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But you need to consider the amount of data Google is amassing from people using solely their services. And then sells that data to advertisers. If this trend c

But you need to consider the amount of data Google is amassing from people using solely their services. And then sells that data to advertisers. If this trend continues eventually they'd be able to know more about you than even the closest of your friends. Is this really such a great price to pay for your privacy? For it to be easier to look up your friend's phone number from your email list?

home_boi 9y ago
Data selling from big tech companies is the least of your worries tbh. It's all presented in aggregate form and protected very well. It isn't even really data selling, although if you want to argue semantics and model it as such, it would be data selling limited in scope in that the only action an advertiser can use the data for is presenting you with an ad. It's the financial industry that you have to worry about. The finance industry has atrocious security and access to very personal information on you. Finance companies (your bank, credit card, etc.) sell your information to the highest bargainer with much higher privileges (physical mail and junk emails) and don't allow you to opt out. Edit: And also the health care industry. Super personal information with archaic tech and paper thin security. Data might not be sold but the risk of bad parties gaining access to your information is high.
cidibe 9y ago
I trust Google for privacy a lot more than I'd trust 10 different little specialized services that are fighting for their lives financially and don't have the decade of experience as the biggest target on the planet with no bad breaches.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  And that's a big part of the problem: People don't realize privacy is essentially about fragmenting your information. 10 different little specialized services are far more private, even if they're subject to more breaches. Thinks like your coworkers not knowing every last detail of your family, nobody you know IRL knowing about your weird online kinks, etc. Your privacy is largely reliant on your different social circles being separated, your various identities being apart, and Google has made it so they can link all of your data together. (EDIT @joshuamorton: Security and privacy are actually distinctly different concepts with very different implications. A former Googler told me this is not well understood inside the company.)
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    This is by definition security by obscurity, is it not?
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    Why edit your post instead of responding? That's such an odd way to do things and breaks the order of conversation. >Security and privacy are actually distinctly different concepts with very different implications. True, but you cannot have privacy without security. That is to say, if I pieces my personal information to 5 different groups, but all of them are vulnerable, your data, all of it, is vulnerable, and an untrusted Nth party can attain all of it. On the other hand, if you give all of your personal information to a single secure party, you know who has the data. Obviously, its a bit more complex than this because often times larger groups are single sources of failures, but still. For a nondigital metaphor, your list of kinks is less likely to get out if you put it in a safe deposit box than if you rip it into 4 pieces and tell your closest friends to put their piece under their mattress, even if no friend as the whole list and you trust each friend more than your bank, because an adversary can probably figure out that you gave it to your friends, and can break into their houses, but won't be able to crack the vault.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      I edited the post because I hit a rate limit on HN. I don't like it either, but I have to choose my use of replies carefully. The problem you miss is that people have different identities. And people want to interact with others, to communicate with people, through those identities. Locking up your kinks in a vault isn't really an option if you want to share them with a community of like-minded individuals. But just because you do, you don't necessarily want your family to be able to look them up on Google. People have different even potentially public personas, that they still want to keep separate. Under a variety of names, I'm involved in a variety of different communities, some of which I don't really want people I know IRL to know about, some which I don't mind. But all of them are out there on the Internet, because that's how I interact with them. Actually, apart from the Google-centric notion of it and the lack of multiple identities (exacerbated by Google's "real name policy", Google+ was probably the closest Google got to getting this right: I could put specify which Circles people belonged in, and share information with each independently.
- h1d 9y ago
  You mean Google would give up digging deep into their gold mine data just because they have another steady revenue stream? Hell no. They know about you better than you do. You don't remember what you were interested in on each month, Google does. They may not sell all of those to third parties but what does it matter if they know all of it. What is a privacy anyway after you've already revealed who you are constantly on multiple Google products.
joshuamorton 9y ago
I'm just curious, what data do you believe google gives to advertisers? I work at google, and I see this trope on HN a lot, and I always like to see what data people think is given away, since a lot of the time they seem to be under the impression that either Google's privacy policy is different than it actually is, or that Google's privacy policy isn't actually something that Google follows, or that it doesn't protect them from something for some reason. So, what data do you think google gives to advertisers/third parties, and what do you think Google does with the data it does have about you? (and by you I mean the generic you if you personally stay away from Google, and by Google I mean Google, but fwiw, you could probably replace Google with Facebook or Microsoft and ask the same exact question)
- 0x737368 9y ago
  Alright, let's say that I have a general mistrust of corporations just because from some modest reading of history I know that if someone has power they'll abuse it for their own interest. So my opinions about Google and others are admittedly influenced by that. It has happened before - all it takes is for someone who stands to profit from a law to make it happen, and then suddenly it's the status quo and everyone's fine about it, not even thinking about the alternatives. But since you said that what applies to Facebook could also apply to Google here are some examples - http://www.salimvirani.com/facebook/ http://www.salimvirani.com/facebook/. Finally, I'll admit that I have no concrete evidence that Google mishandles users' privacy. I will research that in the near future and perhaps my opinion will change accordingly. However, just the fact that they have access to all that data is insane. Potentially, Google and other advertising companies can know more about you than your closest friends and family. If that would be true wouldn't that bother you? Even if they don't abuse the data now who says they can't do it in the future if that would make them more profit and they could get away with it?
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    So, I asked you for examples of Google (or Facebook) sharing your information with third parties. While I agree that Facebook's practice of advertising via "Josh liked XYZ product" is not something I want, it is not an example of facebook sharing your data with advertisers. That happens entirely within the facebook platform. I think its a misleading way to present the information, but its not sharing any information (your likes) with anyone who didn't already have access to that information (your friends).

