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Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch

• thebiglebrewski 9y ago
  Oh man this is what I hate the most about my Pixel. How can I turn it off?
  • netinstructions 9y ago
    Press and hold on the notification itself. Alternatively, press and hold on the notification and start to slide left/right (still holding) to reveal a gears icon. It should be a shortcut that takes you to the notification settings for that app with the option to toggle them on/off.
    • thebiglebrewski 9y ago
      Thanks!
• Zhenya 9y ago
  OP is freaked that the data that was shared with Google is used to help Google get a bigger dataset... Get a grip. Edit: Downvotes now rolling in. I'd love to know why. Is this a bug? Is Google doing something wrong? Or did OP hand over the data and not bother to go through the settings to turn off things they didn't like .
  • excalibur 9y ago
    > Or did OP hand over the data and not bother to go through the settings to turn off things they didn't like OP is making the case that they shouldn't have to. That a personal device they purchased outright should be secure by default.
    • Zhenya 9y ago
      It's secure. The data is only going to Google. OP agreed to that when he logged into the device with their Google account not when they bought the device. Also: security != privacy
      • ucaetano 9y ago
        Exactly, unsurprisingly, people are surprised that when they decided to share their location with Google, Google actually gets their location. Shocking.
      • fenwick67 9y ago
        Yeah I think the word they meant to use was "private". Having a user check a box to agree to this along with a million other things is definitely legal (which I guess is your point?), but it's less than ideal for users. Consumers buy a phone with the anticipation of being able to watch Netflix and Hulu and send text messages (insert other use cases here), then pay $600 for it, then they are stopped with a "oh by the way if you want all of these apps you need to tell us where you are all the time". It's legally fine but that doesn't make it non-evil.
      • excalibur 9y ago
        People generally login to their Android device with their Google account out of a perceived necessity, in order to 1) access the Google Play store to get apps they're actually interested in, and 2) get their gmail to sync to their phone. There is a certain level of sending-data-to-google that is required to facilitate these functions. Android by default sends considerably more.
  • stordoff 9y ago
    "data that was shared with Google" seems like a stretch - it's closer to "data that Google took" IMO (I doubt most people would assume the default is that Google knows what restaurants you are visiting). Then using that data to send you a request to, basically, do work for Google is just annoying.
• GCU-Empiricist 9y ago
  I generally prefer android to iOS because it's easier to work with as a dev, but this has been making me think about converting back.
  • doktrin 9y ago
    I haven't owned an iPhone in over 5 years, and I feel the same way. No company should be romanticized, and I'm sure Apple's (very public) decision to take user privacy seriously can be viewed cynically - but at the end of the day that's the kind of stuff I care about as a consumer, and will choose my next phone accordingly.
    • niklasrde 9y ago
      As an N.B. - developing and using for iPhone/iPad, hell even Apple TV has become so much nicer in the past 5 years. I can't remember the last time I've used DFU mode. Signing Certs are still annoying in XCode, but day-to-day it's a lot better than what it once was.
      • GCU-Empiricist 9y ago
        Do you still need an up to date mac to do it (even a hackentosh) or can you develop from outside their environment?
• mc32 9y ago
  Ah, finally, their G+ efforts finally bore fruit and shows their hand. G+ has been the impetus behind all of this and has led Google away from their core search and related tech and more into weaving itself into our daily lives, mercilessly. I love most of Goog, but G+ has diverted them into this social mess. It's something I wish they'd left well enough alone.
• dawhizkid 9y ago
  I think this is called "shadow work"...Google has turned you into a mechanical turk without pay :)
  • Chaebixi 9y ago
    > I think this is called "shadow work"...Google has turned you into a mechanical turk without pay :) That's an excellent term! Also, I can't favorite this comment for some reason. The link is missing. edit: I guess replying fixed it?
• JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Hasn't Google been telling everyone for years that they want users to have information at their fingertips? They've built their platform around this. Google wants to do things like set a calendar reminder when it sees that you got emailed a receipt for plane tickets. When they see you just ate a restaurant they want to suggests things to do after (movie, play, concert, etc). They've been telling everyone this is what they want to do. So, if someone is using Google products, why are they freaked out about this?
• innagadadavida 9y ago
  Site is down, as ironic as it might sound, here is the Google Cache of it: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bradfrost.com/blog/post/google-you-creepy-sonofabitch/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bradfro...
• Anderkent 9y ago
  Hm. I find google map reviews fairly useful, and so don't mind contributing. I don't know why my phone figuring out if I'm near a restaurant I would like is creepy? It's nowhere near as creepy as find my device, which everyone seems OK with.
  • chillingeffect 9y ago
    You're probably not thinking adversarially. Most of us aren't. Most of us love all the features of technology. However, there are bad apples in society, seeking shortcuts through taking from others and harming them. And there are guardians in society, constantly looking for vectors that a baddie can cause harm to protect them. One emerging vector is the combination of market data to target individuals for threat and harm. E.g. you piss someone or a group off, whether by insulting them, simply the act of driving or eating meat, supporting a political party they don't, etc. Then, that person or group purchases batches of insufficiently anonymized marketing data, combines them to narrow down to your profile and uses it to hunt you down. E.g. restaurants. Someone could buy location, restaurant and driving data, filter by several clues they discover about you, then stake out locations where you'll be. Now that I've explored the personal-revenge factor, consider a different type of threat: economic survival. An adversarial corporation could use details about your psychology gleaned from timing information, nutrition profile, age, DNA/race, internet comments to influence you and larger groups in unethical ways, such as encouraging you to live unhealthy lifestyles, presenting carefully selected news items - not to harm you necessarily, but to perpetuate their own gain at your cost. And this doesn't even have to happen to you personally. It can happen to targeted groups estimated to have vulnerabilities in any domain: middle-class, new home-owners, teen-agers. And the baddies' efforts all increase in efficacy the more information we leak. So stop giving away all your information!
