Google services? As with any web property, if you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#59

Post by danso » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:36 PM UTC

This is why I use two different browsers. My main browser, Chrome, is where I'm logged onto my GMail account. I use another browser solely to connect to Facebook so that it doesn't collect my Chrome's site usage data.

Also, I think I've always assumed that everything I've entered in Google Search will be linked to me indefinitely...so...sensitive searches are done in the non-logged in browser.

Of course, there's IP tracking, but I'm not feeling that paranoid yet.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#60

Post by alexgartrell » Wed, Jan 25, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #50

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…

> As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results.

For the majority of users, Facebook/Twitter results are more relevant than Google Plus results. There's nothing in the rule book that says you can't leverage a successful property to promote another, but it's unfair to everyone to try to pass that off as a move to increase relevance in search results.

Disclaimer: I'm a Facebook engineer who doesn't take SPYW personally.