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This seems pretty reasonable to me, although perhaps they named the switch poorly. My guess is that the product manager is trying to provide a single simple "pr

This seems pretty reasonable to me, although perhaps they named the switch poorly. My guess is that the product manager is trying to provide a single simple "privacy fiend" setting. You apparently want fine-grained privacy controls ("save my personal locations, but not my search history"). It's reasonable to want that, but it seems awfully entitled (not you, but many others on this thread) to demand it. Especially since we've seen from past history that a multitude of fine-grained privacy controls tends to propagate the narrative "Evil corporation confuses users with complex privacy UI". Product management is way harder than you are giving it credit for.

StavrosK 8y ago
This is disingenuous and unreasonable. The setting is unnecessarily restrictive. It's simple: "Do you want us to store your data on our servers?" Answering "no" should mean you store it locally, not that you don't store it at all. If you tell Google not to save your search history on their servers, they just disable it completely, when they could just save it locally. This is nowhere near a product problem. The setting is per-account, so it's not like it'd be disabled on one device and enabled on another, so they'd get some weird UX, they just like crippling their app to force you to give them data.
- dzader 8y ago
  It's simple: "Do you want us to store your data on our servers?" Why don't you just build your own mapping software then if its all so easy?
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    Because then I wouldn't get inane comments from random commenters online and my life would be substantially worse.
- creato 8y ago
  > Answering "no" should mean you store it locally, not that you don't store it at all. If you tell Google not to save your search history on their servers, they just disable it completely, when they could just save it locally. I think you are ridiculously underestimating the complexity and issues that would arise with two separate mechanisms for saving the same kind of data, and an option to switch between the two. Do you download account-saved locations locally when changing to local storage? What if there are conflicting pieces of data? I bet there would be a lot more outraged people about the bugs and limitations that would arise with this system than there are today with your complaints.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    > Do you download account-saved locations locally when changing to local storage? No, you delete the data that's on the server. That's the reasonable way to handle a revocation of consent from the user.
    - UncleMeat 8y ago
      Headline: "Big company degrades user experience for users who choose to opt out". I'm absolutely certain that there are people who'd get mad that their history is gone if they went from "collect it in the back end" to "collect it in the client".
    - creato 8y ago
      Obviously. I'm asking what you do before that. Do you just throw it away? That's going to piss people off. Do you overwrite the local data? That's going to piss people off. Do you try to reconcile it? That's hard to do and messy, and probably will piss people off.
      - StavrosK 8y ago
        I'm not sure I understand. Overwrite the local data with what? If you have history on the server turned on, then there's only one set of data, you don't need to overwrite the local data with anything. You just keep it where it is.
        creato 8y ago
        > If you have history on the server turned on, then there's only one set of data, you don't need to overwrite the local data with anything. This is a bad assumption and why you would ruin a product like google maps if given the opportunity. Google already had this problem for years with Contacts. I had local contacts on my phone, and contacts stored in my google account. It was a complete clusterfuck of duplicates, stale data, etc. Years later after I had this problem, Google added a fairly complicated power-user tool that let you reconcile this data. And then years after that, the tool became not-a-power-user tool and wasn't bad. But we're still talking years of issues, for data that is probably a hell of a lot less complicated than what maps stores. edit: And that said, I still have issues every now and then with that contact reconciler tool, it doesn't always do the right thing.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  This is a textbook example of the Dunning–Kruger effect in action. Do you work at Google on the maps team? Do you know how the maps backend works or what the codebase of the app looks like? Do you have special expertise in this area? Let me guess: No. Yet not only are you so certain that it's simple, you're willing assign all sorts of nefarious motives to the actual experts.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    Do you work at Google on the maps team? Do you know how the maps backend works or what the codebase of the app looks like? Do you have special expertise in the area? Let me guess: No. Yet not only are you so certain that it's hard, you're willing assign all sorts of benevolent motives to Google.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      Yet not only are you so certain that it's hard, you're willing assign all sorts of benevolent motives to Google. Google would change the rate at which your terminal cursor flashes if it could find a way to monetize it.
    - stickfigure 8y ago
      I do not try to hide my lack of authority, which is why I transparently couch my words with "it seems" and "my guess". I don't need to speak with authority here. If you want to stoke the flames of moral outrage, the burden is on you, not me.
