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> "It's telling that a substantial portion of our candidates admitted to considering competing offers from Google, but literally no one was considering Facebook

> "It's telling that a substantial portion of our candidates admitted to considering competing offers from Google, but literally no one was considering Facebook." intersting anecdote. google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty, yet jobseekers are shunning facebook because of the more wide-ranging negative press.

rongenre 7y ago
I wonder how much of it is that Facebook isn't all that much fun anymore, and working there would provoke all sorts of "I don't use it anymore" comments from one's peers.
- humanrebar 7y ago
  Or maybe prospects don't use Facebook either and it seems odd to contribute to a website you don't even visit.
- code_duck 7y ago
  Instagram and WhatsApp are more popular than ever, though.
mrtksn 7y ago
>google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty Big claim. Any proofs? With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. Extremely worrisome if you prefer to have people elected through a democratic process that is based on the discussion. This is not like understanding what people want or how do they think through big data analysis but manufacturing it. Sure - provocations and lies are not new, it was always the case for politics but with a social media everything is at scale and everything is happening violently.
- elorant 7y ago
  Just look at the amount of personal information Google knows/records about you. Your search history, web stats through Chrome, location history through Android, with whom you exchange emails if you're using GMail, which sites you visit and how long you stay on them through Google Analytics, probably online purchases with a combination of AdSense/AdWords & Analytics, everything you watch on YouTube etc. They definitely collect much more data than Facebook. The only reason they haven't faced the same shitstorm is because they don't seem to share all that data with 3rd parties.
  - jdormit 7y ago
    > The only reason they haven't faced the same shitstorm is because they don't seem to share all that data with 3rd parties. This is the whole point though, is it not? As far as we know, Google treats the data they collect more thoughtfully and responsibly than Facebook. And so they are (rightly or not) viewed as less of a threat to the public good. Of course, they could just be better at hiding their abuse of our data... But that's a conspiracy theory, not a matter of public record like the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
    - underwater 7y ago
      Is that really any better? Google is so monolithic and all encompassing that data collected by their services can be shipped around internally instead of having to be sold to third parties.
      - tomnipotent 7y ago
        > be shipped around internally How is that a problem? The issue at hand is the irresponsible handling of data (especially wrt 3rd parties), not the general handling of 1st-party data competently within an internal network. So yes, it's a LOT better.
        underwater 7y ago
        In what way? If Google uses your search history to target you with ads is that somehow better than them leaking the data and a third party service targetting you the same way? The end result is the same.
- la_barba 7y ago
  Has Google ever disclosed exactly what data they collect, what they do with it, who can look at it, etc? We "know" that Google takes privacy "seriously", but that is a faith based position.
  - halflings 7y ago
    It's all here, and you can delete it (including batch delete by period or source): https://myactivity.google.com/ https://myactivity.google.com/ This page includes other types of data (e.g videos you upload to youtube or mails in Gmail): https://policies.google.com/privacy https://policies.google.com/privacy
    - la_barba 7y ago
      Thanks for linking to the policy document. They have this convenient line that allows them to do anything. "We provide personal information to our affiliates and other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures." >It's all here, and you can delete it (including batch delete by period or source) That scratches the surface, but an iceburg hides underneath. For one, how do we know its all the data? For another, there is no indication as to who has seen it or how Google uses it. That is my point. Google has never detailed those things..I suppose for legal reasons. A user has a right to know exactly what they are trading with Google in exchange for free services. They can then make up their own mind if they think its worth it. I'm just picking on Google here, because its a soft target, but it should apply to any service. We need new privacy regulations to formalize this.