    • fixermark 9y ago
      If one doesn't trust Google as a data steward, I can totally see one being deeply concerned about these data-request notifications and about the system knowing their geolocation. ... but I can't follow why one would then continue to use Google Maps. ... or a phone running an OS that Google writes and maintains. ... or, in the case of this particular blog-post, https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/webfont/1.6.26/webfont.js https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/webfont/1.6.26/webfont...
• fwdpropaganda 9y ago
  Two things that happened to me: A) I walk into a store, get a notification from google photos asking me "I see you're at store X, wouldn't you like to take some pictures?". Possibly to use as part of google maps. Thinking back I think this is when I started de-googlifying my life. B) I get a notification from google maps asking me "you're travelling to place X soon, wouldn't you like to download an offline map, just in case you don't have connection there?" Google must have learned that because I had the plane ticket on gmail.
  • fenwick67 9y ago
    #1 is so obnoxious. No Google, I won't do free work for you. At least offer me some store credit.
    • Supermighty 9y ago
      I was taking photos of locations I visited. Google Explorer's program offered free 100GB of Google Drive space once you reached a certain level. About a month after I started they changed the promotion and took away the Drive space. So I deleted all my photos and stopped taking new ones. Never work for free.
      • 659087 9y ago
        > So I deleted all my photos and stopped taking new ones. When you're "deleting" things from services like Google Drive, it's better to think of what you're doing as "hiding things from yourself". It's unlikely that Google actually deleted that data in a way that prevents them from accessing it.
      • djhworld 9y ago
        I've just been looking through the app, it doesn't really describe that well what the "points" system even earns you, for your contributions. The help page has this vague statement saying "Those points lead to higher levels of the program, as well as benefits like early access to Google features and special perks from partners" Obviously covering their backs because "special perks from partners" could mean anything
• laurent123456 9y ago
  What are these "Google" notifications? Is that a "Google" app generating them? If so, can't it be disabled or uninstalled? I don't have this on my Android phone but I've uninstalled or disabled everything Google related. And if you don't want to be tracked, you can also switch off Location History.
  • kibwen 9y ago
    If you try to disable many Google-provided apps on Android, you're presented with a scary-looking screen warning you about system instability, and it's legit. If I attempt to disable Chrome on my phone, for instance, it causes every single app on my phone to crash upon any interaction whatsoever, including third-party apps like Signal. Funny how Chrome is more inseparable from Android than Internet Explorer was from Windows.
    • Animats 9y ago
      I have Google Chrome turned off, and it works fine. I have Fennec, loaded via F-Droid as my browser. You have to have some browser, but it doesn't have to be Google Chrome. One thing that seems to help is that, when I get a new phone, I turn all this stuff off before connecting to anything or even putting in a SIM card. So Google never gets a chance to control the phone's connections to the outside world.
    • izacus 9y ago
      Eh? I have Chrome disabled on several devices (Pixel, ASUS Zenpad, Nexus 7) and the OS works just fine. You need to have some default browser set to avoid apps crashing when they attempt to open links, but Firefox (or any other browser) will do.
    • mojuba 9y ago
      To be fair I can't imagine anything more inseparable than IE and earlier versions of Windows (not sure about the latest ones, haven't used Windows in more than a decade). The HTML engine was literally part of the system in the form of various DLLs shared across pretty much all of Microsoft apps. You could theoretically remove the the browser app which was just a thin GUI, but all the security holes of the engine would still be there.
• creaghpatr 9y ago
  I've always found it kind of alarming in Waze that when you stop at an intersection where there's a gas station they prompt you to enter an updated gas price...even when the app presumes you are the driver. I get that they're trying to get everyone to chip in for the common good but not while I'm literally driving, please.
  • 659087 9y ago
    There's a simple fix for this problem. Give them false information.
  • Zarath 9y ago
    I was using Google Maps the other day through Safari and got a pop up to download the app during the middle of the route and I could barely see the map. I nearly got in an accident trying to dismiss the pop up.
• chrisfosterelli 9y ago
  The idea that you'd have any location privacy while carrying around a cell phone is absurd. Both iPhone and Android devices record location history, and your network provider always has a rough guess of where you are. It may be annoying that Google is very persistent about trying to build its maps dataset, but the suggestion that it's not happening on other devices is crazy.
  • kuschku 9y ago
    My mobile carrier is a local server hoster that also happens to operate a fiber and DSL network in the city, and a small 3G network. They don’t track – I’ve talked with them, personally. And in the future, with the Librem phones, we’ll also be able to ensure there is no tracking on the device side.
    • jrochkind1 9y ago
      Hmm, they don't intentionally track or keep tracking data, but for cell phones to work the network _has_ to know what tower you are next to (or really what 'cell' you are in, why it's called a 'cellular phone'), to deliver a phone call or txt to you. What happens if they get a law enforcement request with warrant/subpoena? I bet the data is there to be delivered. If they aren't _very_ intentional about scrubbing it, it's maybe there in some historical logs too.
      • geofft 9y ago
        I see a huge difference between "will violate my privacy if served with a valid subpoena" and "will violate my privacy to make money on a daily basis". (And, for what it's worth, Apple has fought against a valid subpoena for iPhone data that they did technically have the capability of answering.)
        • jrochkind1 9y ago
          true enough! Just good to know what data is where and accessible by whom. I am pleased that the publicity (mainly from Snowden release) has led some businesses to fight subpoenas and/or warrants in court. I definitely don't count on them to keep doing it, pretty easy for them to silently comply (even _without_ a warrant/subpoena) without publicity, as most everyone has generally done until recently (and I suspect still does often). Also, if you fight in court and lose in court, pretty sure any company will of course hand over the data at that point.
• Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
  > We need some human help So pay me.
