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Google does some pretty scary stuff too. I made a point of never giving them my mobile number or any "real information" about me. When a friend of mine added me

Google does some pretty scary stuff too. I made a point of never giving them my mobile number or any "real information" about me. When a friend of mine added me to his contacts, on his Android phone, he also added one of email addresses to the contact, which is the same one I used to register my Google account. The phone automatically connected the mail address to my Google account and now every time I call him the (anonymous) picture of my Google profile shows up on his phone. Which I guess means that Google now also connected that phone number to the mail address/Google account. Tbh that's really offputting: You can be as careful as you want and it will still be all for naught because friends&family just end up leaking your details everywhere without even noticing it.

rhizome 9y ago
It occurs to me that I'd like to see some reportage on which parts of the TOS cover these evergreen frustrations. Is it the "share your information with third parties" clause? Is it "to improve Google services?" Something else? Surely every element of surprise can be responded to with "Oh, well you gave them that permission in Section F, subsection 3(n)."
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Usually its to the tune of 'by using this service you agree to grant Google a non-exclusive royalty-free worldwide license to reproduce and redistribute' etc.
narag 9y ago
I had a similar realization when I found a private photo, so private that I had deleted it from everywhere in some Google's "backup" sites. I am very careful disabling every feature that could mean that personal images or text from my phone will end up "in the cloud" and still it got there through an accident... and a lot of Google's disregard for my wills. It's almost impossible to stop them. The photo being private is most likely not what you think :)
- Idontagree 9y ago
  Which sites did you find it on and which did you delete it from?
  - narag 9y ago
    I deleted it from the phone and my hard disk. I use to take photos with the phone, move through usb to the disk and never publish any photo anywhere. Where I found it I don't remember because it was some Google site that I hadn't signed up for. I know, they're all connected, but I didn't even know it existed, much less that personal photos could go there. My frustration comes from the fact that I had already visited several timesevery configuration and options page of the products that I use, choosing not to share anything anywhere with anyone and, god forbid, never backup phone and still it got there. I have an idea why it could happen: a combination of "sync" option in the phone being activated by an accidental click with a lot of "creativity" in Google's part. I'm done with this shit. When the time comes to buy a new phone, I will take some drastic measures. Maybe a dumbphone with tethering paired with a tablet, I'm not sure, but not this again.
    - Idontagree 9y ago
      That's quite disheartening.
- tomcam 9y ago
  I remember that picture. It was your "PHP programmer of the year award" that you didn't want your Haskell-hacking friends to see. Disgraceful!
  - narag 9y ago
    LOL! Actually it was just a selfie with a moustache, OK I said it :) I had grown a three weeks beard and took a photo when I was half shaved. No offense to moustache lovers, it just didn't suit me well.
    - 9y ago
scottlamb 9y ago
Could you help me understand why you find that scary? It's not giving him any information which wasn't previously available to him. I think you're concerned that people are overlooking his screen, and you'd rather he explicitly choose everything that pops up when you call? Do you think he wouldn't have included any identifying information about you? As a user, I'd rather have not only a name but also a picture of a person pop up when they call me, and I'd rather it happen with as little work as possible on my part. (disclaimer: I work for Google, although I had nothing to do with how this works)
- GuiA 9y ago
  OP desired to keep his Google associated email and non Google associated phone number separate, and behaved as such. That's a very reasonable thing to want and do. But Google used OP's friend's phone, bought from them, to surreptitiously acquire the connection between his email address and phone number. That was against OP's desire, and his friend never explicitly agreed to provide that information. I fully understand why he would be upset.
  - aikinai 9y ago
    I think everyone is misunderstanding the complaint. Google does not link phone numbers to accounts based on being added to he same contact. The poster is just complaining that it shows the photo from his Google profile (attached the the email his friend already knows) and shows that when he calls from his phone number (that his friend also already knows and added to the same contact).
    - TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
      How do we know Google doesn't do such linking? Perhaps not in a user-visible way, but Google certainly have the data.
  - scottlamb 9y ago
    Oh, yes, I missed a sentence: "Which I guess means that Google now also connected that phone number to the mail address/Google account." So I suppose freeflight's concern is what information the friend gave to Google, not what Google gave to the friend or what the friend's phone is displaying to onlookers. This is how cloud services work. Google stores the friend's contact data, which has a contact with both freeflight's phone number and email address. What is it you fear that Google is doing with this information? And what would it take for you to be comfortable?
linkregister 9y ago
I wonder if I could exploit this to make false associations, e.g. save an email address with someone else's number to make that profile pop up whenever that person calls someone.
- eanzenberg 9y ago
  Sure, I mean one way to combat this is through data warfare and sabotage. If enough people behave erratically and poison the well of data it will make it harder for these companies to infer as much as they do now. For example, click, view, watch, like at random ads and if enough people do this inference will be harder.
  - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
    On the other hand, whatever brings power away from large telecoms is good for all of us, even it means integration with Google makes calling simpler and easier.
    - jononor 9y ago
      None of these companies are our friends. Not even in the 'enemy of my enemy...' sense, as these companies happily partner with eachother whenever it makes sense financially.
orangecat 9y ago
The phone automatically connected the mail address to my Google account and now every time I call him the (anonymous) picture of my Google profile shows up on his phone. That behavior doesn't require Google to have associated your phone number with your account; the mapping could be happening entirely on your friend's phone.
- freeflight 9y ago
  True, but it's still scary how the phone seems to be able to reverse lookup my email address to come up with the matching Google account. Which, I might add, originally started out as a YouTube account. Considering how much Google tracks, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't save that mapping somewhere besides my friend's phone because this is exactly the kind of data aggregation and mapping which is driving large parts of Google's ad business. I admit this might just be paranoia, tho this wouldn't be the first time my paranoia ended up being justified.
- jononor 9y ago
  Android offers to sync your contacts to the cloud/between devices. I think its still opt-in, but could be different on other devices than I've had.

rhizome 9y ago

It occurs to me that I'd like to see some reportage on which parts of the TOS cover these evergreen frustrations. Is it the "share your information with third parties" clause? Is it "to improve Google services?" Something else? Surely every element of surprise can be responded to with "Oh, well you gave them that permission in Section F, subsection 3(n)."