      - StavrosK 8y ago
        Yeah, but all you said was "if you didn't work on X, you can't have an opinion about X", which is a completely useless and trivially wrong statement.
        stickfigure 8y ago
        I would phrase it more like "if you didn't work on X, you can't have a strong opinion about X".
- rifung 8y ago
  > Answering "no" should mean you store it locally, not that you don't store it at all. If you tell Google not to save your search history on their servers, they just disable it completely, when they could just save it locally. This is nowhere near a product problem. The setting is per-account, so it's not like it'd be disabled on one device and enabled on another, so they'd get some weird UX, they just like crippling their app to force you to give them data. I work for Google, opinions are my own. I could go on and on about this so apologies for the long post. Obviously I am biased, but I think you're being a little too cynical. People's habits largely depend on the incentives given to them. There is no incentive for the Maps team to take in more data, if anything there are incentives to have less data because they'd have to go through less security and privacy reviews. What they DO have an incentive to do is to get more users, since that largely determines how much funding your team gets. Having users share location data, admittedly at the expense of privacy, provides a superior experience. Each team has limited funding/headcount, so obviously they would use their resources as much as possible to try and get more users. Supporting the use case you described, which is not used by the vast majority of users does not align with the incentives given to them. Recently, Google updated its values (I can't find it externally but I hope you'll believe me). One of these values is "Respect the User". I personally think that your use case would fall under this umbrella. Ignoring whether the specific feature is the best use of engineering time even for this value, the reality is that values mean nothing without incentives. And there aren't incentives. You don't get a great performance rating for following the values, you get one for impacting some large percentage of users or improving the performance or conversion rates. Even if you had a team of monks, completely driven by their morals and not career-driven whatsoever, this would not be sufficient because if they didn't hit performance goals then the team would just get defunded, unless the person above them was also the same, and the person above them, and so on.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    > Obviously I am biased, but I think you're being a little too cynical. Very possibly. > Supporting the use case you described, which is not used by the vast majority of users does not align with the incentives given to them. I think you have causation wrong here. Users leave search history enabled because Google makes it unnecessarily hard to use the app with it disabled. > Recently, Google updated its values (I can't find it externally but I hope you'll believe me). One of these values is "Respect the User". I have no reason to disbelieve you. > Ignoring whether the specific feature is the best use of engineering time even for this value, the reality is that values mean nothing without incentives. If the values mean nothing without incentives, they aren't values, are they? > You don't get a great performance rating for following the values, you get one for impacting some large percentage of users or improving the performance or conversion rates. So what you're saying is "there's no incentive for allowing the user to have a good experience using the app without sending us data", or did I get that wrong? That doesn't sound awesome. > Having users share location data, admittedly at the expense of privacy, provides a superior experience. Especially when you don't bother providing a similar experience without people's data. Ultimately, this isn't a question of "which would make Maps better, if users shared their data or if they didn't?". That's not your choice to make, so it's a question of "the user doesn't want to share their data, do we bother to make the experience good for them or not?" If your answer to the latter is "No", I don't care if your values say "The User is the Alpha and the Omega, thou shalt have no other priorities before the User", it's a red herring because you aren't following your values, you're following the money.
levesque 8y ago
I only described my personal experience, I'm not making assumptions of evilness on Google's side, just pointing out that it feels a little restrictive. As somebody else pointed out in this thread, the information is still stored on Google's servers (favorite places, friends' addresses, even my home address is still on there), it's just all of a sudden no longer available when you disable history. Sure product management is hard, I never said it wasn't. Google maps is wayy ahead of the competition in the field, with or without those history things (cue the whole Apple maps fiasco). But users will always complain about features they don't like, and they won't always give credit for what works. Honestly I don't care that much, I mostly adhere to the idea that Google & co. don't give a damn about any user's individual data. To them, we're just numbers in a database, and a bunch of metrics to optimize (engagement, revenue, etc.). However, I do think that governments, once they know all this data is stored on centralized servers, are tempted to exploit it, for good reasons or not, which is why at some point I want to limit the gathering of data, when I find it is not explicitly warranted or needed. Case in point, Google Maps doesn't need a history of ALL the places I've been on a day-to-day basis to index my saved locations in it's search box.