  • fixermark 9y ago
    That'd be "Google Opinion Rewards" (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.paidtasks https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...), and it does periodically throw surveys out about your travel history.
    • bob_theslob646 9y ago
      Do they actually pay users a fair wage for their time?
      • kevmo314 9y ago
        I get about 50c of credit for each survey which takes about 15s, so that comes out to $2/min or $120/hr which seems pretty fair. Of course, you can't actually do hours of these things.
        • mrguyorama 9y ago
          It's more like 0-12 cents per survey, and they vary from absolutely odd ("Have you participated in a dance contest in the last month") to awful (most surveys ask you to confirm where you went yesterday)
  • LoSboccacc 9y ago
    they do, in a sense: each review and picture nets you levels and badges, I'm unsure what those are used for except bragging rights, but you can see them in reviewers pages. https://support.google.com/local-guides/answer/6225851?hl=en https://support.google.com/local-guides/answer/6225851?hl=en funny that fake internet points is enough motivation to extract hours of work
• pdelbarba 9y ago
  Disregarding the privacy issues, I find this to also be insanely annoying. I want notifications to be important. Not a bunch of spam that ultimately equates to advertising.
  • tacomonstrous 9y ago
    You can turn off these notifications in the Maps app. It's annoying they're on by default though.
    • ng-user 9y ago
      Thanks! I've been looking for this.
    • brndnmtthws 9y ago
      You shouldn't have to opt out of spam.
      • Anderkent 9y ago
        For most people it's not spam.
        • brndnmtthws 9y ago
          They're using it as a way of increasing their ad revenue by getting free data from their users. How is that not spam? If I send you unsolicited emails asking you to give me photos of products you use which I'll then sell ads for and keep all the revenue, would that not be spam? I did not sign up for any product promotion notifications, so if I receive any it's spam.
          • lern_too_spel 9y ago
            They pay the user for it with increased Google Drive space, a free subscription to the NYT, etc.
• Mizza 9y ago
  Google are a deeply, deeply unethical company and all of their employees are complicit. On a more practical note, I live in apartment above a restaurant. My phone now asks me to review this restaurant every time I come home and wants me to post photos I take in my apartment to the restaurant's map page. Now that OSM data is as good as Google and Maps.Me is a good enough client, my next phone will be completely de-Googled.
  • cloudwalking 9y ago
    I'm sorry, what makes Google so "deeply unethical?"
    • hateduser2 9y ago
      Well I feel like it’s kind of easy to guess what they mean. I’m sure it’s related to spying and data hoarding and tracking and privacy issues and their incentives are highly misaligned and encourage unethical anti consumer behavior.
      • lakerz16 9y ago
        Their incentive is to make money by providing goods or services to customers, which is the same as every business. Go buy something from the department store, give them your phone number when they ask for it, and tell me you don't receive spam calls afterward. Given all that Google knows about you, i'd say they're actually quite polite in how invasive they are. I'd much rather them have this data than 99% of the other companies out there. It sounds like you basically just hate businesses that collect data. I'm sorry to break it to you, but there are a ton of them.
      • fixermark 9y ago
        ... like having images and info on most of the restaurants in my town because the app bothers to ask and some people are happy to answer? I think there's a disconnect here.
      • kajecounterhack 9y ago
• gthtjtkt 9y ago
  It feels like Google has a team dedicated to finding new and idiotic ways to make Android more annoying. The most recent annoyance I experienced was the "Welcome to [State]" announcement every time you're using Google Maps navigation and you cross a state line. Really, Google? You had to interrupt my music for that?
  • Djvacto 9y ago
    I can't imagine you're crossing multiple state lines in a short enough time that this is any more annoying than google maps navigation instructions. Things like that aren't universally liked or dis-liked, but I can see that for you it was way more annoying than it is for me. Have you checked if you can turn it off?
    • gthtjtkt 9y ago
      > I can't imagine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-state_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-state_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_State_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_State_Area I searched and found no way to disable it at the time. I don't re-do that search on a regular basis so I can't say if that's changed since then. And no single annoyance is a huge issue, but when you view this in the larger context of Android's cacophony of distracting annoyances it starts to become mildly infuriating. Everything you do, Android seems to have some way of pestering you about it. Your phone starts to feel like a telemarketer in your pocket.
  • stordoff 9y ago
    I almost feel like there's a slight trend away from technology just _quietly_ doing its job, and instead wanting to be noticed/the centre of attention. I've noticed it with Windows - I've started getting "Defender has scanned your computer and found no threats" notifications, and I've had prompts to rate default apps (not sure if it was Groove Music or the default Photos application on Windows Phone). It also happens on Xbox - I've been part-way through watching a DVD only to get a notification "Use Cortana to do X" (which was doubly frustrating because it was foreign language content and it covered the subtitles).
• nerflad 9y ago
  Just turn off location services on the phone unless you really need them.
  • refurb 9y ago
    Turn it off in your Google account, not your phone (unless that's what you meant). I turned it off years ago and when I read an article that says "click on this link to see how google tracks you!" I see nothing.
    • nerflad 9y ago
      Turning off location history in your account settings is also important, but turning off location services on your phone will prevent the messages from appearing (since Google will, in theory, not have your location readily available).
    • bjt2n3904 9y ago
      I'm sure they're still tracking you, they just don't show you it. ;)
• sharemywin 9y ago
  Not involved in the project but certainly support the premise: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/290746744/eelo-a-mobile-os-and-web-services-in-the-public-in https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/290746744/eelo-a-mobile...
• Voivode_irb 9y ago
  His complaint seems to be directed more to the interface than the infrastructure. IIRC you have to do a fair bit of signing up for things to get these creepy messages. My question would be, if the invasive interruptions sounded less creepy would he still have a problem with them?
