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I find it curious the tone of some responses on this issue. Google (and not just google; FB, Bing,Baidu) snooping is not a petty issue that will just go away. I

I find it curious the tone of some responses on this issue. Google (and not just google; FB, Bing,Baidu) snooping is not a petty issue that will just go away. It is a matter of deep concern at par with any existential threat mankind has ever faced; up there with climate change and nuclear war. Never before has mankind had to face such an assault to privacy. The data google collects is the next best thing to reading its users minds. This is all the more scary because 1. It is a private company 2. state actors have a vested interest in aligning with google and other such companies and (as the article points out) will deliberately lapse in their regulatory obligations. The privacy wars are on and google et-al have won the opening skirmishes. I predict that in response to rising public awareness (not outcry, there is no outcry) google and other invaders of privacy will come up with algorithms that tone down recommendations and mask the amount of data being captured without actually reducing it. The citizenry will be lulled into false complacency and the encirclement will proceed apace. Large unbridled Corporations with unchecked power have proven through history to be venal and predatory. We are witnessing the birth of a new phase that will leave a scar on mankind and make the sins of the Church, Hitler, North Korea and every other despotic regime that has tried to limit human freedom through the ages look amateurish if we do nothing about it now.

ramidarigaz 10y ago
What? Existential in that it could literally end our species? Nuclear war and climate change sure, but info collection? How is this not totally hyperbolic?
- Lordarminius 10y ago
  In my outrage, I admit to unconscious hyperbole. Substitute grave for existential. But the point remains that if we succumb to this, humanity will be unrecognizable in 3 generations. Perhaps in some way that counts as an existential threat?
  - nl 10y ago
    humanity will be unrecognizable in 3 generations It's hard to see why this particular thing is going to make any bigger change than those that have happened over the last 3 generations. Or those to come from other reasons: bio-engineering, implants, VR, AI etc. Also, I'm unclear why you seem to assume this change is bad?
    - jtrip 10y ago
      Not the OP, but the central idea is 'Information is Power'. It has existed for a long time in the books of all the powerful people and is essential to the very fabric of our universe (not hyperbole; information, entropy, debates about conservation/loss of information instead of mass inside blackholes [0] and such). Once you have all the relevant information about someone or some system, then you essentially control them. If I know everything about you, how can you ever hope to have an even footing with me? [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox
      - nl 10y ago
        This is a good point. But Google's services make a person a more powerful agent compared to others: one can navigate quicker, find better services and access information faster and more accurately. So yes, there is a trade off. But humans have been making trade-offs forever - civilization itself is one big compromise. Domesticating cattle meant human could not move as quickly and as fast as they used to. But they lived better and longer. I don't see why information trade-offs are somehow different.
        the_other 10y ago
        > This is a good point. But Google's services make a person a more powerful agent compared to others: one can navigate quicker, find better services and access information faster and more accurately. Google could provide most of those services without tracking individuals.
        10y ago
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Changes to information regimes do have profound effects. Their consequences are quite difficult to predict, and not necessarily good or evil, though that depends on deeper issues as well. The emergence of the printing press and spread of knowledge, both official doctrine (the Bible), literature (Cervantes' Don Quixote was the first modern novel), ideas (Montaigne's Essays), scientific thoughts (Copernicus and Gallileo), and many, many pamphlets, shocked Europe for the next several hundred years. Keep in mind that a copy of Gutenberg's Bible, new, was the equivalent of about $4,500 based on one recent estimate I've seen -- expensive by modern standards, but previous, hand-written copies of books were the equivalent of handcrafted meticulous art-pieces. A scribe might be able to complete one or two books per year, and had to be fed, housed, clothed, etc., for this, as well as educated. Producing the vellum, inks, quills, etc., used, and candles (for any work beyond daylight hours) also has to be factored in. See: http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/21161/how-long-did-it-take-to-rewrite-the-bible-during-the-early-propagation-of-the-ch http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/21161/how-long-di... With the dawning of the industrial age in the early 1800s, mass literacy became a thing. In England, literacy rose from ~40% to near 90% over the course of the 19th century, through publicly-subsidised education, required for the new, highly-skilled factory jobs. Paper became cheap, and presses faster (a few thousand sheets per hour), enabling yet more dissemination of information. Among the consequences, mass movements of the public, independent of demagogues, pressing claims, including the Chartalist movement in the 1820s - 1830s in England, and the Year of Revolutions, 1848, throughout Europe and Central and South America, in which 50 nations saw substantial rebellions. The early 20th century saw loudhailers, which enabled the voice of one person to reach the assembled ears of tens or hundreds of thousands of people at once. Transport (busses and trains) could assemble them. Radio allowed a single voice to reach, instantly, an entire nation at one time. And declining printing costs allowed single books or manifestos to be distributed en masss (Mein Kampf, Mao's Little Red Book, The Road to Serfdom, etc.), often subsidised by a propagandist. The rise of fascism in Italy and Germany, and World War II, were a partial result, as was the spread of Maoist-Leninist Communism throughout China -- a difficult region to unify otherwise. Television and mass advertising gave rise to live televised debates and speeches. Kennedy beat out Nixon in 1960 in large part due to the former's far better visual appeal on black-and-white television. Castro could keep all of Cuba tuned in to hours-long diatribes. Vietnam was litigated as much on American (now colour) televisions as in the jungles and rice paddies of south-east Asia. American technical competence was proved in real time via the Apollo Moon landings, and impeached by the Challenger explosion. The corporatisation and commercialisation of media beginning in the late 1970s, but accellerating in the 1980s and 1990s, cheapened the product, silenced dissenters (particularly Noam Chomsky, though many others -- who've had little if any voice on either commercial or noncommercial television or radio), and enabled first right-wing talk radio, in part an outgrowth of what had long been a rural Christian revivalist movement in the US, then CNN's live, 24/7 cable news, and Fox. The Internet gave voice to the voiceless, but more voice to the already empowered. Most particularly those who could act with impunity. Distortion, especially of political and economic discussion, from monied interests, Russia, China, Israel, and numerous fringe, crank, and terrorist groups, is manifest -- these are organisations which don't and won't play by the usual rules. Eyeballs-driven, advertising-supported Interent sites only feed this dynamic, one of the more substantive criticisms of an ad-based Internet I think can be made. Francis Bacon gave us the phrase "knowledge is power" (actually "scientia potentia est"). With due respect, I believe the gentleman wrong: knowledge is a power multiplier. It amplifies the existing power differentials amongst parties. It's also true that the ruling elite and popular movements have differing constitutions, capabilities, and weakensses. The former have organisation, capability, assets, and control, but suffer from vulnerability. The latter have resilience and adaptability, but little by way of organisation or even common interest. It's interesting to note that the idea of a popular revolution is a quite modern concept, dating largely to the 19th century. Previously, regime change was far more a matter of one oligarchy displacing another, though manipulations of mass sentiments might play a role. For references: Edward Bernays (and Adam Curtis's The Century of the Self), Plato, William Ophuls, Marshall McLuhan, Jerry Mander, John Kenneth Galbraith, Joseph Nye, Neil Postman, Noam Chomsky, and of course, many others.
Udo 10y ago
For a good laugh, hunt down the "Your interests" / ad preferences page while logged in to Google. Out of the 18 things Google believes I'm interested in, maybe 4 sort-of fit, the other ones were mostly stuff I'm pretty sure I never even searched for once. I'm not sure if Google's staggering incompetence in all things user-facing is a pro or a con, though. On the one hand, you could make the Stasi argument and say that people just think the company actually has meaningful information on them - but on the other hand it clearly has the potential of being even more dangerous, especially considering the fact that Google data is presumably being funneled straight into governmental intelligence as well.
- randomnerdiness 10y ago
  Exactly. Currently, it doesn't bother me, since the 'your data' and 'your interests' and such for me are so random and sporadic. Of course, I also don't walk around with everything turned on, checking in at every location, posting reviews about everything. I just conserve my battery life and use GPS only on the rare event I need to do a long distance trip or have to find someplace especially tricky. Maybe it is different for the English?
- RodericDay 10y ago
  Slavoj Zizek had a great talk with a talk show host from the Netherlands precisely about this matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPjmmmh_os https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPjmmmh_os Fun watch imo. There's also another session between them two.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    An 80-minute talk. Zizek tends to wander a bit: Slavoj Žižek + Paul Holdengräber "Surveillance and whistleblowers" - International Authors' Stage Det Kongelige Bibliotek 71,767 views Published on May 19, 2014 I'M WATCHING YOU PART 1 - part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAZiFWZpYds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAZiFWZpYds 4:48 Danish pornography 5:40 There is no harmony in the univers 8:44 David Lynch and the crawling excess of life 11:17 God underestimated us 19:40 Why do people read Stephen Hawking? 21:14 Surveillance and whistleblowers 22:40 The most dangerous freedom 30:40 The necessity of vulgar humor 35:24 The public persona 37:45 The connection between Pussy Riot and Snowden 41:58 Never allow intellectuals in power 47:30 Julian Assange, a spy for the people 53:46 There are only two different kinds of persons in the world 56:38 Right wing wisdom 57:39 People only want the appearance of freedom 1:01:51 The complicity of liberal tolerant capitalism 1:07:42 The European dream 1:13:50 Unjustified paranoia The Slovenian star philosopher Slavoj Žižek in the first of two conversations on surveillance with the popular and charismatic interviewer Paul Holdengräber, director of Public Programs at the New York Public Library. The Black Diamond, The Royal Library, Copenhagen 18 May 2014 Video: http://www.videoakademiet.dk http://www.videoakademiet.dk