      - justinclift 7y ago
        Sounds like they just needed to spin up one "affiliate" and provide the data to that for data mining / etc purposes. Anyone deleting the data "Google" holds would have zero effect on the affiliate, while giving some people the feeling Google was doing the right thing.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
- idlewords 7y ago
  It's getting a little wearying to have to rehearse the ways in which Google is a threat to privacy. But let's get the band together one more time: Google runs search and email for essentially the entire web, controls the market dominant browser and mobile OS, has tracking scripts on >75% of the top million websites and runs a fair amount of the internet's infrastructure. It is the senior partner in the online advertising duopoly (together with Facebook) and runs one of the three major cloud computing services. It has also become the de facto standards authority for the internet and runs a massive continuous operation to collect photos of every street on the planet, which it is now expanding into interior spaces. It sells always-on microphones for the home, as well as a line of internet-connected home appliances. It does so much invasive stuff that I've probably forgotten half of it here. So it's neither a big or controversial claim in 2019 to point out that Google has unique breadth of visibility into both the physical world, and anything that touches a connected device.
  - drugme 7y ago
    No one disputes that Google has its tentacles in many pots -- and definitely needs to be kept on a leash. But the claim was that Google was not just a matter of concern -- somehow a clearly bigger threat than FB. Can anyone provide substantiation for that claim?
    - root_axis 7y ago
      That seems obvious. If you don't use Facebook you're pretty much outside of the Facebook tracking network with a few exceptions wrt Facebook cookie tracking which you can kill with a browser plugin like Facebook Disconnect. With Google, the tracking surface area is orders of magnitude more ubiquitous - everything from Search to YouTube to Chrome to Email to Android and on and on. Facebook is almost (but not quite) negligible in comparison.
      - citrablue 7y ago
        Google also sees pretty much every website visit for every website in the world, through Google Analytics.
- nathanlied 7y ago
  > With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. (EU citizen here): I would prefer corporations (especially ones with such depth of funds and breadth of influence) be kept entirely outside the electoral process. If that's not feasible, then the second best option is, indeed, that they provide the same service to all candidates, no matter who those candidates are. Am I getting it right that you'd prefer they pick some candidates to help in detriment of others? Because that option does not sound very healthy to me, personally.
  - rossdavidh 7y ago
    Speaking as a U.S. citizen, your thoughts were exactly my reaction to that comment.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    My ideal system is to eliminate all private money from elections. You as a candidate are given a stipend by the FEC at the beginning of the campaign season, the same amount as any other candidate for the same office, and you are free to spend it. You ran out? Tough. See you next election cycle. Nobody is allowed to give you money or anything else of value (including free airtime) -- not individuals, not companies, just the FEC. Anything else is bribery, and a crime. That way, you're not going to do things just to please your benefactors and get you an edge over your opponent next time, as your war budget is already accounted for. Instead you can focus on doing what's best for the people.
    - Thorrez 7y ago
      And what if a candidate wants to spend that stipend on Facebook ads. Is Facebook not allowed to have a salesperson take that money and sell ads to the candidate?
    - andrewfong 7y ago
      OK, what if people with money want to spend that money on political speech _without_ coordinating with the candidate? That's the Citizens United problem. There's no quid pro quo bribery, but if the NRA spends a bazillion dollars attacking your opponent but not you, it'd be hard to say there's no influence on your decision making process. At the same time, it's really tricky to ban. Is something like Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 a form of political advertising?
- colllectorof 7y ago
  >>google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty >Big claim. Any proofs? All this skepticism around Google's capacity to abuse their troves of data and invasive services is a clear indicator that this discussion has very little to do with real privacy. It is mostly a playground for various corporate, political and media shills.
- pryce 7y ago
  > With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. I have become more and more convinced that this is Facebook's real business model; that enabling instances of archetype CambridgeAnalytica is the purpose the company actually exists for.
- srcmap 7y ago
  https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/files/documents/Google.2019.4.23.%20Letter%20to%20Google%20re%20Sensorvault.CPC_.pdf https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycomme... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/googles-sensorvault-can-tell-police-where-youve-been https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/googles-sensorvault-ca... Sensorvault: “includes detailed location records involving at least hundreds of millions of devices worldwide and dating back nearly a decade.” US law enforcement had been regularly accessing Sensorvault user data in a dragnet-like fashion to obtain location details for hundreds or thousands of users
- euske 7y ago
  A bigger problem to me is Google's search bias and subtle manipulation. The same goes for Facebook's news curation algorithm. These things can directly impact our democracy, yet it's much harder to tackle or even investigate, because the whole thing is so elusive and subjective. To me privacy seems to be already a lost cause. We've lost it and there's little hope to take it back. Also privacy violation is a relatively easy problem to understand. For bias and manipulation, however, we don't even know what to do.