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Usually its to the tune of 'by using this service you agree to grant Google a non-exclusive royalty-free worldwide license to reproduce and redistribute' etc.

narag 9y ago

I had a similar realization when I found a private photo, so private that I had deleted it from everywhere in some Google's "backup" sites. I am very careful disabling every feature that could mean that personal images or text from my phone will end up "in the cloud" and still it got there through an accident... and a lot of Google's disregard for my wills. It's almost impossible to stop them. The photo being private is most likely not what you think :)

Idontagree 9y ago
Which sites did you find it on and which did you delete it from?
- narag 9y ago
  I deleted it from the phone and my hard disk. I use to take photos with the phone, move through usb to the disk and never publish any photo anywhere. Where I found it I don't remember because it was some Google site that I hadn't signed up for. I know, they're all connected, but I didn't even know it existed, much less that personal photos could go there. My frustration comes from the fact that I had already visited several timesevery configuration and options page of the products that I use, choosing not to share anything anywhere with anyone and, god forbid, never backup phone and still it got there. I have an idea why it could happen: a combination of "sync" option in the phone being activated by an accidental click with a lot of "creativity" in Google's part. I'm done with this shit. When the time comes to buy a new phone, I will take some drastic measures. Maybe a dumbphone with tethering paired with a tablet, I'm not sure, but not this again.
  - Idontagree 9y ago
    That's quite disheartening.
tomcam 9y ago
I remember that picture. It was your "PHP programmer of the year award" that you didn't want your Haskell-hacking friends to see. Disgraceful!
- narag 9y ago
  LOL! Actually it was just a selfie with a moustache, OK I said it :) I had grown a three weeks beard and took a photo when I was half shaved. No offense to moustache lovers, it just didn't suit me well.
  - 9y ago

scottlamb 9y ago

Could you help me understand why you find that scary? It's not giving him any information which wasn't previously available to him. I think you're concerned that people are overlooking his screen, and you'd rather he explicitly choose everything that pops up when you call? Do you think he wouldn't have included any identifying information about you? As a user, I'd rather have not only a name but also a picture of a person pop up when they call me, and I'd rather it happen with as little work as possible on my part. (disclaimer: I work for Google, although I had nothing to do with how this works)

GuiA 9y ago
OP desired to keep his Google associated email and non Google associated phone number separate, and behaved as such. That's a very reasonable thing to want and do. But Google used OP's friend's phone, bought from them, to surreptitiously acquire the connection between his email address and phone number. That was against OP's desire, and his friend never explicitly agreed to provide that information. I fully understand why he would be upset.
- aikinai 9y ago
  I think everyone is misunderstanding the complaint. Google does not link phone numbers to accounts based on being added to he same contact. The poster is just complaining that it shows the photo from his Google profile (attached the the email his friend already knows) and shows that when he calls from his phone number (that his friend also already knows and added to the same contact).
  - TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
    How do we know Google doesn't do such linking? Perhaps not in a user-visible way, but Google certainly have the data.
- scottlamb 9y ago
  Oh, yes, I missed a sentence: "Which I guess means that Google now also connected that phone number to the mail address/Google account." So I suppose freeflight's concern is what information the friend gave to Google, not what Google gave to the friend or what the friend's phone is displaying to onlookers. This is how cloud services work. Google stores the friend's contact data, which has a contact with both freeflight's phone number and email address. What is it you fear that Google is doing with this information? And what would it take for you to be comfortable?

linkregister 9y ago

I wonder if I could exploit this to make false associations, e.g. save an email address with someone else's number to make that profile pop up whenever that person calls someone.

eanzenberg 9y ago
Sure, I mean one way to combat this is through data warfare and sabotage. If enough people behave erratically and poison the well of data it will make it harder for these companies to infer as much as they do now. For example, click, view, watch, like at random ads and if enough people do this inference will be harder.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  On the other hand, whatever brings power away from large telecoms is good for all of us, even it means integration with Google makes calling simpler and easier.
  - jononor 9y ago
    None of these companies are our friends. Not even in the 'enemy of my enemy...' sense, as these companies happily partner with eachother whenever it makes sense financially.

orangecat 9y ago

The phone automatically connected the mail address to my Google account and now every time I call him the (anonymous) picture of my Google profile shows up on his phone. That behavior doesn't require Google to have associated your phone number with your account; the mapping could be happening entirely on your friend's phone.

freeflight 9y ago
True, but it's still scary how the phone seems to be able to reverse lookup my email address to come up with the matching Google account. Which, I might add, originally started out as a YouTube account. Considering how much Google tracks, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't save that mapping somewhere besides my friend's phone because this is exactly the kind of data aggregation and mapping which is driving large parts of Google's ad business. I admit this might just be paranoia, tho this wouldn't be the first time my paranoia ended up being justified.
jononor 9y ago
Android offers to sync your contacts to the cloud/between devices. I think its still opt-in, but could be different on other devices than I've had.