• calebgilbert 9y ago
  Waiting for the first person to post something along the lines of: 'And why shouldn't Google do $x? It's part of their fiduciary duty to their shareholders, and anyone who doesn't like it can opt to exercise their rights as a consumer and use another product. I personally love having $x as part of my life and feel it is indispensable. Haters gonna hate. (where $x could be 'bashing babies in the head with a clawhammer' or anything else under the sun) edit: Taking the down votes as a badge of honor by those who, perhaps, identify too strongly as proponents of such sentiments. :-)
  • fixermark 9y ago
    Not just their fiduciary duty: it makes the product better for end-users. Crowd-sourcing data on local businesses gives them a lot fresher and more granular state than they can get with an army of paid scouts.
    • calebgilbert 9y ago
      There are apparently many, many 'end-users' who feel it does not make a better product for them, but thanks for being such a brazen apologist for shady practices.
      • fixermark 9y ago
        Quantify "many many," and compare it to the user count that enjoys having Maps know fine-grained detail about the neighborhood because volunteers answer the questions it asks.
  • mikestew 9y ago
    I’m the first to argue against the “fiduciary duty”, but don’t take the down votes as a badge of honor, but rather as an indicator that you propped up a straw man and proceeded to have your way with him. Nobody wants to see that.
    • calebgilbert 9y ago
• ggggtez 9y ago
  Clicked expecting some bug, just found a person who doesn't know how to turn location off. Meh.
  • slater 9y ago
    Whooosh!
• rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  Unable to connect to the server (and got a 500 error minutes ago) as of 12:17PM EST. Anybody else seeing this? Edit: Now it’s working. 12:20
  • fixermark 9y ago
    It's probably getting bandwidth-hammered.
• geofft 9y ago
  The primary reason I have an iPhone is that I want to reach friends who use Google Hangouts without having literally my entire device be logged in as my Google account. I used to solve this by having an Android with a dedicated account, and logging the Hangouts app into my normal Google account, but that stopped working a couple of Android versions ago.
  • izacus 9y ago
    And now you have a full device logged into an iCloud account. Which Apple is pushing even more obnoxiously (and keeps pestering me about it on both iPad and Mac after each update). What did you gain?
    • geofft 9y ago
      I have all my iCloud sync options off except for Find My iPhone, which isn't something I can do with Google - it'll automatically sign me into everything. And the sync options stay off, even though yes, they do pester me to turn more things on. (Meanwhile, I found this morning that my Chromebook, which I have specifically for high-security things like my domain name registrar and privileged SSH keys, has gone ahead and turned on sync for everything again, despite having turned it off multiple times in the past.) Also, admittedly, part of the benefit here is simply that I don't use Apple services (e.g., I don't use Facetime), I use Google services. I'd get the same benefit if I were using any non-Google phone.
• saulrh 9y ago
  I'm going to be completely honest here: If these things were behind a configuration option and defaulted to off, I'd have gone into my phone and turned that option on. I want to leave reviews for restaurants as I'm walking out of them - it serves the common good and doing it immediately is better for memory. I want to remember to download offline maps when I'm about to go somewhere where I won't have coverage. My memory is terrible enough that I can't do those things myself. Google obviously can't provide this service out of the goodness of its heart, of course it's going to have self-serving tweaks added on, but I consider those to be easily worth the value I get out of Google Prosthetic Associative Memory.
  • sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Also, if they were behind a configuration option and defaulted to on, most people would be fine turning it off and forgetting about it. This seems to be about lack of control. It's good for developers to think carefully before they ship products that do things with no way of being told not to. EDIT: Welp. Apparently these settings exist. I don't understand the point of the blog post then. Why is it so upsetting, if you have the ability to turn it off?
    • daodedickinson 9y ago
      Default on is outrageous. It's clear the average person doesn't know how to access and manage even some of these settings, much less understand what they do or be able to understand what privacy violations will continue despite turning something off in one place.
      • jonathankoren 9y ago
        And that is why they default to on. If they defaulted to off, no one would turn it on, and they wouldn’t be able to hoover up the data.
      • izacus 9y ago
        You are explicitly asked about that feature when settinng up your phone for the first time.
• ucaetano 9y ago
  Wow, the author is surprised that when she/he shared her/his location with Google, Google actually got her/his location. If only Google made it ridiculously easy to disable this. Oh, wait, it does: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?hl=en
  • amelius 9y ago
    If you have to stop and think about every bad consequence of any of your actions on your phone, then at some point the phone loses its usefulness, and becomes a nuisance. The device should think for you, not against you.
    • ucaetano 9y ago
      This isn't even your phone, this is your Google Account. Isn't even limited to Android. But yes, you should think of the consequences of signing up for a service that clearly states that it records your location history.
• JepZ 9y ago
  Yeah, Google could still be the cool company they were around 2000, if they just were not so greedy about collecting data for their Advertising business... Another thing is that every time you start using an Android phone, all Google sync services are activated. So you have no chance to disable them until its too late and Google uploaded all your contacts into their cloud. That should be illegal.
  • fixermark 9y ago
    I'm not sure why people think the data is being collected for advertising, as opposed to, say, improving the ground-truth on the Google Maps dataset. I've contributed some images to the photo request. They end up appearing in Maps as the picture of the establishment.
    • JepZ 9y ago
      Yeah, sure the pictures are for maps, but in the end Maps turned into a place where businesses have to be present as it is the de facto location based search engine. At the moment, I am not sure how they are making money with maps, but I find it a little odd that they keep asking to contribute pictures when it clearly shows that they are tracking every movement of you. So something is wrong there (at the very least that they are tracking us all).
  • singularity2001 9y ago
    actually I'm pretty sure it in Europe it is illegal. thanks for pointing it out.
• mooreds 9y ago
  You could turn off location tracking on your phone. Yes, it makes life a bit more inconvenient, but it lowers the creep factor significantly.
