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Google in recent years has felt like the Lyft to Facebook's Uber. It does a lot of the same evil things, but uses just enough restraint and decorum to let Faceb

by _bxg1 8y ago

Google in recent years has felt like the Lyft to Facebook's Uber. It does a lot of the same evil things, but uses just enough restraint and decorum to let Facebook remain the one in the hot-seat. It avoids scrutiny by simply being less icky.

sramsay 8y ago
"Be Less Evil" didn't have quite the same ring. Also: yes.
gdulli 8y ago
Also, a company that offers a wide variety of services and collects your personal data to distribute internally among those services seems to get a pass. Compared to companies that are more vertical and benefit by selling your data rather than using it themselves. Even though you've lost your privacy either way.
mattkevan 8y ago
“Mister Pichai, we can NOT allow a creepiness gap!”
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  Google started being shady way before Pichai joined. I doubt he has much power to change the board decisions.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
ardy42 8y ago
> Google in recent years has felt like the Lyft to Facebook's Uber. It does a lot of the same evil things, but uses just enough restraint and decorum to let Facebook remain the one in the hot-seat. It avoids scrutiny by simply being less icky. Many of Google's services have a great deal more basic utility than anything Facebook provides. I think that also provides additional cover for them. When Facebook pushes for more data collection, it almost always looks way more self-serving than when Google does.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Google also tends to be much more up-front about data collection, and seems to have better practices regarding keeping it from third parties. That still doesn't make it good, but it helps. Whereas Facebook literally created a shell-company to mislead both users and Apple (who was trying to act in the users' best interest).
  - victorvation 8y ago
    What is the shell company?
    - _bxg1 8y ago
      "uTest" - see the original article: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/
      - product50 8y ago
        Stop spreading fake news. The app was literally called Facebook Research - I know you want to believe that there was a lot of hiding going on but it is really not the case.
        C4stor 8y ago
        Go visit https://play.google.com/store/search?q=facebook&c=apps&hl=fr https://play.google.com/store/search?q=facebook&c=apps&hl=fr . Are you able to tell which apps are supported by facebook and which are not ? For example, "onavo protect" is about 80th in the list, who in their right mind would think "yup, this one totally owned by facebook". I wouldn't ever think that anything called "Facebook XXX" is a facebook app, even more so if it's clearly sold by a shell company. It was hiding, even though it was ironically in plain sight.
        product50 8y ago
ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
If Apple had to punish Google the same way Google punishes it's users it would have to ban ALL Google apps permanently for lifetime and also suspend all related accounts permanently and then shutdown it's email,youtube and adsense account with money remaining in the account. Finally Apple has to stop responding to requests for ban reason and send out automated emails that their decision is final and binding. This is how Google behaves with it's users.
gfo 8y ago
Can you elaborate more on Lyft? Been using it instead of Uber due to their issues but I wasn't aware of problems with them. Not entirely shocked, however.
- brundolf 8y ago
  They have the same business model, same opposition to regulation, same generally bad arrangement with employees (sorry, "contractors") and riders alike. When my city (Austin, Texas) passed a law in 2017 requiring fingerprints and government background checks for ride-share drivers, Uber and Lyft left the city in protest (other ride-share startups sprung up in their wake and did just fine, so the law clearly wasn't a great burden on businesses). However they did not, as far as we know, track government officials' locations to evade investigation (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/uber-federal-inquiry-software-greyball.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/uber-federal-i...). It seems you have to have a man-child as your founder and CEO before you'll do something that brazen.
  - NoodleIncident 8y ago
    I don't think Lyft has killed anyone with half-baked autonomous driving yet, either. (Unlike Uber and Tesla)
rhizome 8y ago
The pincer movement is about 2500 years old. ;)
lmm 8y ago
I think that's just the HN bubble? HN threads always seem weirdly pro-Google and anti-Facebook compared to my real-life friends' views (even when some of those friends work at Google).
- dnate 8y ago
  Yes, I think this comes with the tech side of this platform. Many developers still dream of a job at google and would take it in an instance. You would need a lot of mental gymnastics to call out googles evil practices regarding privacy at the same time. In my non-tech circle of friends both are equally regarded to as evil spying megacorps.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  It used to be like that, I think. In the last year or so, the threads became both anti-Google and anti-Facebook, and to much stronger degree than regular people (including techies). I.e. here people at least notice and care. Every other community I've been a part of - at workplace, at hackerspace, at home - everyone's just "so they do spy on you, who cares ¯\_(ツ)_/¯".

by _bxg1 8y ago

sramsay 8y ago

"Be Less Evil" didn't have quite the same ring. Also: yes.

gdulli 8y ago

Also, a company that offers a wide variety of services and collects your personal data to distribute internally among those services seems to get a pass. Compared to companies that are more vertical and benefit by selling your data rather than using it themselves. Even though you've lost your privacy either way.

mattkevan 8y ago

“Mister Pichai, we can NOT allow a creepiness gap!”