yummyfajitas 10y ago
We are witnessing the birth of a new phase that will leave a scar on mankind and make the sins of the Church, Hitler, North Korea and every other despotic regime that has tried to limit human freedom through the ages look amateurish if we do nothing about it now. Nazis killed approx 40M people. Communists add another 100-200M to that total. Are you really suggesting that "large unbridled corporations" have proven through history that they will kill more than 240M people? The only mechanism I can think of by which google might even approach this is by creating evil AI. Is that what you are referring to, or something else?
- azakai 10y ago
  Killing millions of people is horrible, but taking away the privacy of billions is terrifying as well. And while obviously murder is worse than stalking, we don't really know where things will end up. We are in uncharted territory with the new information collection society we live in.
- z5h 10y ago
  Tobacco killed 100 million. Sugary drinks alone are linked to 180000 deaths/year. (And of course big sugar lied to us http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-ind...). So, yes. Anything in the name of profit.
  - cynicalkane 10y ago
    If capitalism went away, sugar and tobacco would still be a thing. For example, tobacco shortages sometimes caused economic unrest in the Soviet Union.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Yes, clearly murder and forced starvation is totally equivalent to people making lifestyle choices that reduce their lifetime. Clearly anyone selling soul food is just as guilty of murder (hate crimes?) as the guy who shot up that church in Charleston. And don't get me started on those murderous Punjabis, putting ghee on everything...
alecco 10y ago
It's even scarier than that. Both Google and Facebook got into politics. Both were caught manipulating results to favor their political allies. Even if you like the politicians they have today it's still a serious issue. A huge step towards an Orwellian Nightmare.
- Angostura 10y ago
  As far as I know the Google claims were shown to be false. Have I missed something?
  - alecco 10y ago
    A recent one https://sputniknews.com/us/20160912/1045214398/google-clinton-manipulation-election.html https://sputniknews.com/us/20160912/1045214398/google-clinto... NOTE: The site is an organization sponsored by Russia. But the researcher is well respected with a Ph.D. from Harvard. His 2015 paper was published in PNAS and reviewed by very respectful people. This article is a preview of his upcoming paper. Where did you see this proven to be false??? It's sad how critics and whistleblowers have media blackout in USA and only can do it via Russian agencies or Al-Jazeera.
    - namesbc 10y ago
      Well respected? Robert Epstein is the idiot who served malware through his website and when Google displayed a warning about it, Epstein didn't try to fix the problem, he instead went legal and news nuclear claiming Google was trying to censor him.
    - agildehaus 10y ago
      There's absolutely nothing scientific about that article. It's entirely cherry picked examples. I tried similar queries and got completely different results, often negative. And he lacks basic understanding quite often. In one example, Google pulls a Hillary image instead of a Trump (or both) when referencing the 2016 election in a fact card. He doesn't even think that image is simply the first to appear on that page. Heck, I type "next president" into Google right now and I get a fact card with Obama as the image and "5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win" by Michael Moore as the top result.
utefan001 10y ago
Jane's addiction's song "Stop" opens with the the following spanish words. "Senores y Senoras Nosotros tenemos mas influencia sobre sus hijos que tienes. Pero los queremos" "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have more influence over your children than you do. But we love them." Speaking of addiction. Youtube, and the internet in general can be very addicting for young children. I created smartmadre.com (beta only!) to help parents manage their children's internet addictions. The 2 core features are. -Learning system that will deactivate your child's access to time wasting websites. In order to get internet access back, the child has to spend a few minutes earning points on readtheory.org, quizlet.com, khanacademy.org or typingclub.com etc.. -Optional youtube monitor allows parents to see in near real time what videos a child is watching and what ads youtube is showing your child. Parents have a right to decide what content is not appropriate for their child. SmartMadre.com aims to provide affordable and simple to use tools so that parents don't need a computer science degree to control network traffic in their own home.
- arcanemachine 10y ago
  Hey, thanks for the read theory.org link. That's a handy site!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Bear in mind at least some of the responses are by Googlers who aren't disclosing that they're Google employees at the office. That's also where most of the downvotes come from.