- mastazi 7y ago
  With Facebook, it's easy for an average individual to leave the platform for good: stop using Fb/Insta/Whatsapp and install something like Privacy Badger to avoid tracking on all the other sites that have some form of Fb integration. Leaving Google, by contrast, is way more difficult, their ecosystem reaches literally every corner of the web and you have to deal with it even if you don't consciously use any Google product, for example if Recaptcha doesn't like you, everyday online tasks like paying public school fees [1] or signing up to an online forum become much harder. Another example is Amp, where the fact that you are reading an article hosted into Google infrastructure is often hidden from you, there are many more examples. Trying to quit Google feels like that episode of Black Mirror where that woman is ostracised by everyone because she doesn't have the same cybernetic implant that everyone else is using. Just because Google hasn't been caught in any scandal comparable to the Cambridge Analytica one, it doesn't mean that it's OK for them to have so much unchecked power. [1] see my submission history for details
- bboygravity 7y ago
  >>google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty >Big claim. Any proofs? Well. How about the following facts? -- Android market share is about 75 % of all smartphone users. Do non-smartphone users still exist? -- It's probably safe to say that it's much much easier to avoid using Facebook's services consciously than to avoid using Google's services consciously? -- Android's hard coded DNS server is a Google DNS server. The vast majority of people don't use a VPN (the only way in Android to change DNS server is through a VPN setup) to get around this. I haven't looked it up, but it's probably safe to assume that all Chromebooks also use Google's DNS by default? My limited networking knowledge tells me that this means that Google knows: who's using what Android/Google device at what time (match IP to Google login to Android device), who's visiting what website at what time, who's using what app at what time (requests to the app's server and to Google's servers for location, payment, auth and other info). -- A lot of people use Gmail. Google can literally read all Gmail emails. Even those sent into Gmail from outside of Google servers. -- The vast majority of Android users has enabled "Google location services" in Android. This is a one time "click OK to continue dialog" to permanently enable these location services until disabled manually again in settings (nobody does this). Weather apps, Tinder, Navigation apps, etc almost all require this. This means those people are continually sending < ~ 500 ms resolution data points of their location to Google servers. Even when those apps are turned "off" (meaning running in background, "off" doesn't exist in Android). Google can literally know how long you poop, who your secret girlfriend is and what specialist you visited at the hospital. NYT had a huge piece about this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html?module=inline https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/loca... -- People use Chrome. With automated Google login. Meaning Google knows everything they do online. -- I'm not even going to go into other popular Google apps, we all know them: Youtube, Google Assistant, etc. With all the accounts nicely automatically linked to one another. -- All of the above information and probably much more can be used for profiling information about users. I think it's safe to say that Google knows absolutely everything about it's users at this point? Than the following: -- Law enforcement (internationally?) can request any "sensor vault" data from any Google user in their country. AKA: they can request to look into all of the details of one's life. -- The NSA can secretly request access to any of Google's data. Google is not allowed to disclose this access. By law. That's what they can legally do. Snowden has told us what they illegally do: anything they want. The NSA literally knows everything there is to know about everybody. In the world. And Google, by law, has to help them with that. In secret. This obviously has political consequences for the simple fact that "information = power". Those political consequences are not in favor of democracy. Where I write "Google knows" I mean that Google servers receive that information (a fact). It is debatable whether Google stores that information or not. As for the location data mentioned above, it is a fact that third parties (app makers) do store this location information and sell it (illegally, see NYT link above). It is also debatable whether Google deletes your information when you ask them too. My personal guess it that absolutely all information is stored, but that this storage of information is not disclosed to the public. I personally also believe that when you request your Google data to be deleted, only "the public facing layer" of your info gets deleted. I don't believe for a second they actually delete your "anonymized" data. In quotes, because such data can very easily be de-anonymized. I mean, just the fact that there is deliberately no "DNS server address" setting in Android. Ask yourself why? Why would Google make it so much easier to just use the Google DNS server? Why does it offer a free DNS server to begin with? Why does all your location data have to go through Google servers before being consumed by the apps that run on your phone locally? That says it all to me.
