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Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

propublica.org

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Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#61

Post by freeflight »

hericium wrote: post #21
cato_the_elder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does do archiving, and it does it very well. It's fast, provides short URLs, blocks ads in the archived pages, tries to bypass paywalls and login walls, and resists censorship. That's why people use it. And it's funded by ads, so yes, it does have tracking scripts, just like a good chunk of the internet. If you are privacy-conscious (or just don't like ads), then you can use uBlock Origin to get rid of them.

Why would I want to go to JS-infested copy of a site which original version does not _require_ JS? Advice to do so and use uBlock to block something that wouldn't be run on original site is ridiculous. If you guys do archiving, stop spamming HN with links that are fresh and don't need archiving, just to run your tracking on victims' devices for profit. How is it not just stealing content from other sites? > It's fast…

> If you guys do archiving, stop spamming HN with links that are fresh and don't need archiving

Just because a link is fresh, does not mean that it does not need archiving.

If that link is a news article that is then taken offline, or changed, it will trivially be forgotten like it never existed, and you will have no evidence to prove that ever happened.

And it very much does happen, the www of the year 2022 has gotten scarily good in forgetting and burying stuff trough SEO and delisting.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#62

Post by coffeefirst »

BrainVirus wrote: post #18

The sad thing about news like this is that most people only pay attention at all because they've been bombarded with anti-Russian propaganda, not because this showcases Google's awful anti-privacy practices. Despite years of warnings, examples and analysis of where this can lead, the only thing that matters in the end is some emotional trigger word that makes the public think they are dealing with an "outgroup". The…

On the other hand, the only way to get meaningful privacy reform is to tie it to concrete examples that are easy to understand.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#63

Post by freeflight »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #57

Why is it so hard not to share user data? Is sharing user data the lazy path you take when you cannot use that data to create a product and provide value yourself?

Large parts of the modern economy are driven solely by sharing and selling user data.

"Oil of the 21st" century and all that.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#64

Post by [deleted] »

hericium wrote: post #37
cronix wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither. It bypasses paywalls and opens the discussion up to everyone, which is the main reason why it's used on HN, or the discussion on each article would only be between the (relatively few) subscribers of that particular site and those who haven't used up the "3 free views for this month" quota.

Horseshit. Fire up search on the bottom on the page and tell me what percent of "archived" sites don't require JS at all (so don't have any "pay us or fu" overlays popping up). I can tell you right now that 0% of those tracking-infested archive.ph copies of original sites work without JS on Firefox on Linux and certain other configurations. As in: without JS, you can't see the stolen content on archive.ph while you c…

[deleted]

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#65

Post by freeflight »

jollybean wrote: post #31
pdimitar wrote: post #20

What the hell does the recent Russian hostility has to do with this? Sanctions? You mean that the privacy laws that have been ignored and laughed at are not a bad enough violation? Apparently it's not, huh. Google and Facebook have been extremely anti-privacy since practically their inception but suddenly NOW it's a problem because an attached Russian company has been doing what Google has been enabling any company t…

It's not about privacy from companies who want to sell you vitamins, it's about Russian government wanting to know who you are so they can target you with political misinformation etc..

> it's about Russian government wanting to know who you are so they can target you with political misinformation

Which is something not only Russia is doing with that information, it's a very widespread practice [0] and one that many think should be considered a bigger issue itself, rather than who makes use of it.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-29/the-germa...

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#66

Post by refulgentis »

dbtc wrote: post #56
freeflight wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tho that's quite the overly specific, and dated, definition of "propaganda". Public relations is a way more apt term for what's going on in modern times [0], and in the "cyber" manifestation of that field, private parties are recognized as the main contributors, and actors, for a number of nation states [1] [0] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/17/influencers-ukraini... [1] https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cef7e…

The creation of the term "Public Relations" is an example of skillful propaganda.

No post body was provided.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#67

Post by remarkEon »

barrbid8 wrote: post #55
j0ba wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it obvious? Russia

So if I write an article about say the North Korean government stealing money, or murdering, I’m using an emotional trigger word and an “out group”? Have you ever watched Russian domestic tv, which is incidentally 100% controlled by the government? You’d find a new appreciation for emotional triggers and out groups!

I think the point made by the original comment is that Google has been doing this basically forever, and the privacy concerns are unrelated to the fact that a Russian Ad company took advantage of them. While a Russian Ad company doing this is bad, people are only paying attention to it now, because Russia being bad[er than usual] is part of the current socio-political environment, so the activity has a higher S/N.

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#68

Post by Georgelemental »

barrbid8 wrote: post #55
j0ba wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it obvious? Russia

So if I write an article about say the North Korean government stealing money, or murdering, I’m using an emotional trigger word and an “out group”? Have you ever watched Russian domestic tv, which is incidentally 100% controlled by the government? You’d find a new appreciation for emotional triggers and out groups!

> So if I write an article about say the North Korean government stealing money, or murdering, I’m using an emotional trigger word and an “out group”?

Yes. "We are psychologically predisposed to view group X as terrible" and "group X is actually terrible in real life" are in no way contradictory. It's almost as if humans are products of natural selection, and our psychological instincts serve a useful purpose

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#69

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

freeflight wrote: post #63
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #57

Why is it so hard not to share user data? Is sharing user data the lazy path you take when you cannot use that data to create a product and provide value yourself?

Large parts of the modern economy are driven solely by sharing and selling user data. "Oil of the 21st" century and all that.

Sharing and selling the data? Or sharing products built with the data?

Re: Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months

#70

Post by oefrha »

hericium wrote: post #21
cato_the_elder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does do archiving, and it does it very well. It's fast, provides short URLs, blocks ads in the archived pages, tries to bypass paywalls and login walls, and resists censorship. That's why people use it. And it's funded by ads, so yes, it does have tracking scripts, just like a good chunk of the internet. If you are privacy-conscious (or just don't like ads), then you can use uBlock Origin to get rid of them.

Why would I want to go to JS-infested copy of a site which original version does not _require_ JS? Advice to do so and use uBlock to block something that wouldn't be run on original site is ridiculous. If you guys do archiving, stop spamming HN with links that are fresh and don't need archiving, just to run your tracking on victims' devices for profit. How is it not just stealing content from other sites? > It's fast…

I’ve posted archive.is links to HN because TFA was paywalled or hugged. Glad to know I joined up with a “campaign” to flood HN with Russian tracking. /s

Guess why people don’t post web.archive.org links more? Because it’s frigging slooooow and frequently 500s itself. God forbid people flock to a more reliable service.

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