6 ms·

You must be a joy at parties. How is any of the data private when you willingly use their tools, sites, servers, etc? You open up google.com and type things in

You must be a joy at parties. How is any of the data private when you willingly use their tools, sites, servers, etc? You open up google.com and type things in, what privacy do you expect? Or am I missing something you are referring to?

psbp 10y ago
ocdtrekkie is infamous for having endless anti-Google arguments on Google+ for the past 5 years. Trust me, you're not going to have a fruitful discussion.
- blub 10y ago
  What would the ideal result of such a fruitful discussion be? Accepting that Google is truth and Google is love? This is exactly what we need, exposing antisocial behavior for what it is.
  - psbp 10y ago
    I'm not saying the argument is bad (I probably agree with it more than not), but from memory, it almost seems compulsive rather than an actual attempt to discuss Google's role. Many posters on G+ resorted to blocking him because it became insufferable.
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
The problem is that Google's target market is largely people who are unaware of what the risks are, unaware of the extent of what Google does with their data. It's up to us in the tech community to protect people from companies that use dark pattern behavior like Google. yuhong: Responding to your question as an edit to my own comment since two -4 comments is probably enough for one day. Silently implementing opt-out features, and automatically opting everyone into new ways to violate their privacy, granting themselves the right to change their terms of service or privacy policy without notification. Using confusing terminology to make it difficult to discern what is the "more private" option. (Opting out of Google+'s "Featured Photos" feature, for example, requires you to switch ON the option to shut OFF Google stealing your intellectual property.) As existencebox noted, making ads on search look as close to search results as possible to mislead people into clicking on scam and malware laden Google Ads rather than real results...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- yuhong 10y ago
  What dark patterns are you referring to?
  - bzbarsky 10y ago
    Making their ads on a search result page look more and more like their organic search results, for example. Or making Android Location History on by default and then using it for things like http://searchengineland.com/hood-google-adwords-measures-store-visits-222905 http://searchengineland.com/hood-google-adwords-measures-sto... -- yes, they're reporting anonymized data to the advertisers, but of course they're storing your actual location data, with a well-hidden knob to turn it off. Doing things people probably wouldn't like done to them if they knew about them with a well-hidden knob to turn it off is fairly dark-patterny as far as I'm concerned.
- bitmapbrother 10y ago
  >It's up to us in the tech community to protect people from companies that use dark pattern behavior like Google. Are you a self appointed privacy vigilante or were you elected by the people to protect them? Do you also protect people from Credit Card companies, ISP's, Cable Companies, e-Commerce sites and Cell Phone companies or are you just infatuated with Google?
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    I definitely also try to protect people from other types of predatory technology companies. When people ask me for recommendations, I generally steer people away from ISPs with poor/slow service, hardware manufacturers which produce low quality equipment, and cell carriers which use deceptive marketing. I do speak about Google more than average, largely because the volume of fanboyism around the company is so massive, and their PR department generates so much fiction. I don't have to tell you AT&T is a terrible company, you already know, so I don't waste a lot of time doting on it. Combatting the sort of psychological warfare Google employs requires drastically more effort.
existencebox 10y ago
What's always frustrated me is that there are perfectly legitimate complaints about how google has gained their market share; but people seem to like weakening the broader argument with more emotional arguments. I'll gladly cite examples: Search ad dark patterns. I remember a time when G was _proud_ of that their ads were entirely distinct from native search results, and never caused native results to fall beneath the fold. Now when I search on even a moderately sized monitor, literally half of the first page results are sponsored or ads (native content being entirely beneath the fold), to boot in a manner increasingly less distinct from the native results. (there used to be a separate ad box, and then a line between ads and native, and now just a tiny little 'ad' or grey 'sponsored' blip) I've seen these encroachments across the board; youtube/G+ integrated logins was another, dark patterns for data-gathering approval on droid ("do you want to share data; yes/cancel"), which I'd best summarize as a slow collapse of any legitimacy to their "don't be evil" mantra from early on. The one concrete point I can think of for "scraping data without approval" is that when various new data policies were established and yes/no controls added to your G profile settings, I believe some of them defaulted on? I've heard mumblings both ways in the HN discussions on this topic so it's a less strong point than my previous, but may be a basis for a more established argument of that aspect of dark patterns in private data acquisition that the parent was trying to pose.
dexterdog 10y ago
So you would have no problems with your cell service provider keeping records of all of your calls and locations and recording conversations in the room even when not on a call? Most people don't know what data google is keeping and monetizing.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  Don't they do this already? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
bzbarsky 10y ago
And the people who ended up with Chrome installed and set as their default browser because they installed some other application (like Flash) were using Chrome willingly, right? Yes, Google was doing that sort of thing for Chrome distribution for a while. They've stopped since, which is better than nothing, I guess. [Edit: apparently they haven't stopped, according to ocdtrekkie's comment! Or maybe they have started again.] Point is, a lot of people are NOT using Google's products willingly. They may be using them because someone else set them up with the product and they don't know how to change, they may be using it because they're required to for work (Google docs, e.g.).
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  They still do it: https://get.adobe.com/reader/ https://get.adobe.com/reader/ (Checked today, Windows 10, while using Edge. Default checked on this page is to also install Chrome.) It's worth noting that Sundar Pichai's claim to fame at Google, prior to Chrome itself, was getting the Google Toolbar installed on everyone's PCs whether they wanted it or not. The CEO of Google isn't just a fan of software installation dark patterns like this, he's the guy responsible for it at Google.
  - yuhong 10y ago
    Google Toolbar was one of the better browser toolbars AFAIK though.
    - bzbarsky 10y ago
      That's a pretty low bar. But in terms of the ethical question, we're now talking about how if I break into your house to steal all your unhealthy potato chips that's better than if I break into your house to steal your money. The fundamental problem is breaking into your house.
    - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
      If you're diagnosed with cancer, but it is one of the least fatal forms of cancer... you still have cancer.