- Lordarminius 10y ago
  Yeah. Its a free forum and anyone can downvote as they see fit. But if he/she thinks because they house the beast they are safe, they are wrong. When the beast needs feeding it will eat and it wont discriminate. We are all in this together
  - PavlovsCat 10y ago
    "He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount." And this is something just about everybody who has a big brother they both love and fear should pay attention to: > If the totalitarian conqueror conducts himself everywhere as though he were at home, by the same token he must treat his own population as though he were a foreign conqueror. -- Hannah Arendt
EricBurnett 10y ago
Characterizing all data collection as 'snooping' fits in well with the 'existential threat' narrative, but I don't believe data _collection_ to be the threat you describe. Data misuse certainly is, but there's a distinction that needs to be made there, as I'm not fully convinced that the slippery slope of "collection must lead to misuse" needs to be a universal truth. Rather, I consider the _collection_ of broad data, carefully used, to be almost pre-requisite to the advancement of our species. Whenever I imagine future technologies they're all based on better use of data. "That car over there has a broken taillight - send them a message." "Pick me a movie I'll be interested in in this moment." Or data mining my personal history to make note of conversation topics I wanted to follow up on; promises I made in the moment. To some degree, society will (and already has) reset our privacy expectations; not everything we've held as protected need always be, at least in general. What we haven't done yet though is figure out how to enable useful collection and some level of relaxed privacy constraints without opening the door to potential abuse. Which is the risk I think you're worried about - it's not that Google is abusing the data they have _right now_, but that they eventually could, and that you find that risk more compelling than all the value they're delivering now. (Which, to be fair, I cannot say is incorrect). But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater - I want the promises of the future, and it's just a question of how we can safely get to them :).
vithlani 10y ago
I am completely mystified by a these sort of articles and the deluge of apocalyptic warnings -- specially when applied to the web in the context of data being used to make money. (I do share data leakage and privacy concerns). I use an Apple phone, so I can't comment on the mobile targeting scenarios re Google. However, I have been using Google and its web services (email, search) for over 10 years now for both work and personal use. I have bought maybe 2 products as a result of their ads. After installing ad-blockers, I simply get no advertising now. None. Zero. The same applies to Facebook. I use the mobile app almost exclusively and see no ads or simply ignore the promoted stuff. None of it seems to be location based. For example, I enjoy whisky but when I open the app in the middle of a whisky store, I get no ads or promoted links. So where is all this data matching and targeted advertising? How effective is it if any person with a modicum of intelligence can take simple steps to avoid seeing all the annoying crap? To me it seems that these companies, specially FB, are working on a foundation of sand -- the companies are built and run on the basis of "we can sell intelligent advertising" and the marketing execs fall for it and throw money at them without any measurable results. Google has a more solid use case (they searched for it, so show them an ad that is provably relevant) but Facebook....? Seems like a house of cards in the long run...even if they can implement merciless targeting they are afraid of doing so as it would result in backlash. Meanwhile, the tech behemoths use this shifting sand to conjure money out of nowhere and continue fueling the computer industry -- with some good benefits re. facility to share stuff with people you want, hardware improvements, contributions to open source, advancements in AI, research, etc. I guess just enjoy it while it lasts...
- PavlovsCat 10y ago
  For me -- apart from dreams of a society where we treat ourselves and each other with honesty instead of sleaze, and what synergistic effects that might have -- the main issue by far is that once the data is there, once the channels are established, it takes very little to use them for other things. I can't find it right now, but reading either Hannah Arendt or Sebastian Haffner I stumbled across a bit where it's pointed out that the dream of a Gestapo officer would be a map that shows the relations between people. Maybe I misremember it a bit, but not much.. it was something that really was uncanny and creepy, because it wasn't written with future technology in mind, the kind we already have spanned the planet with. It showed out that we're far beyond what even the people worried about Nazism 2.0 could dream of. Yay, what a treat for us. The current state of things is a wet dream for for totalitarians in some ways, you can simply record everything now and then use whatever algorithms you like on it later. Some of the people who warned about the technology and our apathy even back then might say it's way too late now. The fact that we now say "Is it even a problem? Why worry about something that might not happen?" kinda shows something doubleplusungood is going on. Once the only thing between you and a totalitarian hell is how the wind blows, with no other recourse than hoping for the best... well, that's kind of a vacuum, nature abhors and is filling it.