StavrosK 8y ago

This is disingenuous and unreasonable. The setting is unnecessarily restrictive. It's simple: "Do you want us to store your data on our servers?" Answering "no" should mean you store it locally, not that you don't store it at all. If you tell Google not to save your search history on their servers, they just disable it completely, when they could just save it locally. This is nowhere near a product problem. The setting is per-account, so it's not like it'd be disabled on one device and enabled on another, so they'd get some weird UX, they just like crippling their app to force you to give them data.

dzader 8y ago
It's simple: "Do you want us to store your data on our servers?" Why don't you just build your own mapping software then if its all so easy?
- StavrosK 8y ago
  Because then I wouldn't get inane comments from random commenters online and my life would be substantially worse.
creato 8y ago
> Answering "no" should mean you store it locally, not that you don't store it at all. If you tell Google not to save your search history on their servers, they just disable it completely, when they could just save it locally. I think you are ridiculously underestimating the complexity and issues that would arise with two separate mechanisms for saving the same kind of data, and an option to switch between the two. Do you download account-saved locations locally when changing to local storage? What if there are conflicting pieces of data? I bet there would be a lot more outraged people about the bugs and limitations that would arise with this system than there are today with your complaints.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  > Do you download account-saved locations locally when changing to local storage? No, you delete the data that's on the server. That's the reasonable way to handle a revocation of consent from the user.
  - UncleMeat 8y ago
    Headline: "Big company degrades user experience for users who choose to opt out". I'm absolutely certain that there are people who'd get mad that their history is gone if they went from "collect it in the back end" to "collect it in the client".
  - creato 8y ago
    Obviously. I'm asking what you do before that. Do you just throw it away? That's going to piss people off. Do you overwrite the local data? That's going to piss people off. Do you try to reconcile it? That's hard to do and messy, and probably will piss people off.
    - StavrosK 8y ago
      I'm not sure I understand. Overwrite the local data with what? If you have history on the server turned on, then there's only one set of data, you don't need to overwrite the local data with anything. You just keep it where it is.
      - creato 8y ago
        > If you have history on the server turned on, then there's only one set of data, you don't need to overwrite the local data with anything. This is a bad assumption and why you would ruin a product like google maps if given the opportunity. Google already had this problem for years with Contacts. I had local contacts on my phone, and contacts stored in my google account. It was a complete clusterfuck of duplicates, stale data, etc. Years later after I had this problem, Google added a fairly complicated power-user tool that let you reconcile this data. And then years after that, the tool became not-a-power-user tool and wasn't bad. But we're still talking years of issues, for data that is probably a hell of a lot less complicated than what maps stores. edit: And that said, I still have issues every now and then with that contact reconciler tool, it doesn't always do the right thing.
stickfigure 8y ago
This is a textbook example of the Dunning–Kruger effect in action. Do you work at Google on the maps team? Do you know how the maps backend works or what the codebase of the app looks like? Do you have special expertise in this area? Let me guess: No. Yet not only are you so certain that it's simple, you're willing assign all sorts of nefarious motives to the actual experts.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  Do you work at Google on the maps team? Do you know how the maps backend works or what the codebase of the app looks like? Do you have special expertise in the area? Let me guess: No. Yet not only are you so certain that it's hard, you're willing assign all sorts of benevolent motives to Google.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Yet not only are you so certain that it's hard, you're willing assign all sorts of benevolent motives to Google. Google would change the rate at which your terminal cursor flashes if it could find a way to monetize it.
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    I do not try to hide my lack of authority, which is why I transparently couch my words with "it seems" and "my guess". I don't need to speak with authority here. If you want to stoke the flames of moral outrage, the burden is on you, not me.
    - StavrosK 8y ago
      Yeah, but all you said was "if you didn't work on X, you can't have an opinion about X", which is a completely useless and trivially wrong statement.
      - stickfigure 8y ago
        I would phrase it more like "if you didn't work on X, you can't have a strong opinion about X".
rifung 8y ago
