4 ms·

"anonymized" 100% deserves/needs scare quotes around that. I mean just look at the snake-oil bullshit wording Google are using to describe what they do here:

"anonymized" 100% deserves/needs scare quotes around that. I mean just look at the snake-oil bullshit wording Google are using to describe what they do here: "Before we launched this beta product last year, we built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users’ personally identifiable information,” I mean, I guess there are proper cryptographic means by which you could achieve something that matches that description. But does _anyone_ trust the worlds biggest advertising company to be doing that???

spydum 8y ago
Out of all the other possible parties that could have attempted this? Yup, I'd say I trust them the most.
- taneq 8y ago
  What Google can do and what they choose to do are two different things.
- bigiain 8y ago
  I don't doubt one bit that they have people capable and probably even willing to get the crypto right. I _strongly_ doubt they have the corporate will or motivation to actually put it into production. I'd go so far as to say "getting it right" is antithetical to their (enormously profitable and deeply entrenched) business model.
  - spydum 8y ago
    I don't know about that. Measuring ad impact is extremely valuable. What is interesting to me is the obvious bias of being the seller of ads as well as the impact measurement provider.. fox guarding the henhouse and all
  - tdb7893 8y ago
    If they sold it to Mastercard as double blind I personally would trust them on it. Lying to consumers seems to turn out fine but lying to large corporations I would bet gets expensive and my experience is that a large org will bend over backwards to meet the letter (if not the spirit) of what they say.
dgzl 8y ago
What you're probably worried about is an entity being able to fingerprint you based on a few simple data points and a profile of someone who fits those data points. Which is possible, and increasingly accurate.
xapata 8y ago
Yes, I do trust them. They don't need PII to get value from this.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
"Anonymized" always deserves scare quotes, because there ain't such thing as "anonymized"; there's only "anonymized until correlated with other data sets". Anyway. Yes, I do trust that of all parties, Google actually would both develop and deploy whatever that "double-blind encryption technology" is. Still, it's not the problem. I think we need to stop dancing around the real issue with all that talk about PII. No, I really don't care about my PII just leaking somewhere. I care about what people do with them. It's what companies do with PII, "anonymized" or not, that's the problem. Advertising, upselling, price discrimination. Those are the real problems.
fosco 8y ago
having sat during conversations at a large credit card company it turns out 4 to 5 transactions are all that is needed to identify a person. meta data like where you made purchases when you made purchases and how much you spent and maybe a few other details are all you need 4 or 5 times to de-anonymize full disclosure... I have 3 credit cards from this company....at this point I cannot imagine writing checks and carrying cash for daily use... I am not sure this battle can be won at this point.

spydum 8y ago

Out of all the other possible parties that could have attempted this? Yup, I'd say I trust them the most.

taneq 8y ago
What Google can do and what they choose to do are two different things.
bigiain 8y ago
I don't doubt one bit that they have people capable and probably even willing to get the crypto right. I _strongly_ doubt they have the corporate will or motivation to actually put it into production. I'd go so far as to say "getting it right" is antithetical to their (enormously profitable and deeply entrenched) business model.
- spydum 8y ago
  I don't know about that. Measuring ad impact is extremely valuable. What is interesting to me is the obvious bias of being the seller of ads as well as the impact measurement provider.. fox guarding the henhouse and all
- tdb7893 8y ago
  If they sold it to Mastercard as double blind I personally would trust them on it. Lying to consumers seems to turn out fine but lying to large corporations I would bet gets expensive and my experience is that a large org will bend over backwards to meet the letter (if not the spirit) of what they say.

dgzl 8y ago

What you're probably worried about is an entity being able to fingerprint you based on a few simple data points and a profile of someone who fits those data points. Which is possible, and increasingly accurate.

xapata 8y ago

Yes, I do trust them. They don't need PII to get value from this.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

"Anonymized" always deserves scare quotes, because there ain't such thing as "anonymized"; there's only "anonymized until correlated with other data sets". Anyway. Yes, I do trust that of all parties, Google actually would both develop and deploy whatever that "double-blind encryption technology" is. Still, it's not the problem. I think we need to stop dancing around the real issue with all that talk about PII. No, I really don't care about my PII just leaking somewhere. I care about what people do with them. It's what companies do with PII, "anonymized" or not, that's the problem. Advertising, upselling, price discrimination. Those are the real problems.

fosco 8y ago

having sat during conversations at a large credit card company it turns out 4 to 5 transactions are all that is needed to identify a person. meta data like where you made purchases when you made purchases and how much you spent and maybe a few other details are all you need 4 or 5 times to de-anonymize full disclosure... I have 3 credit cards from this company....at this point I cannot imagine writing checks and carrying cash for daily use... I am not sure this battle can be won at this point.