ramidarigaz 10y ago

What? Existential in that it could literally end our species? Nuclear war and climate change sure, but info collection? How is this not totally hyperbolic?

Lordarminius 10y ago
In my outrage, I admit to unconscious hyperbole. Substitute grave for existential. But the point remains that if we succumb to this, humanity will be unrecognizable in 3 generations. Perhaps in some way that counts as an existential threat?
- nl 10y ago
  humanity will be unrecognizable in 3 generations It's hard to see why this particular thing is going to make any bigger change than those that have happened over the last 3 generations. Or those to come from other reasons: bio-engineering, implants, VR, AI etc. Also, I'm unclear why you seem to assume this change is bad?
  - jtrip 10y ago
    Not the OP, but the central idea is 'Information is Power'. It has existed for a long time in the books of all the powerful people and is essential to the very fabric of our universe (not hyperbole; information, entropy, debates about conservation/loss of information instead of mass inside blackholes [0] and such). Once you have all the relevant information about someone or some system, then you essentially control them. If I know everything about you, how can you ever hope to have an even footing with me? [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox
    - nl 10y ago
      This is a good point. But Google's services make a person a more powerful agent compared to others: one can navigate quicker, find better services and access information faster and more accurately. So yes, there is a trade off. But humans have been making trade-offs forever - civilization itself is one big compromise. Domesticating cattle meant human could not move as quickly and as fast as they used to. But they lived better and longer. I don't see why information trade-offs are somehow different.
      - the_other 10y ago
        > This is a good point. But Google's services make a person a more powerful agent compared to others: one can navigate quicker, find better services and access information faster and more accurately. Google could provide most of those services without tracking individuals.
      - 10y ago
dredmorbius 10y ago
Changes to information regimes do have profound effects. Their consequences are quite difficult to predict, and not necessarily good or evil, though that depends on deeper issues as well. The emergence of the printing press and spread of knowledge, both official doctrine (the Bible), literature (Cervantes' Don Quixote was the first modern novel), ideas (Montaigne's Essays), scientific thoughts (Copernicus and Gallileo), and many, many pamphlets, shocked Europe for the next several hundred years. Keep in mind that a copy of Gutenberg's Bible, new, was the equivalent of about $4,500 based on one recent estimate I've seen -- expensive by modern standards, but previous, hand-written copies of books were the equivalent of handcrafted meticulous art-pieces. A scribe might be able to complete one or two books per year, and had to be fed, housed, clothed, etc., for this, as well as educated. Producing the vellum, inks, quills, etc., used, and candles (for any work beyond daylight hours) also has to be factored in. See: http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/21161/how-long-did-it-take-to-rewrite-the-bible-during-the-early-propagation-of-the-ch http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/21161/how-long-di... With the dawning of the industrial age in the early 1800s, mass literacy became a thing. In England, literacy rose from ~40% to near 90% over the course of the 19th century, through publicly-subsidised education, required for the new, highly-skilled factory jobs. Paper became cheap, and presses faster (a few thousand sheets per hour), enabling yet more dissemination of information. Among the consequences, mass movements of the public, independent of demagogues, pressing claims, including the Chartalist movement in the 1820s - 1830s in England, and the Year of Revolutions, 1848, throughout Europe and Central and South America, in which 50 nations saw substantial rebellions. The early 20th century saw loudhailers, which enabled the voice of one person to reach the assembled ears of tens or hundreds of thousands of people at once. Transport (busses and trains) could assemble them. Radio allowed a single voice to reach, instantly, an entire nation at one time. And declining printing costs allowed single books or manifestos to be distributed en masss (Mein Kampf, Mao's Little Red Book, The Road to Serfdom, etc.), often subsidised by a propagandist. The rise of fascism in Italy and Germany, and World War II, were a partial result, as was the spread of Maoist-Leninist Communism throughout China -- a difficult region to unify otherwise. Television and mass advertising gave rise to live televised debates and speeches. Kennedy beat out Nixon in 1960 in large part due to the former's far better visual appeal on black-and-white television. Castro could keep all of Cuba tuned in to hours-long diatribes. Vietnam was litigated as much on American (now colour) televisions as in the jungles and rice paddies of south-east Asia. American technical competence was proved in real time via the Apollo Moon landings, and impeached by the Challenger explosion. The corporatisation and commercialisation of media beginning in the late 1970s, but accellerating in the 1980s and 1990s, cheapened the product, silenced dissenters (particularly Noam Chomsky, though many others -- who've had little if any voice on either commercial or noncommercial television or radio), and enabled first right-wing talk radio, in part an outgrowth of what had long been a rural Christian revivalist movement in the US, then CNN's live, 24/7 cable news, and Fox. The Internet gave voice to the voiceless, but more voice to the already empowered. Most particularly those who could act with impunity. Distortion, especially of political and economic discussion, from monied interests, Russia, China, Israel, and numerous fringe, crank, and terrorist groups, is manifest -- these are organisations which don't and won't play by the usual rules. Eyeballs-driven, advertising-supported Interent sites only feed this dynamic, one of the more substantive criticisms of an ad-based Internet I think can be made. Francis Bacon gave us the phrase "knowledge is power" (actually "scientia potentia est"). With due respect, I believe the gentleman wrong: knowledge is a power multiplier. It amplifies the existing power differentials amongst parties. It's also true that the ruling elite and popular movements have differing constitutions, capabilities, and weakensses. The former have organisation, capability, assets, and control, but suffer from vulnerability. The latter have resilience and adaptability, but little by way of organisation or even common interest. It's interesting to note that the idea of a popular revolution is a quite modern concept, dating largely to the 19th century. Previously, regime change was far more a matter of one oligarchy displacing another, though manipulations of mass sentiments might play a role. For references: Edward Bernays (and Adam Curtis's The Century of the Self), Plato, William Ophuls, Marshall McLuhan, Jerry Mander, John Kenneth Galbraith, Joseph Nye, Neil Postman, Noam Chomsky, and of course, many others.