• bhhaskin 9y ago
  There are things you can do to help fight this. Donate some time or money to the Ubuntu Phone project. It isn't maintained by canonical anymore, but it is far from dead. More choices and options are what we need now. It is insane that there are basically two OS you can do.
  • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Purism's Librem 5 would be a better effort at this point.
• trqx 9y ago
  Yet the author attempts to shove google js down our throats. https://i.imgur.com/6AJLhnR.png https://i.imgur.com/6AJLhnR.png
  • fixermark 9y ago
    ... while complaining about Google being creepy, nonetheless. So "Creepy, but not SO creepy that I won't trust them to vend code that I'll direct my readers' user agents to download", then. ;)
• mcny 9y ago
  I am here pleading, begging Google to give me (and everyone else) an option to set up a free of cost, always on VPN something like {this} but which you can enable on any network all the time. I don't mind Google having access to all my data as long as they are dominant. The problem in my opinion is the push back they are getting from advertising agencies (wsj is only a hired gun afaict)... I'm guessing one London based plastic company in particular is waging a war on Google. If I were Google, I would not share I formation about my property. It just doesn't make sense to share this information with your customers. {This} https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/6327199?visit_id=1-636518928482913910-3054715947&p=wifi_assistant&rd=1 https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/6327199?visit_id=1-6...
  • jacksmith21006 9y ago
    Tend to agree. Is the data saving option with Chrome somewhat doing this? I am in the US and our cable providers are now allowed to sell our Internet data on sites we visit. We use Google DNS instead of ISP because of this and hate how ISP injects into DNS with an ad and Google does not do this. Which they could and make a ton of money. But our ISP still has routing data in where we visit. I would like my data to just be one place if possible and trust Google to be that place.
• FreakyT 9y ago
  This issue reminds me of a key permission iOS gives control over while Android (even post-Nougat) doesn't: The distinction between allowing an app to use location while the app is open versus anytime. Android makes no distinction between these two states, which opens up the ability for many apps (not just Google's) to enable automatic stalking mode. Take Yelp, for example. I do want it to be able to access my location so I can easily lookup restaurants nearby. However, on Android, once you give Yelp the location permission, it'll start popping up notifications about things near your current location, which is just creepy. On iOS, you can restrict it to only be able to see your location when using the app, which is what I want for most apps.
  • abawany 9y ago
    And Maps gets very annoying when I refuse to enable full location permissions for Google Play; the random prompts to enable it, hoping I would agree when not paying attention, are super sleazy. I uninstalled it last night after trialing a combination of HERE and OsmAnd. It is a lot more inconvenient but the idea of location tracking when the app in question is not in use is creepy and wasteful.
  • adregan 9y ago
    Yes! And the newest version of iOS grants you the ability to say "while using the app" for any app rather than just the apps where the developer gave the user that option.
    • duskwuff 9y ago
      And if an iOS app does request access to the user's location while in the background, it's required to have a specific explanation of why it needs that: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Reference/InfoPlistKeyReference/Articles/CocoaKeys.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009251-SW18 https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Ge...
      • mrguyorama 9y ago
        I really wish I didn't dislike apple and hate their UI and design
• bob_theslob646 9y ago
  The real question is: is this creepy or ingenious? The reality is that their products are the best because they are able to crowdsource the masses for practically free. Google Maps- How do you think they are so good with traffic and or know when a place is busy? [Google admits it tracked user location data even when the setting was turned off](https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684818/google-location-tracking-cell-tower-data-android-os-firebase-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684818/google-location...) Tensorflow- All those captchas you had to type and click? Yeah they were used to digitize books and build an amazing clean image dataset. [Google Inc. Acquires Carnegie Mellon Spin-off ReCAPTCHA Inc.](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/google-inc-acquires-carnegie-mellon-spin-recaptcha-inc https://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/google-inc-acquires-carnegie-mel...) (https://techcrunch.com/2007/09/16/recaptcha-using-captchas-to-digitize-books/ https://techcrunch.com/2007/09/16/recaptcha-using-captchas-t...) Some of it may be unethical, because they do not do a great job of explicitly stating what they do with your data, but some of it may be for the greater good.(intentions are not bad.) An example is traffic. I think in this case, I would like them to know so that they can warn/tell others, to save others time. It is the wild wild west when it comes to data privacy laws in the U.S compared to the E.U, because there are none and (currently) it is easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.
  • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    reCAPTCHA is a freaking nightmare, it's gotten worse and worse, it often has me go through two or three pages worth of image recognition puzzles before letting me log in. And since it's used on non-Google sites, it's nearly unavoidable.
    • Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
      I got one the other day asking me to click on the “crosswalks”. Seriously, Google, amongst the vast trove of information you hold on me/my IP address will be “in Britain”, so maybe try writing in British English rather than using a word that 90% of us won’t understand.
• mankash666 9y ago
  Concur completely. The practical alternative - an iPhone, is worse in other ways. In the history of general purpose computing, never ever has a company sold hardware to the customer transferring ownership rights to the customer, and then locked the device up to apps approved by the hardware manufacturer, going as far as taking a 30% cut. How this is flying past regulators is anyone's guess, and as more time progresses, people will begin to think that running apps on hardware they own is a privilege, not a right. Ludicrous!! So, the choice between an ever spying phone and one that you cannot run/publish apps of your choosing is a hard one. However, with the right configuration, Android can be made a lot less intrusive, retaining the ability to run the apps of your choosing
  • rpowers 9y ago
    Not a hard decision at all. There are very few apps you cannot already purchase for the iPhone or cannot write yourself with a free developer profile.
    • mankash666 9y ago
      "cannot write yourself with a free developer profile" --> THIS is complete disconnect with the potential end user, unless the app is for iPhone developers. The world is comprised of 99.9999999999999999999% non iOS developers
• kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  People in this thread are clutching their pearls about invasion of privacy and are going on about how they won't do any free work for Google yet hardly any of them has voluntarily given a dime to Google in return of the tons of services they get from it. Where do you think all the reviews come from? Who puts information about traffic cops on Waze? From a million monkeys smashing keyboards?
