5 ms·

Honestly I'm mostly fine with Google providing me services and skimming a bit of info on me in exchange, but I do find it annoying that after a recent update to

Honestly I'm mostly fine with Google providing me services and skimming a bit of info on me in exchange, but I do find it annoying that after a recent update to Photos, my phone asks me every time I take a photo if Google can "have it" for Maps. Fuck you Google, no you can't. Somehow it's quite different to know they want to take something from my phone and make it public, vs. just using some metadata for their statistics. At least they ask first. But it really does feel rather "stalky" after the 5th time or so it's happened.

triplesec 10y ago
Furthermore, the Maps TOS is one that demands the sort of indefinite total picture use rights that everyone complained about to have changed for fb, Flickr etc.
jonlucc 10y ago
Interestingly, that prompt has made me more likely to take pictures of the outside of a location to share. I think that suggests it is likely that it is working for their purpose, which is to add tons of photos of obscure locations.
- lloeki 10y ago
  I understand the prompt I get from Maps that I'm visiting a location and adding a shot could be helpful, especially when volunteering as a "Local Guide", but IIUC the GP is talking about taking private shots in the Photos app and being prodded into putting it online? That's a bridge too far on the intent because the process is just not the same.
  - radarsat1 10y ago
    Spot on. And they don't provide a "never ask me again" button, as far as I can remember. (I can't check without driving off into the country side and taking a photo to verify...) To be clear though it is when I take a photo with the Camera app, and I think it's Maps that detects this and asks me. But it's automatic, amounts to the same thing. It may be because I live in a country with relatively fewer tourists so perhaps their photo count around here is lower. (Chile. There are definitely tourists, but it's just not Europe.) Regardless, I basically just find it a bit rude. edit: dgacmu, thank you! Done.
    - dgacmu 10y ago
      Maps --> Hamburger menu --> Settings --> Notifications --> Your contributions --> Turn off the slider for "Adding your photos" and/or "Adding the first photo"
      - chillingeffect 10y ago
        I tried this and found my version doesn't have the "Your contributions" section, but it has "Show contribution reminders," described as "Be reminded when you haven't contributed recently [...]" hahaha! as if I'm under some agreement to regularly contribute...
tacomonstrous 10y ago
You can turn off those notifications from in-app settings.
- radarsat1 10y ago
  Probably. One day I'll have to spend half an hour digging in to the settings in Camera, Photos and Maps to disable it. I tend not to take the time when I'm out in the countryside on vacation, which is when it happens.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  But not kill them device-wide in Android.
  - tacomonstrous 10y ago
    Meaning what exactly? Turn off notifications globally? Turn off location based notifications globally? No platform leta you do the latter AFAIK.
Nursie 10y ago
I think I've managed to switch it off now but my phone started prompting me to tag and share every photo I took at home with the name of a business that used to be based in a building nearby. Highly annoying, especially as there is no business there and hasn't been for several years AFAICT. But also yah - my photos, in my home, get out of it.
falcolas 10y ago
> and skimming a bit of info on me Is it really a "bit of info" though? Or is it your complete physical movements made with your phone, every web address you type in, every website you travel to (and search for) from Google search, every site you are are shown an adsense ad upon, your detailed browsing habits via Google Analytics, the entire contents of messages transcribed by Google Now, every app you purchase and use... They appear to have controls to limit how this data is used today - a very good thing. However, we also have to trust every employee at Google now and in the future, as well as any company which Google subcontracts out to now and in the future, and any company which may eventually acquire Google, (not even thinking about Governments) to also respect our privacy with regards to this data.
- Ntrails 10y ago
  Can they connect my google searches on my PC with those on my phone? Are they able to identify maps stuff coming from the same phone as my searches? Are they also able to collate incognito searches? I'm not exactly hugely bothered - but I assume not being signed into google limits them to cookie based aggregation?
  - falcolas 10y ago
    If you're not signed in, the connection may not be explicit. But with a minimal amount of effort, they could easily connect the two. If you've ever used your phone on your home's WiFi, at a minimum they'll have a high degree of correlation via the IPs. I'm of the opinion that if they can extrapolate your age, ethnicity, gender, location, health, and "interests", then they can easily join two "disconnected" profiles.
  - meredydd 10y ago
    Yes and yes, respectively. They openly correlate your physical presence in retail shops with your web browsing, so as to count web-to-physical conversions for that shop's advertising. The latter two (piercing the Incognito veil) are technically straightforward, but I doubt they do it. Google is pretty tightly bound by a certain set of ethics. By their lights, that creepy McDonalds experience is totally OK, but ignoring explicit privacy settings is not legit. This is why they bother with dark patterns like making it inconvenient - but not impossible - to turn off Google Play's access to location data. They could just ignore you, but they won't. I'd bet they do collect and keep the information for some time [eg for anti-abuse], but deliberately don't use it. (And consequently feel very proud of how ethical they're being, compared with others in their industry, and how terribly unfair it is when people complain about them but not the sleazier ad networks.) As I see it, the "advertising creepiness" problem has two factors. One is black-hats explicitly extracting information you're not sharing (eg Evercookie, canvas fingerprinting and friends). The other is grey-hats like Google, Facebook and MS, whose access to that data is perfectly legitimate in that you gave them permission (what, you didn't click through the three small buttons within 30 days to withold your WhatsApp contacts from Facebook? Too bad!), but whose market dominance and dark patterns make giving them that data less and less of a free choice. Conflating the two is easy but unhelpful.
whamlastxmas 10y ago
What a lot of people don't realize is that commercial use of the Google Maps API is super expensive. $10,000/month even for something pretty simple and small scale. I was pretty unhappy to come across that price tag on a recent project knowing that all of these street view captchas for Google are just free labor for them to profit from.
dredmorbius 10y ago
"No means no." https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/ayk2DF43eF1 https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/ayk2DF43... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6745525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6745525 https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/GKL5b4Cpjd7 https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/GKL5b4Cp... (I've since removed/disabled Google Maps on my Android device on account of that behaviour.)
imh 10y ago
It's similar to Waze (another Google owned company). On my iphone, most apps allow you to give location permission with three tiers of access: 1) Always, 2) Only when I'm using the app, 3) Never. I'm ok with them using my data when I'm using their app. It's a trade. But Waze went and limited the options to 1) Always or 3) Never. Letting some app know where I am at all times is unbelievable. This was the point I was most thankful for the my phone's permissions granularity. None of that opt-out BS.

