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A company that makes money by collecting and selling access to personal information about people is offering to put a microphone in your home. If you need a pr
by deprave 10y ago
A company that makes money by collecting and selling access to personal information about people is offering to put a microphone in your home.
If you need a product like this, for the sake of your privacy, buy an Echo.
- angryasian 10y agoLets stop this nonsense. They don't sell access to your personal information. There is nowhere that I can buy your personal information from google. What they sell is access to your attention. When advertising, I'm looking for people that match these characteristics, and what I'm purchasing is the possibility to show you an ad if you match certain criteria.
- soared 10y agoThey sell the ability to use your data, not to access/see/download it. I can use all the data for ad targeting, but in no way I can actually see it. Advertisers buy the attention, Publishers sell it. Google is the intermediary that connects the right advertiser to the right publishers, and charges x%.
- vthallam 10y agoYes! I find it so hypocritical of people who seems to be extra careful about their personal information. I understand this makes sense for some people, but for most of the others, Google using your meta-data to show things which might interest you and by also helping you with great applications is cool. Not everyone wants to pay for things to get privacy.
- narrowrail 10y agoYou appear to be saying that people who value privacy are hypocritical because you want free stuff and do not care about privacy. I can't find the logic in your comment.
- vthallam 10y agoIt's hypocritical because not all people who talk about privacy, pay for a good service!
- darawk 10y agoThat doesn't mean that they don't collect that information, however. They collect it, and then they use it to target ads at you. A simple, plausible way this might invade your privacy in a meaningful way is that your home conversations will start being factored into the ads that your shown. Knowing this about Google, I can infer based on the ads shown to you, to some extent, what you are talking about in private. Granted, the information is incomplete, and it is a noisy signal, but it is a signal nonetheless.
- angryasian 10y agoI don't understand this. Every company collects personal information. How do you think itunes delivers recommendations to get you to buy more music you like ? Yes just about every single company you use is collecting information on you and using it some way that benefits them.
- darawk 10y agoYa, I realize that. I wasn't taking a position on it morally. I was just pointing out that just because they don't sell the information as such doesn't mean that they don't leak the information via side channels.
- jamesjyu 10y agoHow do you know what ads are being shown to me?
- darawk 10y agoIf I am using your device momentarily or simply looking over your shoulder. Of course, this is already a security breach, but you wouldn't expect it to breach the security of private conversations you've had in your home, was my point.
- deprave 10y agoAccess to my attention, you say? And now they want to put a speaker and a microphone under their control in my home, you say? Yeah, let's stop this nonsense.
- poozer305 10y agoFor real. Glad to see someone with a level-headed response in this paranoid thread.
- __jal 10y agoYou are making a mighty fine distinction, one that sometimes makes no difference. You are also assuming that "access to attention" is perfectly firewalled from data, which it isn't. I know one person who is playing with what correlations can be made by getting people to click on google ads. I can't imagine he's the first. You are also assuming that Google's policy will never change, Google's assets will never end up for sale, etc.[1] Obviously, we weight these things differently. But calling it nonsense demonstrates either contempt for those you disagree with or a lack of thought on the matter. [1] Sure, looks unlikely at the moment. But unless you think it is going to rival the Catholic Church for longevity, it is worth thinking about. The average corporate lifespan in the US is 27 years.
- corin_ 10y ago> The average corporate lifespan in the US is 27 years. I wonder what the average lifespan is for companies that are already more than X years old, where X could be 1, 2, 5... I'm thinking as a comparison to how the biggest increase in average lifespan for humans wasn't everyone dying a tiny bit later, it was infant mortality dropping massively.
- csours 10y agoPeriod life expectancy is the term you are looking for, I think. Immediate googling does not provide a helpful answer. Another interesting question would be Cohort life expectancy of corporations - that is, have corporations started in the 1990's lasted longer than those started in the 2000's? (obviously, the graph of corporations in the 2000's would have less data)
- dredmorbius 10y agoAmong the more fascinating results out of evolutionary biology and the Red Queen Hypothesis is that species survival probability is almost wholly independent of species age. That is: survival does not convey a survival benefit. I don't know what the corresponding trend is for business ventures, but I suspect they may exhibit similar traits. I am aware that various measures of corporate dominance are declining -- residency within the Dow Jones 30 Industrials, for example.
- FmrAMZN_TA 10y agoAmazon makes $3B a year selling ads. You think they're just guessing about personal information? Please. They lay cookies everywhere (including off site) to target you properly.
- kalleboo 10y agoAnd they're doing a crap job of it - all they ever try to sell me seems to be something I just already bought.