Udo 10y ago

For a good laugh, hunt down the "Your interests" / ad preferences page while logged in to Google. Out of the 18 things Google believes I'm interested in, maybe 4 sort-of fit, the other ones were mostly stuff I'm pretty sure I never even searched for once. I'm not sure if Google's staggering incompetence in all things user-facing is a pro or a con, though. On the one hand, you could make the Stasi argument and say that people just think the company actually has meaningful information on them - but on the other hand it clearly has the potential of being even more dangerous, especially considering the fact that Google data is presumably being funneled straight into governmental intelligence as well.

randomnerdiness 10y ago
Exactly. Currently, it doesn't bother me, since the 'your data' and 'your interests' and such for me are so random and sporadic. Of course, I also don't walk around with everything turned on, checking in at every location, posting reviews about everything. I just conserve my battery life and use GPS only on the rare event I need to do a long distance trip or have to find someplace especially tricky. Maybe it is different for the English?
RodericDay 10y ago
Slavoj Zizek had a great talk with a talk show host from the Netherlands precisely about this matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPjmmmh_os https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPjmmmh_os Fun watch imo. There's also another session between them two.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  An 80-minute talk. Zizek tends to wander a bit: Slavoj Žižek + Paul Holdengräber "Surveillance and whistleblowers" - International Authors' Stage Det Kongelige Bibliotek 71,767 views Published on May 19, 2014 I'M WATCHING YOU PART 1 - part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAZiFWZpYds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAZiFWZpYds 4:48 Danish pornography 5:40 There is no harmony in the univers 8:44 David Lynch and the crawling excess of life 11:17 God underestimated us 19:40 Why do people read Stephen Hawking? 21:14 Surveillance and whistleblowers 22:40 The most dangerous freedom 30:40 The necessity of vulgar humor 35:24 The public persona 37:45 The connection between Pussy Riot and Snowden 41:58 Never allow intellectuals in power 47:30 Julian Assange, a spy for the people 53:46 There are only two different kinds of persons in the world 56:38 Right wing wisdom 57:39 People only want the appearance of freedom 1:01:51 The complicity of liberal tolerant capitalism 1:07:42 The European dream 1:13:50 Unjustified paranoia The Slovenian star philosopher Slavoj Žižek in the first of two conversations on surveillance with the popular and charismatic interviewer Paul Holdengräber, director of Public Programs at the New York Public Library. The Black Diamond, The Royal Library, Copenhagen 18 May 2014 Video: http://www.videoakademiet.dk http://www.videoakademiet.dk