- smsm42 7y ago
  > With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. That sounds like a behavior of a honest service provider. Worse behavior would be if they'd help candidates which match their political biases, but work against candidates that disagree with them. That would look like abusing their position of a steward of a world-wide platform. > With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. Isn't political campaigning part of the discussion? If so, why is it bad to give candidates equal access to tools to perform this campaigning? Would you begrudge a printer that would print signs for any candidate, no matter who they are? If not, how electronic signs are functionally different from printed ones? > everything is happening violently. I feel people are really abusing the word "violently" nowdays. Nothing that happens on facebook is violence, it's mostly just talk.
bhtru 7y ago
If you have time, can you elaborate why you believe Google is a larger threat to personal liberty and privacy?
- malvosenior 7y ago
  Google has far greater potential for invading an individual's privacy than Facebook does. Google has Android, Chrome, search, maps and gmail (and now photos). Those are all very critical pieces to a person's real world life. Facebook has FB, Instagram and WhatsApp. Yes, some private communication but it's limited to "social networking". Your taxes and utility bills don't get mailed to FB Messenger. You don't search for cancer research on Instagram and Facebook can't tell what other apps are installed on your phone.
  - code_duck 7y ago
    I’ve been getting ads on Instagram for health issues I discussed on reddit.
  - tozeur 7y ago
    I met a lady the other day who said that her job at google was a PM for their advanced technologies group doing “infiltration” into people’s lives.
- dylan604 7y ago
  I too was curious of this balance weighting. FB slurps in all of the data that users voluntarily post. Google just learns things through inference about users whereas FB is getting data posted directly by the user. Seems to me that FB is able to be way more invasive.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    Do you not consider Gmail data posted voluntarily by the user? How about search queries or calendar entries?
    - 7y ago
pan_peter 7y ago
Social networks live by the sword of voyeurism and die by the sword of voyeurism. This is not something Google has to worry about.
walls 7y ago
Google has your data and uses it for themselves. Facebook has your data and gives it (or leaks it) to anyone with money.
- 55555 7y ago
  They both sell ads and offer advanced targeting options. Very similar businesses.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jonny_eh 7y ago
    Facebook didn't get in hot water for selling ads.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Google and Facebook are exactly the same on this score. They both collect as much data about you as they can get their grubby paws on, they both use that data for themselves, and they both allow others to leverage that data in exchange for cash.
fromthestart 7y ago
Has there been any evidence of abuse and misdirection on the part of Google at the same level as Facebook? This is more than just negative press, this is a question of how data collection has been misused, and what lies executives have told about current and future plans surrounding privacy and data abuse. But, personally, I'm staying away from FB, Google, Amazon, Snapchat, et al for the reasons you've mentioned; negative press or no, I cannot ethically work for companies that are haphazardly building the foundations of a potential technocratic dystopia in their chase for profitability.
GCA10 7y ago
Google makes a lot of genuinely useful products and services. We've all got to wrestle with the privacy tradeoffs of "free" maps, "free" email, "free" Android, etc. But at least the satisfaction of using well-built tools to accomplish more is enough of an offset to many people. Facebook is much more likely to be seen as a guilty pleasure, or a marvelous time-waster, or something else that's a bit farther down the utility curve.
- citrablue 7y ago
  Perhaps in some countries/demos. I'd bet Instagram and WhatsApp for free, basic communication are seen as much higher utility in a significant amount of the global population.
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    But much of that utility comes from the fact that everyone uses it, rather than some inherent quality of the product, like is the case for Maps. Feeling somewhat "forced" to use it does not help with a positive view of the company.
  - screye 7y ago
    > Instagram Don't see its utility. It is a proper time waste. > Whatsapp It is indeed the most popular, but isn't unique in what it offers. Many others do what whatsapp does just as well, but none have the number of users.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Facebook makes products that many people find genuinely useful, it just makes fewer of them.