  • mike_ivanov 9y ago
    A paying Google customer here. The fact that I'm giving them quite more than a dime doesn't make me exempt from stalking. What's your point?
    • kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
      Are you paying for the reviews?
      • mike_ivanov 9y ago
        No, and I never pay attention to those reviews. They typically don't match the actual experience.
  • 6d6b73 9y ago
    Yeah poor Google.. They don't get a dime from people yet somehow they are one of the most valuable companies in the world..
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• daodedickinson 9y ago
  Google's creepy, but it seems the author should be savvy enough to know that Facebook does a lot more than what is implied here. Facebook goes after you all over the internet whether you have a Facebook account or not and won't let you delete the dossier they have on you. I don't see much of an ethical difference between the two companies; they are full of people chasing an ideal of success that is opposed to mine.
• dwg 9y ago
  Growing pains on the way to a true digital personal assistant. The industry has to figure out how to deal with privacy concerns, because a digital assistant which is continuously aware of your location and what you're doing will be tremendously useful. It's a little friend in your pocket that we won't be able to imagine living without. Traffic jam ahead? Got you covered. Can't remember someones name? I've got it here. Need to remember the name of that great you discovered last time you were in this area? Got it here. Looks like you need an ambulance.. it's on the way. Privacy issues abound, but possibilities are endless and people _want_ these features. At present many of the benefits from a smart phone that we have become accustomed to are only possible because of data harvesting. Perhaps as hardware continues to evolve, and these features commoditized we can convince organizations that we will actually pay for the services if we can have greater control over our data. Thanks for sharing your views on what is "creepy". Not everyone agrees (as can be seen from the comments) and I have a feeling that what feels creepy today will seem normal tomorrow, but your concerns are valid.
  • KhanMahGretsch 9y ago
    >It's a little friend in your pocket No, it's not. Google is entirely incentivised to extract the maximum amount of value from those reliant on their services, and the level of dependence is proportional to how much much they can potentially make off you. This is how a company works, and this is fine, but it is very dangerous to imagine that Google has anyone's best-interest at heart except their own.
    • brokenmachine 9y ago
      But it is symbiotic in some ways.
  • 1_2__4 9y ago
    Ugh your response reminds me so much of Google PR speak at TGIFs and such that it's hard for me to believe you don't work for Google. This is exactly the picture Google PR has been trying to create for years - years, by now! - and all evidence suggests that a) No, it's not what people want. It seems convenient in concept and even in practice, until the moment they encounter something that makes clear to them just how much a third-party companies knows (and can divulge) about their life, and they immediately start trying to turn this stuff off. b) It's not what people need. The fact is most of these services are problems looking for solutions, and offer an overabundance of data for a user who simply does not need it and can't use it. Traffic jam ahead? Thanks for the heads up but not like I could modify my plans or route, so that's useless. Can't remember someone's name? What, am I going to take a picture of them and then whisper 'hey google who is that person' discretely into my phone? Need to remember the name of that great (elided) last time you were in the area? Chances are you could just look it up and in the process discover other interesting things - and I'm not even sure what you mean here, like, is Google going to show me a list of everyplace I went when I was there? Why do you think so many so-called personal assistants just keep getting used for the same thing? How many things need to tell me the weather today, or traffic conditions? c) These things don't work and what you're essentialy are advocating for is that we give up our privacy and personal data in exchange for broken systems (sorry, "growing pains" - nevermind Google's been pitching these things for years and they're still mostly used to set timers and answer silly trivia questions - poorly) that may someday offer something we don't need (see a and b). That's a garbage deal if ever I heard one. I think you want people to want these features because they comport with your idea of the future. But the fact is reality is not playing out like that.
• gerash 9y ago
  The way I see it is Google is offering a free and optional yet pre-installed service, namely Google maps, and is sometimes asking its users to contribute to its POI dataset. It'll be both good for Google and its users if the information about a restaurant is accurate or the gas prices for a gas station is up to date. The notifications could be sent way too often and I get that would be annoying but the whole concept isn't that bad.
  • ehsankia 9y ago
    This is a notification problem, not a privacy one. These people are just annoyed that the app is sending them too many notification, and are outraged at an entirely different thing. Google Maps' whole job is to know your location; it having the location data is as much of a privacy violating as a hospital having your heart rate.
  • realusername 9y ago
    > optional yet pre-installed service Most of these apps are system and not-deletable unless you root your phone, there are maybe free but not optional for most of them...
• dontnotice 9y ago
  It's always surprising how much comments and postings in these parts are vehemently in opposition to data being usefully incorporated into these apps and services, I remember a recent post about how Google's passive on device music identification worked on the Pixel 2 which turned hostel. I understand that certain types of people are attracted to certain topics but it's still somewhat jarring when in a technology discussion board there is this amount of anti tech sentiment. This feature is useful, it puts that data gathered to a good use, and it's upfront about it, if you don't like it just swipe the notification away. Don't be fooled, the iPhone is gathering the same type of data it just only snitches on non system apps doing so in the background. Not to mention that it looks like they don't put that data to good use which as far as I'm concerned is the greater sin.
  • KhanMahGretsch 9y ago
    I think the article primarily addresses the tone-deaf way in which Google addresses the user, not so much the practice of gathering data and providing useful suggestions to the user "like magic", which does indeed have it's benefits. There's an implied deal that the user will provide their data to Google so they may profit from it, and in return they will provide you with a service free-of-charge. The article, and some anecdotes here in the comments, indicate that Google can be a little needy and tone-deaf in prompting the user to provide them with even MORE data, at times. Instead of passively collecting data, they appear to actively prompt the user to feed their machine, which is very annoying and creepy in the author's opinion.
    • dontnotice 9y ago
      I was responding more to the comments in this thread.