yummyfajitas 10y ago

We are witnessing the birth of a new phase that will leave a scar on mankind and make the sins of the Church, Hitler, North Korea and every other despotic regime that has tried to limit human freedom through the ages look amateurish if we do nothing about it now. Nazis killed approx 40M people. Communists add another 100-200M to that total. Are you really suggesting that "large unbridled corporations" have proven through history that they will kill more than 240M people? The only mechanism I can think of by which google might even approach this is by creating evil AI. Is that what you are referring to, or something else?

azakai 10y ago
Killing millions of people is horrible, but taking away the privacy of billions is terrifying as well. And while obviously murder is worse than stalking, we don't really know where things will end up. We are in uncharted territory with the new information collection society we live in.
z5h 10y ago
Tobacco killed 100 million. Sugary drinks alone are linked to 180000 deaths/year. (And of course big sugar lied to us http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-ind...). So, yes. Anything in the name of profit.
- cynicalkane 10y ago
  If capitalism went away, sugar and tobacco would still be a thing. For example, tobacco shortages sometimes caused economic unrest in the Soviet Union.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Yes, clearly murder and forced starvation is totally equivalent to people making lifestyle choices that reduce their lifetime. Clearly anyone selling soul food is just as guilty of murder (hate crimes?) as the guy who shot up that church in Charleston. And don't get me started on those murderous Punjabis, putting ghee on everything...

alecco 10y ago

It's even scarier than that. Both Google and Facebook got into politics. Both were caught manipulating results to favor their political allies. Even if you like the politicians they have today it's still a serious issue. A huge step towards an Orwellian Nightmare.

Angostura 10y ago
As far as I know the Google claims were shown to be false. Have I missed something?
- alecco 10y ago
  A recent one https://sputniknews.com/us/20160912/1045214398/google-clinton-manipulation-election.html https://sputniknews.com/us/20160912/1045214398/google-clinto... NOTE: The site is an organization sponsored by Russia. But the researcher is well respected with a Ph.D. from Harvard. His 2015 paper was published in PNAS and reviewed by very respectful people. This article is a preview of his upcoming paper. Where did you see this proven to be false??? It's sad how critics and whistleblowers have media blackout in USA and only can do it via Russian agencies or Al-Jazeera.
  - namesbc 10y ago
    Well respected? Robert Epstein is the idiot who served malware through his website and when Google displayed a warning about it, Epstein didn't try to fix the problem, he instead went legal and news nuclear claiming Google was trying to censor him.
  - agildehaus 10y ago
    There's absolutely nothing scientific about that article. It's entirely cherry picked examples. I tried similar queries and got completely different results, often negative. And he lacks basic understanding quite often. In one example, Google pulls a Hillary image instead of a Trump (or both) when referencing the 2016 election in a fact card. He doesn't even think that image is simply the first to appear on that page. Heck, I type "next president" into Google right now and I get a fact card with Obama as the image and "5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win" by Michael Moore as the top result.

utefan001 10y ago

Jane's addiction's song "Stop" opens with the the following spanish words. "Senores y Senoras Nosotros tenemos mas influencia sobre sus hijos que tienes. Pero los queremos" "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have more influence over your children than you do. But we love them." Speaking of addiction. Youtube, and the internet in general can be very addicting for young children. I created smartmadre.com (beta only!) to help parents manage their children's internet addictions. The 2 core features are. -Learning system that will deactivate your child's access to time wasting websites. In order to get internet access back, the child has to spend a few minutes earning points on readtheory.org, quizlet.com, khanacademy.org or typingclub.com etc.. -Optional youtube monitor allows parents to see in near real time what videos a child is watching and what ads youtube is showing your child. Parents have a right to decide what content is not appropriate for their child. SmartMadre.com aims to provide affordable and simple to use tools so that parents don't need a computer science degree to control network traffic in their own home.

arcanemachine 10y ago
Hey, thanks for the read theory.org link. That's a handy site!
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ocdtrekkie 10y ago

Bear in mind at least some of the responses are by Googlers who aren't disclosing that they're Google employees at the office. That's also where most of the downvotes come from.