_bxg1 7y ago
Google collects more data, but they're much less free-wheeling with how they share it around. Pick your poison I guess.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I pick neither. This whole debate about who is worse, Google or Facebook, is a bit ridiculous. They're both unacceptably awful, and practically speaking I don't think it matters which is more awful than the other.
JohnFen 7y ago
> google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty I disagree. I think that on the whole, they're both about the same. But in terms of integrity, honesty, and ethics, Google has a (small) lead on Facebook.

rongenre 7y ago

I wonder how much of it is that Facebook isn't all that much fun anymore, and working there would provoke all sorts of "I don't use it anymore" comments from one's peers.

humanrebar 7y ago
Or maybe prospects don't use Facebook either and it seems odd to contribute to a website you don't even visit.
code_duck 7y ago
Instagram and WhatsApp are more popular than ever, though.

mrtksn 7y ago

>google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty Big claim. Any proofs? With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. Extremely worrisome if you prefer to have people elected through a democratic process that is based on the discussion. This is not like understanding what people want or how do they think through big data analysis but manufacturing it. Sure - provocations and lies are not new, it was always the case for politics but with a social media everything is at scale and everything is happening violently.

elorant 7y ago
Just look at the amount of personal information Google knows/records about you. Your search history, web stats through Chrome, location history through Android, with whom you exchange emails if you're using GMail, which sites you visit and how long you stay on them through Google Analytics, probably online purchases with a combination of AdSense/AdWords & Analytics, everything you watch on YouTube etc. They definitely collect much more data than Facebook. The only reason they haven't faced the same shitstorm is because they don't seem to share all that data with 3rd parties.
- jdormit 7y ago
  > The only reason they haven't faced the same shitstorm is because they don't seem to share all that data with 3rd parties. This is the whole point though, is it not? As far as we know, Google treats the data they collect more thoughtfully and responsibly than Facebook. And so they are (rightly or not) viewed as less of a threat to the public good. Of course, they could just be better at hiding their abuse of our data... But that's a conspiracy theory, not a matter of public record like the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
  - underwater 7y ago
    Is that really any better? Google is so monolithic and all encompassing that data collected by their services can be shipped around internally instead of having to be sold to third parties.
    - tomnipotent 7y ago
      > be shipped around internally How is that a problem? The issue at hand is the irresponsible handling of data (especially wrt 3rd parties), not the general handling of 1st-party data competently within an internal network. So yes, it's a LOT better.
      - underwater 7y ago
        In what way? If Google uses your search history to target you with ads is that somehow better than them leaking the data and a third party service targetting you the same way? The end result is the same.
la_barba 7y ago
Has Google ever disclosed exactly what data they collect, what they do with it, who can look at it, etc? We "know" that Google takes privacy "seriously", but that is a faith based position.
- halflings 7y ago
  It's all here, and you can delete it (including batch delete by period or source): https://myactivity.google.com/ https://myactivity.google.com/ This page includes other types of data (e.g videos you upload to youtube or mails in Gmail): https://policies.google.com/privacy https://policies.google.com/privacy
  - la_barba 7y ago
    Thanks for linking to the policy document. They have this convenient line that allows them to do anything. "We provide personal information to our affiliates and other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures." >It's all here, and you can delete it (including batch delete by period or source) That scratches the surface, but an iceburg hides underneath. For one, how do we know its all the data? For another, there is no indication as to who has seen it or how Google uses it. That is my point. Google has never detailed those things..I suppose for legal reasons. A user has a right to know exactly what they are trading with Google in exchange for free services. They can then make up their own mind if they think its worth it. I'm just picking on Google here, because its a soft target, but it should apply to any service. We need new privacy regulations to formalize this.