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
Google started being shady way before Pichai joined. I doubt he has much power to change the board decisions.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

ardy42 8y ago

> Google in recent years has felt like the Lyft to Facebook's Uber. It does a lot of the same evil things, but uses just enough restraint and decorum to let Facebook remain the one in the hot-seat. It avoids scrutiny by simply being less icky. Many of Google's services have a great deal more basic utility than anything Facebook provides. I think that also provides additional cover for them. When Facebook pushes for more data collection, it almost always looks way more self-serving than when Google does.

_bxg1 8y ago
Google also tends to be much more up-front about data collection, and seems to have better practices regarding keeping it from third parties. That still doesn't make it good, but it helps. Whereas Facebook literally created a shell-company to mislead both users and Apple (who was trying to act in the users' best interest).
- victorvation 8y ago
  What is the shell company?
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    "uTest" - see the original article: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/
    - product50 8y ago
      Stop spreading fake news. The app was literally called Facebook Research - I know you want to believe that there was a lot of hiding going on but it is really not the case.
      - C4stor 8y ago
        Go visit https://play.google.com/store/search?q=facebook&c=apps&hl=fr https://play.google.com/store/search?q=facebook&c=apps&hl=fr . Are you able to tell which apps are supported by facebook and which are not ? For example, "onavo protect" is about 80th in the list, who in their right mind would think "yup, this one totally owned by facebook". I wouldn't ever think that anything called "Facebook XXX" is a facebook app, even more so if it's clearly sold by a shell company. It was hiding, even though it was ironically in plain sight.
        product50 8y ago

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago

If Apple had to punish Google the same way Google punishes it's users it would have to ban ALL Google apps permanently for lifetime and also suspend all related accounts permanently and then shutdown it's email,youtube and adsense account with money remaining in the account. Finally Apple has to stop responding to requests for ban reason and send out automated emails that their decision is final and binding. This is how Google behaves with it's users.

gfo 8y ago

Can you elaborate more on Lyft? Been using it instead of Uber due to their issues but I wasn't aware of problems with them. Not entirely shocked, however.

brundolf 8y ago
They have the same business model, same opposition to regulation, same generally bad arrangement with employees (sorry, "contractors") and riders alike. When my city (Austin, Texas) passed a law in 2017 requiring fingerprints and government background checks for ride-share drivers, Uber and Lyft left the city in protest (other ride-share startups sprung up in their wake and did just fine, so the law clearly wasn't a great burden on businesses). However they did not, as far as we know, track government officials' locations to evade investigation (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/uber-federal-inquiry-software-greyball.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/uber-federal-i...). It seems you have to have a man-child as your founder and CEO before you'll do something that brazen.
- NoodleIncident 8y ago
  I don't think Lyft has killed anyone with half-baked autonomous driving yet, either. (Unlike Uber and Tesla)

rhizome 8y ago

The pincer movement is about 2500 years old. ;)

lmm 8y ago

I think that's just the HN bubble? HN threads always seem weirdly pro-Google and anti-Facebook compared to my real-life friends' views (even when some of those friends work at Google).

dnate 8y ago
Yes, I think this comes with the tech side of this platform. Many developers still dream of a job at google and would take it in an instance. You would need a lot of mental gymnastics to call out googles evil practices regarding privacy at the same time. In my non-tech circle of friends both are equally regarded to as evil spying megacorps.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
It used to be like that, I think. In the last year or so, the threads became both anti-Google and anti-Facebook, and to much stronger degree than regular people (including techies). I.e. here people at least notice and care. Every other community I've been a part of - at workplace, at hackerspace, at home - everyone's just "so they do spy on you, who cares ¯\_(ツ)_/¯".