5 ms·

It's funny how the people here are sort of flocking to the alternative: having regulated privacy guarantees. Of course Google is only implementing RCS here. Th

It's funny how the people here are sort of flocking to the alternative: having regulated privacy guarantees. Of course Google is only implementing RCS here. That would be the agreed (with governments & telcos) standard, the result of regulation. Needless to say, it totally exposes everything to government, and to telcos, and to "interoperability providers" (which Google would be). It is strictly worse than Google when it comes to privacy. I think it includes more than just their chat messages, it seems to include things where you'd be like "why does this need to be part of chat ?" like location. And it comes with a little something for telcos that I doubt anyone here will like : per-message billing. On the plus side: it will work without a data subscription (I think). On the minus side: per-message billing, with or without data subscription. So the net effect is that people are being deceived - by amnesty no less - into pressuring Google and governments to expose more of their private information to more parties. Unfortunately what this does mean is that Google is now caving to government demands - full exposure of everyone's information all the time, without any reason or oversight. Not just to the government, but because the government is also incompetent and can't be bothered to actually store these or make them searchable, they demand you also give all telcos access to it (who will then store it and make it accessible to government agents), and we all know most of those telcos will outsource actually doing this, because they're government monopolies.

tantalor 9y ago
> like location Sharing current location with contacts is a pretty basic feature.
- pacala 9y ago
  Where "contacts" that are truly interested in this "basic feature" consist of Google, Verizon and 3 letter agencies. Sign me out, thank you very much.
  - kalleboo 9y ago
    Google (who's software is running your phone) and your operator (who is constantly triangulating you to know where to broadcast the radio signal) already know exactly where you are.
    - pacala 9y ago
      * Google doesn't run software on my phone, thank you very much. * At the time I was using Android, they were using a plethora of dark patterns to force me to continuously share my location with the "Google Maps" application, even if not in use. Indicating that they weren't just slurping the location info via Android. Most likely because of legal concerns: there are plenty of alternatives to the "Google Maps" application, there are only 2 widely adopted mobile OSes; the spectre of anti-monopoly action looms large. * There are legal arguments to be made to prevent my operator from profiting from my location information. > Commercial privacy of location information in the United States > The U.S. does limit commercial use of location information under the (US) Telecommunications Act, at 47 CFR §222. The Telecommunications Act, at 47 CFR §222(f), requires consent from the subscriber, and prohibits telecommunication common carriers from accessing location information for purposes other than system operation without consent of the customer.[28] Businesses such as LocationSmart, which provide a tracking service based on subscriber information, require mobile users' consent prior to tracking.[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking#United_S...
      - kalleboo 9y ago
        * Great! Then you also don't have to worry about RCS. What's the problem? * Right, my point. Google knows where you are. * "customer consent" could that not just be a buried paragraph in the contract you signed to get the plan?
- pmontra 9y ago
  A basic feature which I used maybe 5 times in all my life, more to check how it works than because of a real need. So, not so basic and maybe not even an advanced one. How about "dangerous"? There have been ways to tell friends where we are since forever, no need to let Google know. My GPS is turned off, I could buy a phone without it.
  - apatters 9y ago
    Just because the feature isn't valuable for your personal use case doesn't mean it isn't valuable. I share my location several times a week. It's especially useful in areas where street addresses don't follow a logical order (or are nonexistent altogether). I want to be able to share my location with Google so that they can share it with one of my contacts. I then want Google to discard that information. I don't want them to share it with other parties unless I consent specifically to each instance. My consent should be informed (a lot of problems would be solved if we just held businesses to higher standards in terms of disclosing their business practices). I'm even OK with certain exceptions that are consistent with principles that Western civilization is built on. For example if Google retains that information for a period of time solely for the purpose of complying with a lawful search by the police, for which a warrant was obtained based on a reasonable and specific suspicion, I'm OK with that. We don't need to throw the baby out with the bath water.
    - pacala 9y ago
      When $746 billion of market capitalization critically depend on Google carefully recording your location information every second in the day and using it to increase advertisement revenue, it is somewhat naive to expect the Google will comply with common ethical sense out of the good of their hearts. On the flip side, if communication with your contacts is encrypted end to end [possibly with law enforcement agencies with a warrant having access to decryption keys], then no matter how much monetary incentive Google has to violate your privacy, they can't. How about we build systems that keep creepy stalkers at bay by design? What happened with "can-do" attitude in the hacker-sphere?
      - 9y ago
- candiodari 9y ago
  When asking for it, sure. When not ... not so much.