    - justinclift 7y ago
      Sounds like they just needed to spin up one "affiliate" and provide the data to that for data mining / etc purposes. Anyone deleting the data "Google" holds would have zero effect on the affiliate, while giving some people the feeling Google was doing the right thing.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
idlewords 7y ago
It's getting a little wearying to have to rehearse the ways in which Google is a threat to privacy. But let's get the band together one more time: Google runs search and email for essentially the entire web, controls the market dominant browser and mobile OS, has tracking scripts on >75% of the top million websites and runs a fair amount of the internet's infrastructure. It is the senior partner in the online advertising duopoly (together with Facebook) and runs one of the three major cloud computing services. It has also become the de facto standards authority for the internet and runs a massive continuous operation to collect photos of every street on the planet, which it is now expanding into interior spaces. It sells always-on microphones for the home, as well as a line of internet-connected home appliances. It does so much invasive stuff that I've probably forgotten half of it here. So it's neither a big or controversial claim in 2019 to point out that Google has unique breadth of visibility into both the physical world, and anything that touches a connected device.
- drugme 7y ago
  No one disputes that Google has its tentacles in many pots -- and definitely needs to be kept on a leash. But the claim was that Google was not just a matter of concern -- somehow a clearly bigger threat than FB. Can anyone provide substantiation for that claim?
  - root_axis 7y ago
    That seems obvious. If you don't use Facebook you're pretty much outside of the Facebook tracking network with a few exceptions wrt Facebook cookie tracking which you can kill with a browser plugin like Facebook Disconnect. With Google, the tracking surface area is orders of magnitude more ubiquitous - everything from Search to YouTube to Chrome to Email to Android and on and on. Facebook is almost (but not quite) negligible in comparison.
    - citrablue 7y ago
      Google also sees pretty much every website visit for every website in the world, through Google Analytics.
nathanlied 7y ago
> With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. (EU citizen here): I would prefer corporations (especially ones with such depth of funds and breadth of influence) be kept entirely outside the electoral process. If that's not feasible, then the second best option is, indeed, that they provide the same service to all candidates, no matter who those candidates are. Am I getting it right that you'd prefer they pick some candidates to help in detriment of others? Because that option does not sound very healthy to me, personally.
- rossdavidh 7y ago
  Speaking as a U.S. citizen, your thoughts were exactly my reaction to that comment.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  My ideal system is to eliminate all private money from elections. You as a candidate are given a stipend by the FEC at the beginning of the campaign season, the same amount as any other candidate for the same office, and you are free to spend it. You ran out? Tough. See you next election cycle. Nobody is allowed to give you money or anything else of value (including free airtime) -- not individuals, not companies, just the FEC. Anything else is bribery, and a crime. That way, you're not going to do things just to please your benefactors and get you an edge over your opponent next time, as your war budget is already accounted for. Instead you can focus on doing what's best for the people.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    And what if a candidate wants to spend that stipend on Facebook ads. Is Facebook not allowed to have a salesperson take that money and sell ads to the candidate?
  - andrewfong 7y ago
    OK, what if people with money want to spend that money on political speech _without_ coordinating with the candidate? That's the Citizens United problem. There's no quid pro quo bribery, but if the NRA spends a bazillion dollars attacking your opponent but not you, it'd be hard to say there's no influence on your decision making process. At the same time, it's really tricky to ban. Is something like Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 a form of political advertising?
colllectorof 7y ago
>>google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty >Big claim. Any proofs? All this skepticism around Google's capacity to abuse their troves of data and invasive services is a clear indicator that this discussion has very little to do with real privacy. It is mostly a playground for various corporate, political and media shills.
pryce 7y ago
> With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. I have become more and more convinced that this is Facebook's real business model; that enabling instances of archetype CambridgeAnalytica is the purpose the company actually exists for.
srcmap 7y ago
https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/files/documents/Google.2019.4.23.%20Letter%20to%20Google%20re%20Sensorvault.CPC_.pdf https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycomme... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/googles-sensorvault-can-tell-police-where-youve-been https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/googles-sensorvault-ca... Sensorvault: “includes detailed location records involving at least hundreds of millions of devices worldwide and dating back nearly a decade.” US law enforcement had been regularly accessing Sensorvault user data in a dragnet-like fashion to obtain location details for hundreds or thousands of users
euske 7y ago
A bigger problem to me is Google's search bias and subtle manipulation. The same goes for Facebook's news curation algorithm. These things can directly impact our democracy, yet it's much harder to tackle or even investigate, because the whole thing is so elusive and subjective. To me privacy seems to be already a lost cause. We've lost it and there's little hope to take it back. Also privacy violation is a relatively easy problem to understand. For bias and manipulation, however, we don't even know what to do.