• rapnie 9y ago
  Well.. maybe an Android installation _without_ google (and samsung bloatware) is something for you :) https://eelo.io/ https://eelo.io/
• 4bpp 9y ago
  The obvious countermeasure seems to be to feed them bullshit data (wrong reviews, pictures from elsewhere and what-not), but for some curious reason this feels antisocial against other Google users in a way that outweighs the benefits of sabotaging their data collection. Attacking Google almost has something of being an /r/atheism style gadfly. (Well, there's also the problem that there is no telling how they would react to an account getting flagged for nonsense submissions. Losing access to my gmail would be a personal catastrophe well in excess of losing a full wallet or two.)
• cromwellian 9y ago
  How is this functionality different than an app asking you to review it after using it? The app “knows” your using it and prompts you to contribute to crowd sourced app reviews in the App Store. Apple likely knows what apps you have run unless you disable all diagnostics and lots of apps phone home. In this case, geo fencing is prompting you to review a location instead of an app. I think people rely on a lot more crowdsourced information, much of it from nagging or campaigning, than they realize and would be sad if it didn’t exist. Waze has saved my bacon many times. Google Maps’s knowledge of near real time bussiness congestion or closures has stopped me from wasting an hour driving somewhere only to find out it’s closed or all full. On the health front we could probably save millions of lives from disease if more anonymized health records were available to researchers for application of machine learning to medical histories or prediction of complications. So much good could be done in the world.
  • megaman22 9y ago
    I've made it a policy that if an app pops up unsolicited modals to badger me about rating it, it automatically gets a 0-start review. That pattern needs to die in a fire.
    • aiCeivi9 9y ago
      It was already replaced by other pattern - it first asks for meaningless rating in app and only if user selects 5 stars he is redirected to AppStore .
    • aembleton 9y ago
      I just drop one star each time they ask, and update the comment to make that clear.
• jccalhoun 9y ago
  I guess I don't see these things on my phone because I'm cheap and rarely ever have data on. But if I did, I wouldn't be shocked that a device with gps and internet access knows where I am and a company that makes money by people using it because it is useful would want to make their product more useful.
• turc1656 9y ago
  Serious question for the HN community - why do you leave your GPS on/activated by default? I have mine disabled unless I specifically need it for something, which is rare. Usually the only time I ever need GPS is for driving instructions. Otherwise, it's off. GPS is also the biggest battery hog on the device. Why would you leave this on? Do you all use it far more frequently or was it something you never thought to shut off? I can't think of one app I use that requires my location other than weather, in which case I just set the location(s) I want and can refresh at any time. But I generally get weather from a saved DuckDuckGo search - "[zipcode] weather" - stored as a bookmark and problem solved. On a related note, Google has created a tool that allows you to see all the data they have on you (and delete it if you want). Because of the way I set up everything and my habits, they had virtually nothing on me. The only stuff I think were some chats from years and years ago and a few searches I did while not in incognito mode on my phone. I also don't use any of their apps from their main product suite - no search, email, chat, drive, etc. And I never leave myself logged in to my account on anything. I don't think this reduces my productivity or quality of life at all. In fact, quality of life is almost certainly improved.
  • cm2187 9y ago
    Geotagging of photos, reducing the time it takes to acquire your gps location when you need a map. These are reasonable reasons to have GPS running all the time. There are not reasons to upload these locations to a remote server outside of your control nor to log these locations on the device.
  • nkurz 9y ago
    Good comment. Might be worth mentioning that turning GPS off reduces the accuracy of your location, but does not prevent it from being known: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684818/google-location-tracking-cell-tower-data-android-os-firebase-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684818/google-location... GPS is also the biggest battery hog on the device. I'd be surprised that this is true. I used several battery monitor apps on several phones, and never found this to the case. It's a simple receiver, and doesn't require much power to do so. If you find a correspondence, it may be more likely that the power is actually being used by the apps that are using GPS, rather than the GPS itself: http://alienmantech.com/blog/android-disable-gps-save-battery-power/ http://alienmantech.com/blog/android-disable-gps-save-batter...
• ddillon 9y ago
  Given the message in the article, I find it interesting they use Google Analytics on their site still.
• antiphase 9y ago
  I can only assume this guy wears The Breeches Of Trust
• calimac 9y ago
  How many times do we have to be reminded. USERS ARE THE PRODUCT. We are the mice, google "Services" are the cheese, and the people, companies, advertisers, governments, technocrats, et al. are the clients/customers who pay google. Google users are and never will be more than products. The customer is always right (not the product is always right).
• eleitl 9y ago
  Use good Android forks like CopperheadOS sans Gapps.
• modzu 9y ago
  It's not so much the privacy that bugs be about this -- its the cognitive intrusion; my phone vibrating for my attention only to look at it and see this bullshit. Ick.
  • Too 9y ago
    Agree, this is the biggest issue. I get slightly annoyed by this but what's worse is for old and non tech people. Has anyone at google studied for even 2 minutes how non tech people use a phone? My grandma panics every time there is a notification that is not a SMS or a phone call. I opened her phone and there was som many unread crap-notifications that you couldn't even find the ones that were from her real friends. I get questions like how can i see if i have any unread text messages, which is an instant proof that the UI is wrong. Also the phrasing of these notifications make you think they were designed by someone from Ryanair. "Add your photo to google maps" the instant you take a photo could easily be confused with "Save this photo" for someone who doesn't understand tech.
• alinspired 9y ago
  at least for now these notifications can be disabled
• mhb 9y ago
  See also - Quayside - Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs redevelopment effort: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16181331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16181331
• singularity2001 9y ago
  This creep factor was the main reason why I got another IPhone. As a developer I'd much prefer an Android (hating the Apple Store but thats another story), however as a user Android was a total no-go.