tantalor 9y ago

> like location Sharing current location with contacts is a pretty basic feature.

pacala 9y ago
Where "contacts" that are truly interested in this "basic feature" consist of Google, Verizon and 3 letter agencies. Sign me out, thank you very much.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  Google (who's software is running your phone) and your operator (who is constantly triangulating you to know where to broadcast the radio signal) already know exactly where you are.
  - pacala 9y ago
    * Google doesn't run software on my phone, thank you very much. * At the time I was using Android, they were using a plethora of dark patterns to force me to continuously share my location with the "Google Maps" application, even if not in use. Indicating that they weren't just slurping the location info via Android. Most likely because of legal concerns: there are plenty of alternatives to the "Google Maps" application, there are only 2 widely adopted mobile OSes; the spectre of anti-monopoly action looms large. * There are legal arguments to be made to prevent my operator from profiting from my location information. > Commercial privacy of location information in the United States > The U.S. does limit commercial use of location information under the (US) Telecommunications Act, at 47 CFR §222. The Telecommunications Act, at 47 CFR §222(f), requires consent from the subscriber, and prohibits telecommunication common carriers from accessing location information for purposes other than system operation without consent of the customer.[28] Businesses such as LocationSmart, which provide a tracking service based on subscriber information, require mobile users' consent prior to tracking.[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking#United_S...
    - kalleboo 9y ago
      * Great! Then you also don't have to worry about RCS. What's the problem? * Right, my point. Google knows where you are. * "customer consent" could that not just be a buried paragraph in the contract you signed to get the plan?
pmontra 9y ago
A basic feature which I used maybe 5 times in all my life, more to check how it works than because of a real need. So, not so basic and maybe not even an advanced one. How about "dangerous"? There have been ways to tell friends where we are since forever, no need to let Google know. My GPS is turned off, I could buy a phone without it.
- apatters 9y ago
  Just because the feature isn't valuable for your personal use case doesn't mean it isn't valuable. I share my location several times a week. It's especially useful in areas where street addresses don't follow a logical order (or are nonexistent altogether). I want to be able to share my location with Google so that they can share it with one of my contacts. I then want Google to discard that information. I don't want them to share it with other parties unless I consent specifically to each instance. My consent should be informed (a lot of problems would be solved if we just held businesses to higher standards in terms of disclosing their business practices). I'm even OK with certain exceptions that are consistent with principles that Western civilization is built on. For example if Google retains that information for a period of time solely for the purpose of complying with a lawful search by the police, for which a warrant was obtained based on a reasonable and specific suspicion, I'm OK with that. We don't need to throw the baby out with the bath water.
  - pacala 9y ago
    When $746 billion of market capitalization critically depend on Google carefully recording your location information every second in the day and using it to increase advertisement revenue, it is somewhat naive to expect the Google will comply with common ethical sense out of the good of their hearts. On the flip side, if communication with your contacts is encrypted end to end [possibly with law enforcement agencies with a warrant having access to decryption keys], then no matter how much monetary incentive Google has to violate your privacy, they can't. How about we build systems that keep creepy stalkers at bay by design? What happened with "can-do" attitude in the hacker-sphere?
    - 9y ago
candiodari 9y ago
When asking for it, sure. When not ... not so much.