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I sincerely doubt Google would send ANYTHING to a third party unless it really had to. That being said I think this is a good compromise and I hope Apple appli

by mcny 8y ago

I sincerely doubt Google would send ANYTHING to a third party unless it really had to. That being said I think this is a good compromise and I hope Apple applies this to all vendors. I think the biggest winner here if I read this correctly is AWS and other cloud providers. The most straightforward way for someone like mouseflow to comply is to separate each customer to its own instance in a way that mouseflow has no access to user data.

glitchc 8y ago
Huh? Google’s entire revenue model is based on advertising. Of course they send your info to a “third-party,” that party being the advertiser(s).
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  Googlers will insist that they don't "send" your info to the advertisers, they only let advertisers buy ads based on that info.
  - cosmie 8y ago
    I'm a non-Googler who has spent a lot of time around media analytics, and I'll make the same insistence that that is a true and important statement. Google is a one way mirror. They will suck in as much data as you want to give them about people, but it's virtually impossible to pry any info out of Google that's at an individual and identifiable level. Only aggregated performance information is exposed to advertisers, and the ability to mix and match targeting criteria based off of those dimensions that they expose. Even with their enterprise marketing products like DoubleClick you can't pry out individual-level data. DoubleClick customers used to be able to export an anonymous ID, so they could use independent third-parties to consolidate conversion and impression data and measure attribution across complex marketing campaigns. But even that isn't possible anymore, due to GDPR concerns[1]. The closest they now get to "sharing" user data is Ads Data Hub[2]. And by sharing, I mean they expect you to share all of your data from outside of Google, which Google will then connect to their data and allow you the privilege of running aggregated queries. But they actually keep their side of the data firewalled off, and it's not human readable or accessible at the row level, only in rollup queries. In the ad world, I can assure you they are far more protective of user data than most anyone else. The size, effectiveness, and dominance of their marketing channels afford them the ability to take that position without it materially impacting advertiser spending. Very few advertisers take such active measures to insulate exposure of user data from advertisers. And for many that do invest resources in such endeavors, it doesn't mean that they don't provide user data to advertisers. It just means that they don't provide it for free anymore. [1] https://adage.com/article/digital/google-s-move-remove-doubleclick-id-presents-issues/313415/ https://adage.com/article/digital/google-s-move-remove-doubl... [2] https://developers.google.com/ads-data-hub/ https://developers.google.com/ads-data-hub/
    - glitchc 8y ago
      I see, and stand corrected. Must presume this is as long as they never get desperate (a la Yahoo).
      - cosmie 8y ago
        Pretty much. Here's to hoping for a long and profitable future for Google on it's current path. Because the alternative is too terrifying to contemplate.
        AlexandrB 8y ago
        The alternative is inevitable. No company lasts forever.
    - ForHackernews 8y ago
      Sorry, I should have phrased that differently. I'm not doubting the factual accuracy of your account. I guess I'm not sure why this is supposed to be reassuring? Oh, don't worry, only the most data-hungry machine ever built has your data.
      - cosmie 8y ago
        Ha! I completely understand and agree with that viewpoint. It's only mildly reassuring to me relative to how loose I know most providers are with leaking user data. And because, having interacted with it from the advertiser side, I can tell that they not only recognize the long term value in protecting user data, but that they also invest the resources to design their systems and processes with that fundamental premise in mind. Conversely, I also recognize just how much they do know about me, and just how privileged of a position they're able to take due to their market-dictating scale. The thought of their growth ever stalling terrifies me, since it can give them cause to re-evaluate that fundamental premise if they ever need to shore up their numbers.
- jpollock 8y ago
  Google doesn't have to send your data to a third party to get advertising revenue. The advertiser creates and advertisement and passes it to Google with a selector, "We want to show this advertisement to men over the age of 35 in Milwaukee" and a price/click. When someone who fits the selector arrives, the advertisement enters into Google's auction. If it wins the auction, it's rendered to the customer. Google doesn't say "Here's the list of our customers, and who they are, let me know who you want to send ads to". https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1704368?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1704368?hl=en
cosmie 8y ago
> I sincerely doubt Google would send ANYTHING to a third party unless it really had to. In this context, Google is the third party. Plenty of apps use the Google Analytics SDK[1], or the newer GA Firebase SDK[2] for their analytics. [1] https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/ios/v3/ https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection... [2] https://firebase.google.com/docs/analytics/ios/start https://firebase.google.com/docs/analytics/ios/start

by mcny 8y ago

glitchc 8y ago

Huh? Google’s entire revenue model is based on advertising. Of course they send your info to a “third-party,” that party being the advertiser(s).