Lordarminius 10y ago
Yeah. Its a free forum and anyone can downvote as they see fit. But if he/she thinks because they house the beast they are safe, they are wrong. When the beast needs feeding it will eat and it wont discriminate. We are all in this together
- PavlovsCat 10y ago
  "He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount." And this is something just about everybody who has a big brother they both love and fear should pay attention to: > If the totalitarian conqueror conducts himself everywhere as though he were at home, by the same token he must treat his own population as though he were a foreign conqueror. -- Hannah Arendt

EricBurnett 10y ago

Characterizing all data collection as 'snooping' fits in well with the 'existential threat' narrative, but I don't believe data _collection_ to be the threat you describe. Data misuse certainly is, but there's a distinction that needs to be made there, as I'm not fully convinced that the slippery slope of "collection must lead to misuse" needs to be a universal truth. Rather, I consider the _collection_ of broad data, carefully used, to be almost pre-requisite to the advancement of our species. Whenever I imagine future technologies they're all based on better use of data. "That car over there has a broken taillight - send them a message." "Pick me a movie I'll be interested in in this moment." Or data mining my personal history to make note of conversation topics I wanted to follow up on; promises I made in the moment. To some degree, society will (and already has) reset our privacy expectations; not everything we've held as protected need always be, at least in general. What we haven't done yet though is figure out how to enable useful collection and some level of relaxed privacy constraints without opening the door to potential abuse. Which is the risk I think you're worried about - it's not that Google is abusing the data they have _right now_, but that they eventually could, and that you find that risk more compelling than all the value they're delivering now. (Which, to be fair, I cannot say is incorrect). But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater - I want the promises of the future, and it's just a question of how we can safely get to them :).

vithlani 10y ago

I am completely mystified by a these sort of articles and the deluge of apocalyptic warnings -- specially when applied to the web in the context of data being used to make money. (I do share data leakage and privacy concerns). I use an Apple phone, so I can't comment on the mobile targeting scenarios re Google. However, I have been using Google and its web services (email, search) for over 10 years now for both work and personal use. I have bought maybe 2 products as a result of their ads. After installing ad-blockers, I simply get no advertising now. None. Zero. The same applies to Facebook. I use the mobile app almost exclusively and see no ads or simply ignore the promoted stuff. None of it seems to be location based. For example, I enjoy whisky but when I open the app in the middle of a whisky store, I get no ads or promoted links. So where is all this data matching and targeted advertising? How effective is it if any person with a modicum of intelligence can take simple steps to avoid seeing all the annoying crap? To me it seems that these companies, specially FB, are working on a foundation of sand -- the companies are built and run on the basis of "we can sell intelligent advertising" and the marketing execs fall for it and throw money at them without any measurable results. Google has a more solid use case (they searched for it, so show them an ad that is provably relevant) but Facebook....? Seems like a house of cards in the long run...even if they can implement merciless targeting they are afraid of doing so as it would result in backlash. Meanwhile, the tech behemoths use this shifting sand to conjure money out of nowhere and continue fueling the computer industry -- with some good benefits re. facility to share stuff with people you want, hardware improvements, contributions to open source, advancements in AI, research, etc. I guess just enjoy it while it lasts...

PavlovsCat 10y ago
For me -- apart from dreams of a society where we treat ourselves and each other with honesty instead of sleaze, and what synergistic effects that might have -- the main issue by far is that once the data is there, once the channels are established, it takes very little to use them for other things. I can't find it right now, but reading either Hannah Arendt or Sebastian Haffner I stumbled across a bit where it's pointed out that the dream of a Gestapo officer would be a map that shows the relations between people. Maybe I misremember it a bit, but not much.. it was something that really was uncanny and creepy, because it wasn't written with future technology in mind, the kind we already have spanned the planet with. It showed out that we're far beyond what even the people worried about Nazism 2.0 could dream of. Yay, what a treat for us. The current state of things is a wet dream for for totalitarians in some ways, you can simply record everything now and then use whatever algorithms you like on it later. Some of the people who warned about the technology and our apathy even back then might say it's way too late now. The fact that we now say "Is it even a problem? Why worry about something that might not happen?" kinda shows something doubleplusungood is going on. Once the only thing between you and a totalitarian hell is how the wind blows, with no other recourse than hoping for the best... well, that's kind of a vacuum, nature abhors and is filling it.