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I'm not sure why everyone here is so concerned about the fact Google collects data, but doesn't actually sell it? Google might connect ads and your data anonym

I'm not sure why everyone here is so concerned about the fact Google collects data, but doesn't actually sell it? Google might connect ads and your data anonymously, or use algorithms applied to your data for their services, but they've never been shown to actually give your data to anyone, nor to abuse it in any way. Compare this to how lazy other companies have been with data breaches (Apple, Sony, Equifax, a ton of others), or companies that will actually sell your data (phone providers, credit card providers, various discount cards, etc..), I don't see why Google is always targeted. When I had a Hotmail account back in the day, it got hacked (and I've always had strong passwords). Gmail has never been hacked. Windows has ads and spyware throughout Windows 10, Google shows you ads when you search for something. Yet MS gets a pass these days, people forget about Apple's weak account security in the past not to mention apps abusing permissions, but Google is constantly demonised. I don't get it. Of all the tech products I've had over the years, the Google ones have been the best, the most secure, the most useful. They collect more data, but as far as I've seen, they also protect it the most.

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
I was in the same boat as you. Loved Android, didn't mind sharing all my data with Google. Worked with startup colleagues on google cloud. And then came Google ban bots. 24 hours ago they deleted one of my friend's account because of a keyword picked up in his reviews on app store (Apparently the bot thought he was being compensated for reviews which goes against their TOS), some of gsuite users had all accounts frozen and everything deleted because one of their dev had multi-login. Some were suspended for credit card denials in their billing (falls under financial fraud). Then "Youtube heroes" where people could flag each others videos. I really wanted to try out their new ML products but the console is insisting on me adding my credit card and I am so paranoid about getting my account blocked/deleted by Google if for any reason the credit card charge is rejected. I give two shits on a popsicle about NSA snooping on me. I am more worried about google taking away chrome,search, gmail, android.. how did even get here where google controls essentially the whole of internet.
username223 8y ago
> I don't get it. Of all the tech products I've had over the years, the Google ones have been the best, the most secure, the most useful. They collect more data, but as far as I've seen, they also protect it the most. They're way less sketchy than Facebook and data brokers, and better at not letting people's data leak out ("sorry"), but the sheer volume they collect is frightening. For the average Android user, they collect every search query, complete browsing history, complete location history, and more, all "anonymized" but easily correlated to a real person, and store it more or less forever. They've avoided Yahoo- or Equifax-scale breaches, as far as we know, but it's just a matter of time until someone hacks the world's biggest store of personal data. Even if that happens years from now, I wonder how they will monetize all of that data when merely slinging ads no longer satisfies investors.

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago

I was in the same boat as you. Loved Android, didn't mind sharing all my data with Google. Worked with startup colleagues on google cloud. And then came Google ban bots. 24 hours ago they deleted one of my friend's account because of a keyword picked up in his reviews on app store (Apparently the bot thought he was being compensated for reviews which goes against their TOS), some of gsuite users had all accounts frozen and everything deleted because one of their dev had multi-login. Some were suspended for credit card denials in their billing (falls under financial fraud). Then "Youtube heroes" where people could flag each others videos. I really wanted to try out their new ML products but the console is insisting on me adding my credit card and I am so paranoid about getting my account blocked/deleted by Google if for any reason the credit card charge is rejected. I give two shits on a popsicle about NSA snooping on me. I am more worried about google taking away chrome,search, gmail, android.. how did even get here where google controls essentially the whole of internet.

username223 8y ago

> I don't get it. Of all the tech products I've had over the years, the Google ones have been the best, the most secure, the most useful. They collect more data, but as far as I've seen, they also protect it the most. They're way less sketchy than Facebook and data brokers, and better at not letting people's data leak out ("sorry"), but the sheer volume they collect is frightening. For the average Android user, they collect every search query, complete browsing history, complete location history, and more, all "anonymized" but easily correlated to a real person, and store it more or less forever. They've avoided Yahoo- or Equifax-scale breaches, as far as we know, but it's just a matter of time until someone hacks the world's biggest store of personal data. Even if that happens years from now, I wonder how they will monetize all of that data when merely slinging ads no longer satisfies investors.