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I don't understand, the piece looks like it promises to address all the problems highlighted in the past few days in Chrome 70. Why are you saying it is a PR pi

I don't understand, the piece looks like it promises to address all the problems highlighted in the past few days in Chrome 70. Why are you saying it is a PR piece?

petilon 8y ago
Because the feature is ON by default. Naive users will not know to turn it off. That doesn't mean they don't care about privacy.
satori99 8y ago
The problems were easily foreseeable, and they did it anyway. Anyone who accepts this as "listening the users", and addressing the issues will likely get burned again in the future. Google is a advertising company. Their customers are not their users, and therefore I think things are unlikely to change.
- mc32 8y ago
  Also, it represents a culture shift. Many engs and mgrs have moved on, retired, jumped to new shinies (when FB, Uber, Twitter, etc became the new shiny) allowing a culture shift via replacement with people who have a different compass guiding them.
- kryogen1c 8y ago
  > Their customers are not their users Cannot be overstated. The incentive structure is clear and the subsequent evolution is happening.
- paulcole 8y ago
  > Their customers are not their users, and therefore I think things are unlikely to change. Interesting concept. Care to expound? Would be interested in hearing more.
  - clear_dg 8y ago
    Nothing surprising: Google's revenues come from advertisers. Advertising is its main focus. Not developing browsers, or even providing search results. Those are merely means to an end. And of course, all the users are targets for ads, NOT customers. A farmer's cows aren't his customers; same logic here. It's obvious really, and Google never denied it.
plorg 8y ago
One thought might be that a company interested in making decisions based on customer feedback would consult those customers before making a change like this.
ehsankia 8y ago
Because there's literally nothing they could've said that would make them change their mind. This is the most reasonable response Google could've given. They've addressed every issue as promptly as possible, yet people just dismiss is as PR. It's a lose-lose battle, no matter what they do, people like this will always spin it in a negative way with zero justification.
- zbrozek 8y ago
  They could have removed the feature entirely, or set it to a privacy-friendly and least-surprise friendly default.
  - ehsankia 8y ago
    Sync is off by default, how is that not privacy friendly? They will be deleting all cookies by default, how is that now privacy friendly? The core feature itself, setting it off by default defeats the whole point of the feature, because it's for the 99.99% of users that are not power-users. It's also not a privacy issue because, again, sync is off by default.
- M2Ys4U 8y ago
  Well they could have make the changes they're saying they're going to make in the first place. Or not have sent their developer relations goons out to say "move along, nothing to see here, folks" when people started complaining. This is PR. It's damage limitation.
forgotmysn 8y ago
they are solving issues and bugs that they probably already planned to address. they aren't doing anything because we asked them to, they are just pandering to their audience by saying that. IMO.

I don't understand, the piece looks like it promises to address all the problems highlighted in the past few days in Chrome 70. Why are you saying it is a PR piece?

petilon 8y ago

Because the feature is ON by default. Naive users will not know to turn it off. That doesn't mean they don't care about privacy.

satori99 8y ago

The problems were easily foreseeable, and they did it anyway. Anyone who accepts this as "listening the users", and addressing the issues will likely get burned again in the future. Google is a advertising company. Their customers are not their users, and therefore I think things are unlikely to change.

mc32 8y ago
Also, it represents a culture shift. Many engs and mgrs have moved on, retired, jumped to new shinies (when FB, Uber, Twitter, etc became the new shiny) allowing a culture shift via replacement with people who have a different compass guiding them.
kryogen1c 8y ago
> Their customers are not their users Cannot be overstated. The incentive structure is clear and the subsequent evolution is happening.
paulcole 8y ago
> Their customers are not their users, and therefore I think things are unlikely to change. Interesting concept. Care to expound? Would be interested in hearing more.
- clear_dg 8y ago
  Nothing surprising: Google's revenues come from advertisers. Advertising is its main focus. Not developing browsers, or even providing search results. Those are merely means to an end. And of course, all the users are targets for ads, NOT customers. A farmer's cows aren't his customers; same logic here. It's obvious really, and Google never denied it.

plorg 8y ago

One thought might be that a company interested in making decisions based on customer feedback would consult those customers before making a change like this.

ehsankia 8y ago

Because there's literally nothing they could've said that would make them change their mind. This is the most reasonable response Google could've given. They've addressed every issue as promptly as possible, yet people just dismiss is as PR. It's a lose-lose battle, no matter what they do, people like this will always spin it in a negative way with zero justification.

zbrozek 8y ago
They could have removed the feature entirely, or set it to a privacy-friendly and least-surprise friendly default.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Sync is off by default, how is that not privacy friendly? They will be deleting all cookies by default, how is that now privacy friendly? The core feature itself, setting it off by default defeats the whole point of the feature, because it's for the 99.99% of users that are not power-users. It's also not a privacy issue because, again, sync is off by default.
M2Ys4U 8y ago
Well they could have make the changes they're saying they're going to make in the first place. Or not have sent their developer relations goons out to say "move along, nothing to see here, folks" when people started complaining. This is PR. It's damage limitation.

forgotmysn 8y ago

they are solving issues and bugs that they probably already planned to address. they aren't doing anything because we asked them to, they are just pandering to their audience by saying that. IMO.