psbp 10y ago

ocdtrekkie is infamous for having endless anti-Google arguments on Google+ for the past 5 years. Trust me, you're not going to have a fruitful discussion.

blub 10y ago
What would the ideal result of such a fruitful discussion be? Accepting that Google is truth and Google is love? This is exactly what we need, exposing antisocial behavior for what it is.
- psbp 10y ago
  I'm not saying the argument is bad (I probably agree with it more than not), but from memory, it almost seems compulsive rather than an actual attempt to discuss Google's role. Many posters on G+ resorted to blocking him because it became insufferable.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

The problem is that Google's target market is largely people who are unaware of what the risks are, unaware of the extent of what Google does with their data. It's up to us in the tech community to protect people from companies that use dark pattern behavior like Google. yuhong: Responding to your question as an edit to my own comment since two -4 comments is probably enough for one day. Silently implementing opt-out features, and automatically opting everyone into new ways to violate their privacy, granting themselves the right to change their terms of service or privacy policy without notification. Using confusing terminology to make it difficult to discern what is the "more private" option. (Opting out of Google+'s "Featured Photos" feature, for example, requires you to switch ON the option to shut OFF Google stealing your intellectual property.) As existencebox noted, making ads on search look as close to search results as possible to mislead people into clicking on scam and malware laden Google Ads rather than real results...

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
yuhong 10y ago
What dark patterns are you referring to?
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  Making their ads on a search result page look more and more like their organic search results, for example. Or making Android Location History on by default and then using it for things like http://searchengineland.com/hood-google-adwords-measures-store-visits-222905 http://searchengineland.com/hood-google-adwords-measures-sto... -- yes, they're reporting anonymized data to the advertisers, but of course they're storing your actual location data, with a well-hidden knob to turn it off. Doing things people probably wouldn't like done to them if they knew about them with a well-hidden knob to turn it off is fairly dark-patterny as far as I'm concerned.
bitmapbrother 10y ago
>It's up to us in the tech community to protect people from companies that use dark pattern behavior like Google. Are you a self appointed privacy vigilante or were you elected by the people to protect them? Do you also protect people from Credit Card companies, ISP's, Cable Companies, e-Commerce sites and Cell Phone companies or are you just infatuated with Google?
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  I definitely also try to protect people from other types of predatory technology companies. When people ask me for recommendations, I generally steer people away from ISPs with poor/slow service, hardware manufacturers which produce low quality equipment, and cell carriers which use deceptive marketing. I do speak about Google more than average, largely because the volume of fanboyism around the company is so massive, and their PR department generates so much fiction. I don't have to tell you AT&T is a terrible company, you already know, so I don't waste a lot of time doting on it. Combatting the sort of psychological warfare Google employs requires drastically more effort.

existencebox 10y ago

What's always frustrated me is that there are perfectly legitimate complaints about how google has gained their market share; but people seem to like weakening the broader argument with more emotional arguments. I'll gladly cite examples: Search ad dark patterns. I remember a time when G was _proud_ of that their ads were entirely distinct from native search results, and never caused native results to fall beneath the fold. Now when I search on even a moderately sized monitor, literally half of the first page results are sponsored or ads (native content being entirely beneath the fold), to boot in a manner increasingly less distinct from the native results. (there used to be a separate ad box, and then a line between ads and native, and now just a tiny little 'ad' or grey 'sponsored' blip) I've seen these encroachments across the board; youtube/G+ integrated logins was another, dark patterns for data-gathering approval on droid ("do you want to share data; yes/cancel"), which I'd best summarize as a slow collapse of any legitimacy to their "don't be evil" mantra from early on. The one concrete point I can think of for "scraping data without approval" is that when various new data policies were established and yes/no controls added to your G profile settings, I believe some of them defaulted on? I've heard mumblings both ways in the HN discussions on this topic so it's a less strong point than my previous, but may be a basis for a more established argument of that aspect of dark patterns in private data acquisition that the parent was trying to pose.

dexterdog 10y ago

So you would have no problems with your cell service provider keeping records of all of your calls and locations and recording conversations in the room even when not on a call? Most people don't know what data google is keeping and monetizing.

nostrademons 10y ago
Don't they do this already? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

bzbarsky 10y ago

And the people who ended up with Chrome installed and set as their default browser because they installed some other application (like Flash) were using Chrome willingly, right? Yes, Google was doing that sort of thing for Chrome distribution for a while. They've stopped since, which is better than nothing, I guess. [Edit: apparently they haven't stopped, according to ocdtrekkie's comment! Or maybe they have started again.] Point is, a lot of people are NOT using Google's products willingly. They may be using them because someone else set them up with the product and they don't know how to change, they may be using it because they're required to for work (Google docs, e.g.).

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
They still do it: https://get.adobe.com/reader/ https://get.adobe.com/reader/ (Checked today, Windows 10, while using Edge. Default checked on this page is to also install Chrome.) It's worth noting that Sundar Pichai's claim to fame at Google, prior to Chrome itself, was getting the Google Toolbar installed on everyone's PCs whether they wanted it or not. The CEO of Google isn't just a fan of software installation dark patterns like this, he's the guy responsible for it at Google.
- yuhong 10y ago
  Google Toolbar was one of the better browser toolbars AFAIK though.
  - bzbarsky 10y ago
    That's a pretty low bar. But in terms of the ethical question, we're now talking about how if I break into your house to steal all your unhealthy potato chips that's better than if I break into your house to steal your money. The fundamental problem is breaking into your house.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    If you're diagnosed with cancer, but it is one of the least fatal forms of cancer... you still have cancer.