triplesec 10y ago

Furthermore, the Maps TOS is one that demands the sort of indefinite total picture use rights that everyone complained about to have changed for fb, Flickr etc.

jonlucc 10y ago

Interestingly, that prompt has made me more likely to take pictures of the outside of a location to share. I think that suggests it is likely that it is working for their purpose, which is to add tons of photos of obscure locations.

lloeki 10y ago
I understand the prompt I get from Maps that I'm visiting a location and adding a shot could be helpful, especially when volunteering as a "Local Guide", but IIUC the GP is talking about taking private shots in the Photos app and being prodded into putting it online? That's a bridge too far on the intent because the process is just not the same.
- radarsat1 10y ago
  Spot on. And they don't provide a "never ask me again" button, as far as I can remember. (I can't check without driving off into the country side and taking a photo to verify...) To be clear though it is when I take a photo with the Camera app, and I think it's Maps that detects this and asks me. But it's automatic, amounts to the same thing. It may be because I live in a country with relatively fewer tourists so perhaps their photo count around here is lower. (Chile. There are definitely tourists, but it's just not Europe.) Regardless, I basically just find it a bit rude. edit: dgacmu, thank you! Done.
  - dgacmu 10y ago
    Maps --> Hamburger menu --> Settings --> Notifications --> Your contributions --> Turn off the slider for "Adding your photos" and/or "Adding the first photo"
    - chillingeffect 10y ago
      I tried this and found my version doesn't have the "Your contributions" section, but it has "Show contribution reminders," described as "Be reminded when you haven't contributed recently [...]" hahaha! as if I'm under some agreement to regularly contribute...

tacomonstrous 10y ago

You can turn off those notifications from in-app settings.

radarsat1 10y ago
Probably. One day I'll have to spend half an hour digging in to the settings in Camera, Photos and Maps to disable it. I tend not to take the time when I'm out in the countryside on vacation, which is when it happens.
dredmorbius 10y ago
But not kill them device-wide in Android.
- tacomonstrous 10y ago
  Meaning what exactly? Turn off notifications globally? Turn off location based notifications globally? No platform leta you do the latter AFAIK.

