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From the article: So the actual price for building a “personal Google for everyone, everywhere” would in fact be zero privacy for everyone, everywhere. That ha

From the article: So the actual price for building a “personal Google for everyone, everywhere” would in fact be zero privacy for everyone, everywhere. That has no basis. It is completely possible to do what they are doing by keeping everyone's individual privacy intact. And if I go by Google's privacy policy, that's exactly what they are doing. And I think it's in their best interest to keep it that way, because the day it comes out in public that our privacy is not safe with them, everyone will stop feeding them more data.

daenney 10y ago
> It is completely possible to do what they are doing by keeping everyone's individual privacy intact. And if I go by Google's ToS, that's exactly what they are doing. Could you give examples of how that can be achieved and how the ToS goes about stating that they are doing this?
- a_lifters_life 10y ago
  Also, how do we know they haven't?
  - piyush_soni 10y ago
    We don't know for sure if they are violating their privacy policies. But as I said, if they are doing it, and it comes out by any means, it will be the dead end of their business. So it's in their best interest to not to do that and only improve upon users' trust. So yes, there's certain level of trust I put into them, just like the trust I put into big food product companies that they'd respect the ingredients list, and have a certain level of quality and hygiene. All of them can break my trust, but it will be detrimental for them if it comes out.
    - HillaryBriss 10y ago
      > if they are doing it ... it will be the dead end of their business. I wish I could share your confidence about that. It seems to me we've seen corporate data leaks, deceptive practices, huge hack attacks, etc and all that happens is the corporations get a temporary PR black eye -- and then spring back into action as powerfully as before. In the case of Google, if it came out that, say, Russian hackers had breached a bunch of gmail accounts, how many customers would just up and walk away from Google? And what company could even come close to filling the void to replace google for all of us consumers? Like I say, I wanna believe what you believe. But it just doesn't seem like that's what happens in the real marketplace.
      - a_lifters_life 10y ago
        Im with HillaryBriss here. There aren't enough repercussions for leaking pii data.
        DanBC 10y ago
        UK regulators recently fined TalkTalk £400,000 for a large data breach. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2016/10/talktalk-gets-record-400-000-fine-for-failing-to-prevent-october-2015-attack/ https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl... That's not company ending, but it should get the attention of directors.
        a_lifters_life 10y ago
        400k is nothing for a lot of companies in USA
      - piyush_soni 10y ago
        There are two things here. One is Google secretively going against their Privacy Policy and selling my data/sharing it with other previously undisclosed parties. The other is a data breach in which Google is attacked by some very skilled hackers. If the former ever happens, I'll delete all my data (whatever they allow) from their servers, and leave them forever. For the latter though, I trust them even more than most other companies to protect my data because of their technical know-how and experience. But a data breach is always a possibility with any online company, and that will be my bad luck - so I'm taking a calculated risk here.
- piyush_soni 10y ago
  https://privacy.google.com/ https://privacy.google.com/
inimino 10y ago
"Zero privacy" here means privacy from Google. Based on your reading of their ToS and your beliefs about their best interest, you may trust them to do no wrong and you may therefore be comfortable with Google knowing everything about your life, but not everyone feels the same.
- piyush_soni 10y ago
  Yes, sure, I know a lot of people who're not comfortable with sharing everything with Google, and I can understand that. Unfortunately, most of them are sharing their private data with some third party if not Google (that won't be any more careful about their privacy if they could mine the data as Google can, and probably technically less capable of preventing external breaches). In the end, it comes down to trust, one 3rd party or the other - as they're not managing everything themselves.
  - inimino 10y ago
    There's also a difference between having data here and there among many different third parties or sending everything to a single entity that can then collect in one place more data about you than what you yourself have access to.

daenney 10y ago

> It is completely possible to do what they are doing by keeping everyone's individual privacy intact. And if I go by Google's ToS, that's exactly what they are doing. Could you give examples of how that can be achieved and how the ToS goes about stating that they are doing this?

a_lifters_life 10y ago
Also, how do we know they haven't?
- piyush_soni 10y ago
  We don't know for sure if they are violating their privacy policies. But as I said, if they are doing it, and it comes out by any means, it will be the dead end of their business. So it's in their best interest to not to do that and only improve upon users' trust. So yes, there's certain level of trust I put into them, just like the trust I put into big food product companies that they'd respect the ingredients list, and have a certain level of quality and hygiene. All of them can break my trust, but it will be detrimental for them if it comes out.
  - HillaryBriss 10y ago
    > if they are doing it ... it will be the dead end of their business. I wish I could share your confidence about that. It seems to me we've seen corporate data leaks, deceptive practices, huge hack attacks, etc and all that happens is the corporations get a temporary PR black eye -- and then spring back into action as powerfully as before. In the case of Google, if it came out that, say, Russian hackers had breached a bunch of gmail accounts, how many customers would just up and walk away from Google? And what company could even come close to filling the void to replace google for all of us consumers? Like I say, I wanna believe what you believe. But it just doesn't seem like that's what happens in the real marketplace.
    - a_lifters_life 10y ago
      Im with HillaryBriss here. There aren't enough repercussions for leaking pii data.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        UK regulators recently fined TalkTalk £400,000 for a large data breach. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2016/10/talktalk-gets-record-400-000-fine-for-failing-to-prevent-october-2015-attack/ https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl... That's not company ending, but it should get the attention of directors.
        a_lifters_life 10y ago
        400k is nothing for a lot of companies in USA
    - piyush_soni 10y ago
      There are two things here. One is Google secretively going against their Privacy Policy and selling my data/sharing it with other previously undisclosed parties. The other is a data breach in which Google is attacked by some very skilled hackers. If the former ever happens, I'll delete all my data (whatever they allow) from their servers, and leave them forever. For the latter though, I trust them even more than most other companies to protect my data because of their technical know-how and experience. But a data breach is always a possibility with any online company, and that will be my bad luck - so I'm taking a calculated risk here.
piyush_soni 10y ago
https://privacy.google.com/ https://privacy.google.com/

inimino 10y ago

"Zero privacy" here means privacy from Google. Based on your reading of their ToS and your beliefs about their best interest, you may trust them to do no wrong and you may therefore be comfortable with Google knowing everything about your life, but not everyone feels the same.

piyush_soni 10y ago
Yes, sure, I know a lot of people who're not comfortable with sharing everything with Google, and I can understand that. Unfortunately, most of them are sharing their private data with some third party if not Google (that won't be any more careful about their privacy if they could mine the data as Google can, and probably technically less capable of preventing external breaches). In the end, it comes down to trust, one 3rd party or the other - as they're not managing everything themselves.
- inimino 10y ago
  There's also a difference between having data here and there among many different third parties or sending everything to a single entity that can then collect in one place more data about you than what you yourself have access to.