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> In this case you're "paying" with your data, which has even less voting power because you can't even opt out of that payment just by not using their services.

> In this case you're "paying" with your data, which has even less voting power because you can't even opt out of that payment just by not using their services. You'd pretty much have to stop using the internet entirely. Huh? You can use Firefox, Bing and another email provider.

_tulpa 9y ago
Okay, so you want to opt out of all google services and data harvesting. In addition to replacing chrome, search, and gmail, drive, maps, calendar, youtube, allo, duo, keep, hangouts, etc, etc you must also: - Never send/receive email to/from anyone else with a gmail address. You're still providing your data even if this one won't affect you directly. - Block third-party tracking on websites and advertisements which are basically everywhere now, or somehow avoid the websites with tracking. That's assuming this is even possible, and remains possible. Yes there's uMatrix/uBlock et al, but there's also Admiral and Instart Logic et al, and no way to confirm that the measures you're taking are working. - Settle for alternative services with different and/or inferior experiences. This is hard even if the alternatives are perfectly usable and of comparable quality. Google wins because it has stuff that is more convenient than the alternatives, and usually better quality. - Don't use Android, the mobile OS with something like 80-90% market share which also happens to be the lowest cost option for a decent smartphone. Oh, you use a ROM without play services? Captive portal detection still contacts a google server to check for internet access and I don't know if there's other stuff like that baked in. - Know enough to question your trust in google in the first place. So through a buttload of effort and some domain specific knowledge you can exercise some percentage (probably less than 100%) of your wallet vote which was worth 3/10ths of nothing to begin with. You have to be a tech-savvy idealist to go through with it, and that demographic is never going to be big enough to force a massive corporation to self regulate against their own best interests.
- studentrob 9y ago
  > So through a buttload of effort and some domain specific knowledge you can exercise some percentage (probably less than 100%) of your wallet vote which was worth 3/10ths of nothing to begin with. You have to be a tech-savvy idealist to go through with it, and that demographic is never going to be big enough to force a massive corporation to self regulate against their own best interests. Making sure a consumer's data reaches no part of a given company sounds highly impractical. What you describe is an extremely broad scope of "opt-out". By your definition, you couldn't opt out of any company without very detailed knowledge of the company. For example, whenever you make a purchase, or just walk into a store, that data ends up in multiple parties' hands. I doubt there is precedent for using antitrust law to allow consumers to make such refined choices. How useful would it be to silo the world in such a way? We're not privy to the amount of data being collected within companies. Even if you break up one company that collects data, what's to stop 100 others from doing the same, particularly those in other countries?
  - _tulpa 9y ago
    You're missing the point. And saying what exactly? That we should just roll over and let them do whatever they want because empowering the user is hard?
    - studentrob 9y ago
      > we should just roll over and let them do whatever they want because empowering the user is hard? We're talking past each other. Your "them" is Google. My "them" is every company, many of whom do not announce the extent of their data collection. If breaking up Google means going after every company that collects too much data, then I suggest we first (a) take a look at how much data companies are collecting and then (b) consider where we draw the line. Doing (b) before (a) would be acting uninformed and rashly.
      - _tulpa 9y ago
        I picked on google because this whole post and the OP of this thread is about google. And you're using a lot of words to mostly say nothing. The point is users are never going to have the power to force un-evil behaviour because the business model of data-mining companies (all of 'them', not just google) relies on social manipulation and exploiting weaknesses in human nature. Government regulation is the last resort, sure, but for this kind of business (and especially for the big players) it should be pretty damn clear by now that there is no other viable option.

_tulpa 9y ago

Okay, so you want to opt out of all google services and data harvesting. In addition to replacing chrome, search, and gmail, drive, maps, calendar, youtube, allo, duo, keep, hangouts, etc, etc you must also: - Never send/receive email to/from anyone else with a gmail address. You're still providing your data even if this one won't affect you directly. - Block third-party tracking on websites and advertisements which are basically everywhere now, or somehow avoid the websites with tracking. That's assuming this is even possible, and remains possible. Yes there's uMatrix/uBlock et al, but there's also Admiral and Instart Logic et al, and no way to confirm that the measures you're taking are working. - Settle for alternative services with different and/or inferior experiences. This is hard even if the alternatives are perfectly usable and of comparable quality. Google wins because it has stuff that is more convenient than the alternatives, and usually better quality. - Don't use Android, the mobile OS with something like 80-90% market share which also happens to be the lowest cost option for a decent smartphone. Oh, you use a ROM without play services? Captive portal detection still contacts a google server to check for internet access and I don't know if there's other stuff like that baked in. - Know enough to question your trust in google in the first place. So through a buttload of effort and some domain specific knowledge you can exercise some percentage (probably less than 100%) of your wallet vote which was worth 3/10ths of nothing to begin with. You have to be a tech-savvy idealist to go through with it, and that demographic is never going to be big enough to force a massive corporation to self regulate against their own best interests.

studentrob 9y ago
> So through a buttload of effort and some domain specific knowledge you can exercise some percentage (probably less than 100%) of your wallet vote which was worth 3/10ths of nothing to begin with. You have to be a tech-savvy idealist to go through with it, and that demographic is never going to be big enough to force a massive corporation to self regulate against their own best interests. Making sure a consumer's data reaches no part of a given company sounds highly impractical. What you describe is an extremely broad scope of "opt-out". By your definition, you couldn't opt out of any company without very detailed knowledge of the company. For example, whenever you make a purchase, or just walk into a store, that data ends up in multiple parties' hands. I doubt there is precedent for using antitrust law to allow consumers to make such refined choices. How useful would it be to silo the world in such a way? We're not privy to the amount of data being collected within companies. Even if you break up one company that collects data, what's to stop 100 others from doing the same, particularly those in other countries?
- _tulpa 9y ago
  You're missing the point. And saying what exactly? That we should just roll over and let them do whatever they want because empowering the user is hard?
  - studentrob 9y ago
    > we should just roll over and let them do whatever they want because empowering the user is hard? We're talking past each other. Your "them" is Google. My "them" is every company, many of whom do not announce the extent of their data collection. If breaking up Google means going after every company that collects too much data, then I suggest we first (a) take a look at how much data companies are collecting and then (b) consider where we draw the line. Doing (b) before (a) would be acting uninformed and rashly.
    - _tulpa 9y ago
      I picked on google because this whole post and the OP of this thread is about google. And you're using a lot of words to mostly say nothing. The point is users are never going to have the power to force un-evil behaviour because the business model of data-mining companies (all of 'them', not just google) relies on social manipulation and exploiting weaknesses in human nature. Government regulation is the last resort, sure, but for this kind of business (and especially for the big players) it should be pretty damn clear by now that there is no other viable option.