Nursie 10y ago

I think I've managed to switch it off now but my phone started prompting me to tag and share every photo I took at home with the name of a business that used to be based in a building nearby. Highly annoying, especially as there is no business there and hasn't been for several years AFAICT. But also yah - my photos, in my home, get out of it.

falcolas 10y ago

> and skimming a bit of info on me Is it really a "bit of info" though? Or is it your complete physical movements made with your phone, every web address you type in, every website you travel to (and search for) from Google search, every site you are are shown an adsense ad upon, your detailed browsing habits via Google Analytics, the entire contents of messages transcribed by Google Now, every app you purchase and use... They appear to have controls to limit how this data is used today - a very good thing. However, we also have to trust every employee at Google now and in the future, as well as any company which Google subcontracts out to now and in the future, and any company which may eventually acquire Google, (not even thinking about Governments) to also respect our privacy with regards to this data.

Ntrails 10y ago
Can they connect my google searches on my PC with those on my phone? Are they able to identify maps stuff coming from the same phone as my searches? Are they also able to collate incognito searches? I'm not exactly hugely bothered - but I assume not being signed into google limits them to cookie based aggregation?
- falcolas 10y ago
  If you're not signed in, the connection may not be explicit. But with a minimal amount of effort, they could easily connect the two. If you've ever used your phone on your home's WiFi, at a minimum they'll have a high degree of correlation via the IPs. I'm of the opinion that if they can extrapolate your age, ethnicity, gender, location, health, and "interests", then they can easily join two "disconnected" profiles.
- meredydd 10y ago
  Yes and yes, respectively. They openly correlate your physical presence in retail shops with your web browsing, so as to count web-to-physical conversions for that shop's advertising. The latter two (piercing the Incognito veil) are technically straightforward, but I doubt they do it. Google is pretty tightly bound by a certain set of ethics. By their lights, that creepy McDonalds experience is totally OK, but ignoring explicit privacy settings is not legit. This is why they bother with dark patterns like making it inconvenient - but not impossible - to turn off Google Play's access to location data. They could just ignore you, but they won't. I'd bet they do collect and keep the information for some time [eg for anti-abuse], but deliberately don't use it. (And consequently feel very proud of how ethical they're being, compared with others in their industry, and how terribly unfair it is when people complain about them but not the sleazier ad networks.) As I see it, the "advertising creepiness" problem has two factors. One is black-hats explicitly extracting information you're not sharing (eg Evercookie, canvas fingerprinting and friends). The other is grey-hats like Google, Facebook and MS, whose access to that data is perfectly legitimate in that you gave them permission (what, you didn't click through the three small buttons within 30 days to withold your WhatsApp contacts from Facebook? Too bad!), but whose market dominance and dark patterns make giving them that data less and less of a free choice. Conflating the two is easy but unhelpful.

whamlastxmas 10y ago

What a lot of people don't realize is that commercial use of the Google Maps API is super expensive. $10,000/month even for something pretty simple and small scale. I was pretty unhappy to come across that price tag on a recent project knowing that all of these street view captchas for Google are just free labor for them to profit from.

dredmorbius 10y ago

"No means no." https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/ayk2DF43eF1 https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/ayk2DF43... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6745525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6745525 https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/GKL5b4Cpjd7 https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/GKL5b4Cp... (I've since removed/disabled Google Maps on my Android device on account of that behaviour.)

imh 10y ago

It's similar to Waze (another Google owned company). On my iphone, most apps allow you to give location permission with three tiers of access: 1) Always, 2) Only when I'm using the app, 3) Never. I'm ok with them using my data when I'm using their app. It's a trade. But Waze went and limited the options to 1) Always or 3) Never. Letting some app know where I am at all times is unbelievable. This was the point I was most thankful for the my phone's permissions granularity. None of that opt-out BS.