> Answering "no" should mean you store it locally, not that you don't store it at all. If you tell Google not to save your search history on their servers, they just disable it completely, when they could just save it locally. This is nowhere near a product problem. The setting is per-account, so it's not like it'd be disabled on one device and enabled on another, so they'd get some weird UX, they just like crippling their app to force you to give them data. I work for Google, opinions are my own. I could go on and on about this so apologies for the long post. Obviously I am biased, but I think you're being a little too cynical. People's habits largely depend on the incentives given to them. There is no incentive for the Maps team to take in more data, if anything there are incentives to have less data because they'd have to go through less security and privacy reviews. What they DO have an incentive to do is to get more users, since that largely determines how much funding your team gets. Having users share location data, admittedly at the expense of privacy, provides a superior experience. Each team has limited funding/headcount, so obviously they would use their resources as much as possible to try and get more users. Supporting the use case you described, which is not used by the vast majority of users does not align with the incentives given to them. Recently, Google updated its values (I can't find it externally but I hope you'll believe me). One of these values is "Respect the User". I personally think that your use case would fall under this umbrella. Ignoring whether the specific feature is the best use of engineering time even for this value, the reality is that values mean nothing without incentives. And there aren't incentives. You don't get a great performance rating for following the values, you get one for impacting some large percentage of users or improving the performance or conversion rates. Even if you had a team of monks, completely driven by their morals and not career-driven whatsoever, this would not be sufficient because if they didn't hit performance goals then the team would just get defunded, unless the person above them was also the same, and the person above them, and so on.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  > Obviously I am biased, but I think you're being a little too cynical. Very possibly. > Supporting the use case you described, which is not used by the vast majority of users does not align with the incentives given to them. I think you have causation wrong here. Users leave search history enabled because Google makes it unnecessarily hard to use the app with it disabled. > Recently, Google updated its values (I can't find it externally but I hope you'll believe me). One of these values is "Respect the User". I have no reason to disbelieve you. > Ignoring whether the specific feature is the best use of engineering time even for this value, the reality is that values mean nothing without incentives. If the values mean nothing without incentives, they aren't values, are they? > You don't get a great performance rating for following the values, you get one for impacting some large percentage of users or improving the performance or conversion rates. So what you're saying is "there's no incentive for allowing the user to have a good experience using the app without sending us data", or did I get that wrong? That doesn't sound awesome. > Having users share location data, admittedly at the expense of privacy, provides a superior experience. Especially when you don't bother providing a similar experience without people's data. Ultimately, this isn't a question of "which would make Maps better, if users shared their data or if they didn't?". That's not your choice to make, so it's a question of "the user doesn't want to share their data, do we bother to make the experience good for them or not?" If your answer to the latter is "No", I don't care if your values say "The User is the Alpha and the Omega, thou shalt have no other priorities before the User", it's a red herring because you aren't following your values, you're following the money.

levesque 8y ago

I only described my personal experience, I'm not making assumptions of evilness on Google's side, just pointing out that it feels a little restrictive. As somebody else pointed out in this thread, the information is still stored on Google's servers (favorite places, friends' addresses, even my home address is still on there), it's just all of a sudden no longer available when you disable history. Sure product management is hard, I never said it wasn't. Google maps is wayy ahead of the competition in the field, with or without those history things (cue the whole Apple maps fiasco). But users will always complain about features they don't like, and they won't always give credit for what works. Honestly I don't care that much, I mostly adhere to the idea that Google & co. don't give a damn about any user's individual data. To them, we're just numbers in a database, and a bunch of metrics to optimize (engagement, revenue, etc.). However, I do think that governments, once they know all this data is stored on centralized servers, are tempted to exploit it, for good reasons or not, which is why at some point I want to limit the gathering of data, when I find it is not explicitly warranted or needed. Case in point, Google Maps doesn't need a history of ALL the places I've been on a day-to-day basis to index my saved locations in it's search box.