home_boi 9y ago

Data selling from big tech companies is the least of your worries tbh. It's all presented in aggregate form and protected very well. It isn't even really data selling, although if you want to argue semantics and model it as such, it would be data selling limited in scope in that the only action an advertiser can use the data for is presenting you with an ad. It's the financial industry that you have to worry about. The finance industry has atrocious security and access to very personal information on you. Finance companies (your bank, credit card, etc.) sell your information to the highest bargainer with much higher privileges (physical mail and junk emails) and don't allow you to opt out. Edit: And also the health care industry. Super personal information with archaic tech and paper thin security. Data might not be sold but the risk of bad parties gaining access to your information is high.

cidibe 9y ago

I trust Google for privacy a lot more than I'd trust 10 different little specialized services that are fighting for their lives financially and don't have the decade of experience as the biggest target on the planet with no bad breaches.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
And that's a big part of the problem: People don't realize privacy is essentially about fragmenting your information. 10 different little specialized services are far more private, even if they're subject to more breaches. Thinks like your coworkers not knowing every last detail of your family, nobody you know IRL knowing about your weird online kinks, etc. Your privacy is largely reliant on your different social circles being separated, your various identities being apart, and Google has made it so they can link all of your data together. (EDIT @joshuamorton: Security and privacy are actually distinctly different concepts with very different implications. A former Googler told me this is not well understood inside the company.)
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  This is by definition security by obscurity, is it not?
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  Why edit your post instead of responding? That's such an odd way to do things and breaks the order of conversation. >Security and privacy are actually distinctly different concepts with very different implications. True, but you cannot have privacy without security. That is to say, if I pieces my personal information to 5 different groups, but all of them are vulnerable, your data, all of it, is vulnerable, and an untrusted Nth party can attain all of it. On the other hand, if you give all of your personal information to a single secure party, you know who has the data. Obviously, its a bit more complex than this because often times larger groups are single sources of failures, but still. For a nondigital metaphor, your list of kinks is less likely to get out if you put it in a safe deposit box than if you rip it into 4 pieces and tell your closest friends to put their piece under their mattress, even if no friend as the whole list and you trust each friend more than your bank, because an adversary can probably figure out that you gave it to your friends, and can break into their houses, but won't be able to crack the vault.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    I edited the post because I hit a rate limit on HN. I don't like it either, but I have to choose my use of replies carefully. The problem you miss is that people have different identities. And people want to interact with others, to communicate with people, through those identities. Locking up your kinks in a vault isn't really an option if you want to share them with a community of like-minded individuals. But just because you do, you don't necessarily want your family to be able to look them up on Google. People have different even potentially public personas, that they still want to keep separate. Under a variety of names, I'm involved in a variety of different communities, some of which I don't really want people I know IRL to know about, some which I don't mind. But all of them are out there on the Internet, because that's how I interact with them. Actually, apart from the Google-centric notion of it and the lack of multiple identities (exacerbated by Google's "real name policy", Google+ was probably the closest Google got to getting this right: I could put specify which Circles people belonged in, and share information with each independently.
h1d 9y ago
You mean Google would give up digging deep into their gold mine data just because they have another steady revenue stream? Hell no. They know about you better than you do. You don't remember what you were interested in on each month, Google does. They may not sell all of those to third parties but what does it matter if they know all of it. What is a privacy anyway after you've already revealed who you are constantly on multiple Google products.

joshuamorton 9y ago

I'm just curious, what data do you believe google gives to advertisers? I work at google, and I see this trope on HN a lot, and I always like to see what data people think is given away, since a lot of the time they seem to be under the impression that either Google's privacy policy is different than it actually is, or that Google's privacy policy isn't actually something that Google follows, or that it doesn't protect them from something for some reason. So, what data do you think google gives to advertisers/third parties, and what do you think Google does with the data it does have about you? (and by you I mean the generic you if you personally stay away from Google, and by Google I mean Google, but fwiw, you could probably replace Google with Facebook or Microsoft and ask the same exact question)

0x737368 9y ago
Alright, let's say that I have a general mistrust of corporations just because from some modest reading of history I know that if someone has power they'll abuse it for their own interest. So my opinions about Google and others are admittedly influenced by that. It has happened before - all it takes is for someone who stands to profit from a law to make it happen, and then suddenly it's the status quo and everyone's fine about it, not even thinking about the alternatives. But since you said that what applies to Facebook could also apply to Google here are some examples - http://www.salimvirani.com/facebook/ http://www.salimvirani.com/facebook/. Finally, I'll admit that I have no concrete evidence that Google mishandles users' privacy. I will research that in the near future and perhaps my opinion will change accordingly. However, just the fact that they have access to all that data is insane. Potentially, Google and other advertising companies can know more about you than your closest friends and family. If that would be true wouldn't that bother you? Even if they don't abuse the data now who says they can't do it in the future if that would make them more profit and they could get away with it?
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  So, I asked you for examples of Google (or Facebook) sharing your information with third parties. While I agree that Facebook's practice of advertising via "Josh liked XYZ product" is not something I want, it is not an example of facebook sharing your data with advertisers. That happens entirely within the facebook platform. I think its a misleading way to present the information, but its not sharing any information (your likes) with anyone who didn't already have access to that information (your friends).