  • singularity2001 9y ago
    I was even daring enough to install the superb Google keyboard on the iPhone but only because they explicitly repeatedly say that they do not send my data home. if they ever do Google is dead! Speaking of: Why does Siri (mother of all bitches) thinks she needs my GPS in order to tell me the weather??
    • dingdongding 9y ago
      Otherwise how the hell does Siri find out your accurate location to tell you weather. your IP address?
• VyseofArcadia 9y ago
  Off topic, but scroll to the very bottom of the linked page and mouseover all of the little circles. I like that. That's slick.
• MikeGale 9y ago
  It's your choice. If you don't like the "surveillance capitalism" of Google, don't get their devices, fix your DNS etc. to not be able to contact them, etc.
• abiox 9y ago
  i don't mind google's data collection. the ergonomics of user-interaction can be a bit annoying. that said, assuming we're safe and private because we turn stuff off, or opt out of things, just seems silly. the nsa (or whichever agency) just invokes 'something something national security' and they can track you just the same, and google (or your carrier, or various other intermediaries) can't even tell you about it.
• seba_dos1 9y ago
  It's time again to advertise microG - free software reimplementation of Google Play Services which allows one to somehow control their privacy without abstaining from most of the Android software out there that require Play Services. There are even constantly updated images of a preconfigured LineageOS fork - https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/
• babesh 9y ago
  When you realize you are a battery in the Matrix... and then you realize it is a symbiotic relationship.
• teded32 9y ago
  Noodlehead is pretty good though, right?
• hn2017 9y ago
  I just hate these non-descriptive titles, regardless of the content. But maybe that's just me.
• hi41 9y ago
  I owned Google Pixel last year. I found the constant pestering from Google Maps to upload more photos very annoying. I returned after a while. I sent the following issues to Google customer service and returned the device. I am putting that here with a sense of respect to both Google and hn community. Some of it is dated. I am very unhappy with the Pixel purchase. It is not worth the price. I am an iPhone user who switched to Pixel after seeing the Pixel event. I am also a Google fan but I found the experience with Pixel jarring. Below is my experience so far. I am going to return the Pixel and go back to my old iPhone 5s. 1. My experience with music on Android I did not like Google Play Music app because the free version meant having to put up with ads. Also I did not like to use data to play the songs I already owned. So I downloaded the songs on Google Play Music. But I did not like the Google Play Music app interface. So I read reviews of the best music player and bought Neutron and Poweramp. But both music apps were not able to use the music which Google Play Music downloaded. So I spent an hour to find ways to move music from my pc to Pixel and did it with windows media player. Now I started using Neutron and I chose the automatic option to find music and it started played Podcast files which is not what I expected (I had bought Pocket cast and downloaded some podcasts earlier). Then I used Poweramp. But what I noticed was a bug in Android OS. When I connected the 3.5 mm audio jack and disconnected a call I was on, both Neutron and Poweramp started playing! Shouldn't Android OS allow only one player to play music. Isn't that the most basic test case! So playing music on Android was a bad experience. When I close the app the music was still playing. The app was sitting in the notification area and still running. I wanted to stop playing music when I closed the app. Why doesn't Google make a decent default music player for Android? And why does the music start playing when I connect the 3.5 mm cable. I may not want to hear music but may want to listen to a podcast. The music experience has been horrible on the Pixel. 2. Using Google Assistant to make a conference call I pressed and held the middle button and said "call Jack". It brought up a list of numbers and chose one and the call failed. This is a conference call number. The contacts has a comma in between two numbers. Comma is used for a pause. Google Assistant dropped the comma and dialed the number and the call failed. Because of this bug in Google Assistant I can't use it to make a call to a conference all. 3. Podcasts I bought Pocket Cast but on the locked screen I don't see the 10 second rewind and forward buttons. I only see the back and next buttons. Whey can't I see the 10 second rewind and forward buttons? Why do I have to unlock the phone to access those two buttons? It is irritating to hear 30 minutes of the podcast only to press the back button and be put in the beginning of the podcast. 4. iTablaPro Android does not have a decent alternative to iOS' iTablePro app. The swar systems app is not that good. For certain user compaints on the Google Play store, the developer asks the customer to go to a certain folder and delete files. Why expose a customer to such intricate technical issues. Also there are certain issues that happen on other models that is related to timing. Generally I notice that the quality of apps is not good compared to iOS. 5. The back button Using the back button is confusing. Sometimes instead of taking me to the previous screen, the app takes me to the home screen. Why? 6. No headphones I paid $750. So why doesn't Pixel come with a headset? 7. Video editing I found it hard to trim and cut videos. I did not find a default android app to edit and trim videos. 8. Music snycing If I delete a song how do it sync it so that it deletes on my pc as well? Why isn't Google making a good music sync program. 9. Local search results on the phone does not include the music files on the phone. Why? 10. When I turn on my Bluetooth headset the music plays on it instead of the 3.5 mm jack. I don't see any easy way to choose 3.5 mm jack for songs and take calls using my bluetooth headset. In all I am not happy with the price I paid for Pixel and the Android os and apps seem to work poorly. Android is poorly designed without paying care to the needs of the customer. I am deeply dissatisfied. It hurts me to say it because I am a big fan of Google as a company and like many of its services.
• nikki93 9y ago
  It’s interesting how we use individual-inspired predicates when refering to the complex identity “Google” in this thread — “Google wants ...” “Google should ...” —- would Google get mad at you and stop talking to you when you do something bad? I guess it would. Who is Google? The alignment of the agency, benefit, desires, ... seems to lie among various “actual” humans, it’s a distributed system across human identities much like its actual software is distributed across servers. I keep wondering whether interacting with it while assuming it to be motivated in similar ways that individuals would be is a sensible approach in general, and how we have constructed it to be so given our incentive and preference systems (buying products, paying for services, etc.) It’s very much a mirror of the human self: self centered, attached to its ego.