4 ms·

What is Google's end goal here? More accurate targetted advertising?

tyingq 8y ago
Anything that maintains the double digit year-over-year percentage gains in revenue that they've enjoyed for years. Their revenue growth has outpaced user/activity growth for some time.
ataturk 8y ago
My guess? An unholy alliance between government and private industry which allows each to get away with things the other can't. For example, squelching free speech can be done by a private company with practically no impediments. Meanwhile, governments want to eavesdrop on everyone and develop dossiers on everyone because that's how you control people. Corporations are doing that for marketing purposes, but the intelligence agencies are right there in that data now, too. Google always had a CIA connection. You do the math on how this works and what it means now that you can see it all unfolding like everyone else can. They want total control over your mind and barring that, they want total control over your behavior one way or another. What can't corporations do? They can't force people to buy their products or pay their bills. Governments can, though. It's actually the only tool in the box. Corporations would love to gather and coalesce the information and then have the jackboots do the violent stuff to suppress and subjugate. The very definition of fascism.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  What CIA connection?
  - 908087 8y ago
    https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo... https://pando.com/2015/07/01/cia-foia-google-keyhole/ https://pando.com/2015/07/01/cia-foia-google-keyhole/ Search "In-Q-Tel Google" for more.
    - lallysingh 8y ago
      Jesus man, that's some tenuous connectivity. The first article's really trying hard to link investment capital flows into some larger conspiracy. The second is about generalizing mapping tech originally developed for surveillance satellites to be used for publicly available imagery, and the purchaser's obligations to fulfill the contracts of the purchased company. Both are results of the same underlying issue: defense & intelligence run as essentially monopsonies for the technology they care about, so they have to pay to have it developed. Sometimes their result is generally useful (better search of documents), sometimes it isn't, and sometimes it just isn't for a while (until publicly available imagery is widespread enough to cover a large map). If articles like these are the basis for your conclusions, really take a step back. I went down this route a little some years ago, and really just felt miserable for no good reason. Now the next part of my suggestion is going to sound rough for a second, but please take it seriously. Check out a book called "The Information Diet" by Clay Johnson. After reading (it's a really good book, and helped me a lot in avoiding this sort of stuff), watch a ridiculous conspiracy show on TV. My favorite recently was about whether mermaids were real. Listen to the techniques they use in there -- By saying "A relates to B" and "B relates to C", they ask "Does A relate to C?" Even though A and B relate only through something remote, and similarly for B and C. But, imply a conspiracy and suddenly the remote links seem like a cabal of some sort. It's a manipulative practice to get eyeballs and clicks, and we have to identify it as toxic before we start taking it in.
fixermark 8y ago
Synchronizing the concept of "logged in" for Google services with the concept of "logged in" in the browser. Previously, you could be logged in in the browser but not into Google's website, or logged into Google's website but not into the browser. That was confusing for users ("It's asking me to log in to Google? But I'm logged in already. The hell?"). This change synchronized the login experience so if you're logged into Google, you're logged into the Chrome browser and you don't have to think about them separately. Users don't like logging in, so anything that can be done to safely minimize the amount of that necessary is seen as a user experience gain.
maeln 8y ago
Their end goal is being the biggest data hoarder in my opinion. This position will secure them so long as we can find a use for data. And right now, data is something we use everywhere. They can continue to use it for advertisement, or they can pivot or expand to new market, more nefarious or for the good of everybody. They could sell it to government for mass surveillance or they could use it to help scientist find a cure for a disease. We can always find a use for data. So I think their goal is to hoard more and more data, and make it has accurate as possible. Google for me is neither a search engine company or an advertisement company anymore. Their core is data hoarding, and they make profit using this in several ways, advertisement being just one of them.

Anything that maintains the double digit year-over-year percentage gains in revenue that they've enjoyed for years. Their revenue growth has outpaced user/activity growth for some time.

ataturk 8y ago

My guess? An unholy alliance between government and private industry which allows each to get away with things the other can't. For example, squelching free speech can be done by a private company with practically no impediments. Meanwhile, governments want to eavesdrop on everyone and develop dossiers on everyone because that's how you control people. Corporations are doing that for marketing purposes, but the intelligence agencies are right there in that data now, too. Google always had a CIA connection. You do the math on how this works and what it means now that you can see it all unfolding like everyone else can. They want total control over your mind and barring that, they want total control over your behavior one way or another. What can't corporations do? They can't force people to buy their products or pay their bills. Governments can, though. It's actually the only tool in the box. Corporations would love to gather and coalesce the information and then have the jackboots do the violent stuff to suppress and subjugate. The very definition of fascism.

lallysingh 8y ago
What CIA connection?
- 908087 8y ago
  https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo... https://pando.com/2015/07/01/cia-foia-google-keyhole/ https://pando.com/2015/07/01/cia-foia-google-keyhole/ Search "In-Q-Tel Google" for more.
  - lallysingh 8y ago
    Jesus man, that's some tenuous connectivity. The first article's really trying hard to link investment capital flows into some larger conspiracy. The second is about generalizing mapping tech originally developed for surveillance satellites to be used for publicly available imagery, and the purchaser's obligations to fulfill the contracts of the purchased company. Both are results of the same underlying issue: defense & intelligence run as essentially monopsonies for the technology they care about, so they have to pay to have it developed. Sometimes their result is generally useful (better search of documents), sometimes it isn't, and sometimes it just isn't for a while (until publicly available imagery is widespread enough to cover a large map). If articles like these are the basis for your conclusions, really take a step back. I went down this route a little some years ago, and really just felt miserable for no good reason. Now the next part of my suggestion is going to sound rough for a second, but please take it seriously. Check out a book called "The Information Diet" by Clay Johnson. After reading (it's a really good book, and helped me a lot in avoiding this sort of stuff), watch a ridiculous conspiracy show on TV. My favorite recently was about whether mermaids were real. Listen to the techniques they use in there -- By saying "A relates to B" and "B relates to C", they ask "Does A relate to C?" Even though A and B relate only through something remote, and similarly for B and C. But, imply a conspiracy and suddenly the remote links seem like a cabal of some sort. It's a manipulative practice to get eyeballs and clicks, and we have to identify it as toxic before we start taking it in.

fixermark 8y ago

Synchronizing the concept of "logged in" for Google services with the concept of "logged in" in the browser. Previously, you could be logged in in the browser but not into Google's website, or logged into Google's website but not into the browser. That was confusing for users ("It's asking me to log in to Google? But I'm logged in already. The hell?"). This change synchronized the login experience so if you're logged into Google, you're logged into the Chrome browser and you don't have to think about them separately. Users don't like logging in, so anything that can be done to safely minimize the amount of that necessary is seen as a user experience gain.

maeln 8y ago

Their end goal is being the biggest data hoarder in my opinion. This position will secure them so long as we can find a use for data. And right now, data is something we use everywhere. They can continue to use it for advertisement, or they can pivot or expand to new market, more nefarious or for the good of everybody. They could sell it to government for mass surveillance or they could use it to help scientist find a cure for a disease. We can always find a use for data. So I think their goal is to hoard more and more data, and make it has accurate as possible. Google for me is neither a search engine company or an advertisement company anymore. Their core is data hoarding, and they make profit using this in several ways, advertisement being just one of them.