ForHackernews 8y ago
Googlers will insist that they don't "send" your info to the advertisers, they only let advertisers buy ads based on that info.
- cosmie 8y ago
  I'm a non-Googler who has spent a lot of time around media analytics, and I'll make the same insistence that that is a true and important statement. Google is a one way mirror. They will suck in as much data as you want to give them about people, but it's virtually impossible to pry any info out of Google that's at an individual and identifiable level. Only aggregated performance information is exposed to advertisers, and the ability to mix and match targeting criteria based off of those dimensions that they expose. Even with their enterprise marketing products like DoubleClick you can't pry out individual-level data. DoubleClick customers used to be able to export an anonymous ID, so they could use independent third-parties to consolidate conversion and impression data and measure attribution across complex marketing campaigns. But even that isn't possible anymore, due to GDPR concerns[1]. The closest they now get to "sharing" user data is Ads Data Hub[2]. And by sharing, I mean they expect you to share all of your data from outside of Google, which Google will then connect to their data and allow you the privilege of running aggregated queries. But they actually keep their side of the data firewalled off, and it's not human readable or accessible at the row level, only in rollup queries. In the ad world, I can assure you they are far more protective of user data than most anyone else. The size, effectiveness, and dominance of their marketing channels afford them the ability to take that position without it materially impacting advertiser spending. Very few advertisers take such active measures to insulate exposure of user data from advertisers. And for many that do invest resources in such endeavors, it doesn't mean that they don't provide user data to advertisers. It just means that they don't provide it for free anymore. [1] https://adage.com/article/digital/google-s-move-remove-doubleclick-id-presents-issues/313415/ https://adage.com/article/digital/google-s-move-remove-doubl... [2] https://developers.google.com/ads-data-hub/ https://developers.google.com/ads-data-hub/
  - glitchc 8y ago
    I see, and stand corrected. Must presume this is as long as they never get desperate (a la Yahoo).
    - cosmie 8y ago
      Pretty much. Here's to hoping for a long and profitable future for Google on it's current path. Because the alternative is too terrifying to contemplate.
      - AlexandrB 8y ago
        The alternative is inevitable. No company lasts forever.
  - ForHackernews 8y ago
    Sorry, I should have phrased that differently. I'm not doubting the factual accuracy of your account. I guess I'm not sure why this is supposed to be reassuring? Oh, don't worry, only the most data-hungry machine ever built has your data.
    - cosmie 8y ago
      Ha! I completely understand and agree with that viewpoint. It's only mildly reassuring to me relative to how loose I know most providers are with leaking user data. And because, having interacted with it from the advertiser side, I can tell that they not only recognize the long term value in protecting user data, but that they also invest the resources to design their systems and processes with that fundamental premise in mind. Conversely, I also recognize just how much they do know about me, and just how privileged of a position they're able to take due to their market-dictating scale. The thought of their growth ever stalling terrifies me, since it can give them cause to re-evaluate that fundamental premise if they ever need to shore up their numbers.
jpollock 8y ago
Google doesn't have to send your data to a third party to get advertising revenue. The advertiser creates and advertisement and passes it to Google with a selector, "We want to show this advertisement to men over the age of 35 in Milwaukee" and a price/click. When someone who fits the selector arrives, the advertisement enters into Google's auction. If it wins the auction, it's rendered to the customer. Google doesn't say "Here's the list of our customers, and who they are, let me know who you want to send ads to". https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1704368?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1704368?hl=en

cosmie 8y ago

> I sincerely doubt Google would send ANYTHING to a third party unless it really had to. In this context, Google is the third party. Plenty of apps use the Google Analytics SDK[1], or the newer GA Firebase SDK[2] for their analytics. [1] https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/ios/v3/ https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection... [2] https://firebase.google.com/docs/analytics/ios/start https://firebase.google.com/docs/analytics/ios/start