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First let me say that I can't speak to whether anything "significantly impacts Google's revenue" - either I don't have any material information in that regard,

by aiiane 7y ago

First let me say that I can't speak to whether anything "significantly impacts Google's revenue" - either I don't have any material information in that regard, or if I did the SEC probably wouldn't want me making statements about it. :) So with that caveat in mind, let me see what I can help answer. I'm not entirely sure what nuance you're implying when you say "different deletion policies" - while for instance Cloud might have a different timeline or set of triggers for when and what data is deleted, when it happens "deleted" still generally means "deleted". Some products like GSuite have the ability for administrators to say, disable accounts, which removes them from use but doesn't delete the account, but that's transparent to the domain administrator. It's definitely nontrivial to track data propagation within large systems, but standardizing infrastructure, having central documentation of data handling plans, and having comprehensive privacy reviews for any new functionality that launches helps keep people on the same page. Edit: oh, and regarding "retraining every model a data point touched" - the easiest way to do this is to just always be regenerating your models on a frequent basis. If you retrain your models once a day or once a week on a fresh snapshot of your data, they'll only ever be that stale.

ben_jones 7y ago
Again, appreciate the reply. Myself and others post a lot of criticisms towards Google on HN, and though I feel much of it is deserved, its the commentary from actual Google employees that turns it into a much more substantial and informed conversation.
russdpale 7y ago
Uh, I guess all of this is wonderful and I appreciate the write up, but anecdotal evidence on an internet forum is not very reassuring to many of us. Until Google commits to some real actual transparency, there is no reason to believe they are actually deleting any data from their own servers, and that the options presented to end users is nothing more than a placebo switch. No offense to you, but I remember when Amazon was releasing their home devices, and many people rang alarm bells in these forums only to be answered by supposed Amazon employees or friends thereof explaining why these devices couldn't possibly been sending data. Well low and behold, they are sending all sorts of data to Amazon. Were those commenters just lying? Were they misinformed? Were they trying to spread disinformation for whatever reason? Perhaps all three.. Here in America, the gig is up. Everyone, even our grandma's, understands that security and privacy is always going to take a back seat to profit. Always. So again, no offense to you personally, but everything you are saying must be taken with a ginormous grain of salt. The only answers are either open source or objective third party auditing, or preferably some combination of both. Words from google employees mean nothing.
- qvrjuec 7y ago
  What data are the Amazon devices sending other than recordings of commands which need to be interpreted?

by aiiane 7y ago

ben_jones 7y ago

Again, appreciate the reply. Myself and others post a lot of criticisms towards Google on HN, and though I feel much of it is deserved, its the commentary from actual Google employees that turns it into a much more substantial and informed conversation.

russdpale 7y ago

Uh, I guess all of this is wonderful and I appreciate the write up, but anecdotal evidence on an internet forum is not very reassuring to many of us. Until Google commits to some real actual transparency, there is no reason to believe they are actually deleting any data from their own servers, and that the options presented to end users is nothing more than a placebo switch. No offense to you, but I remember when Amazon was releasing their home devices, and many people rang alarm bells in these forums only to be answered by supposed Amazon employees or friends thereof explaining why these devices couldn't possibly been sending data. Well low and behold, they are sending all sorts of data to Amazon. Were those commenters just lying? Were they misinformed? Were they trying to spread disinformation for whatever reason? Perhaps all three.. Here in America, the gig is up. Everyone, even our grandma's, understands that security and privacy is always going to take a back seat to profit. Always. So again, no offense to you personally, but everything you are saying must be taken with a ginormous grain of salt. The only answers are either open source or objective third party auditing, or preferably some combination of both. Words from google employees mean nothing.

qvrjuec 7y ago
What data are the Amazon devices sending other than recordings of commands which need to be interpreted?