mastazi 7y ago
With Facebook, it's easy for an average individual to leave the platform for good: stop using Fb/Insta/Whatsapp and install something like Privacy Badger to avoid tracking on all the other sites that have some form of Fb integration. Leaving Google, by contrast, is way more difficult, their ecosystem reaches literally every corner of the web and you have to deal with it even if you don't consciously use any Google product, for example if Recaptcha doesn't like you, everyday online tasks like paying public school fees [1] or signing up to an online forum become much harder. Another example is Amp, where the fact that you are reading an article hosted into Google infrastructure is often hidden from you, there are many more examples. Trying to quit Google feels like that episode of Black Mirror where that woman is ostracised by everyone because she doesn't have the same cybernetic implant that everyone else is using. Just because Google hasn't been caught in any scandal comparable to the Cambridge Analytica one, it doesn't mean that it's OK for them to have so much unchecked power. [1] see my submission history for details
bboygravity 7y ago
>>google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty >Big claim. Any proofs? Well. How about the following facts? -- Android market share is about 75 % of all smartphone users. Do non-smartphone users still exist? -- It's probably safe to say that it's much much easier to avoid using Facebook's services consciously than to avoid using Google's services consciously? -- Android's hard coded DNS server is a Google DNS server. The vast majority of people don't use a VPN (the only way in Android to change DNS server is through a VPN setup) to get around this. I haven't looked it up, but it's probably safe to assume that all Chromebooks also use Google's DNS by default? My limited networking knowledge tells me that this means that Google knows: who's using what Android/Google device at what time (match IP to Google login to Android device), who's visiting what website at what time, who's using what app at what time (requests to the app's server and to Google's servers for location, payment, auth and other info). -- A lot of people use Gmail. Google can literally read all Gmail emails. Even those sent into Gmail from outside of Google servers. -- The vast majority of Android users has enabled "Google location services" in Android. This is a one time "click OK to continue dialog" to permanently enable these location services until disabled manually again in settings (nobody does this). Weather apps, Tinder, Navigation apps, etc almost all require this. This means those people are continually sending < ~ 500 ms resolution data points of their location to Google servers. Even when those apps are turned "off" (meaning running in background, "off" doesn't exist in Android). Google can literally know how long you poop, who your secret girlfriend is and what specialist you visited at the hospital. NYT had a huge piece about this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html?module=inline https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/loca... -- People use Chrome. With automated Google login. Meaning Google knows everything they do online. -- I'm not even going to go into other popular Google apps, we all know them: Youtube, Google Assistant, etc. With all the accounts nicely automatically linked to one another. -- All of the above information and probably much more can be used for profiling information about users. I think it's safe to say that Google knows absolutely everything about it's users at this point? Than the following: -- Law enforcement (internationally?) can request any "sensor vault" data from any Google user in their country. AKA: they can request to look into all of the details of one's life. -- The NSA can secretly request access to any of Google's data. Google is not allowed to disclose this access. By law. That's what they can legally do. Snowden has told us what they illegally do: anything they want. The NSA literally knows everything there is to know about everybody. In the world. And Google, by law, has to help them with that. In secret. This obviously has political consequences for the simple fact that "information = power". Those political consequences are not in favor of democracy. Where I write "Google knows" I mean that Google servers receive that information (a fact). It is debatable whether Google stores that information or not. As for the location data mentioned above, it is a fact that third parties (app makers) do store this location information and sell it (illegally, see NYT link above). It is also debatable whether Google deletes your information when you ask them too. My personal guess it that absolutely all information is stored, but that this storage of information is not disclosed to the public. I personally also believe that when you request your Google data to be deleted, only "the public facing layer" of your info gets deleted. I don't believe for a second they actually delete your "anonymized" data. In quotes, because such data can very easily be de-anonymized. I mean, just the fact that there is deliberately no "DNS server address" setting in Android. Ask yourself why? Why would Google make it so much easier to just use the Google DNS server? Why does it offer a free DNS server to begin with? Why does all your location data have to go through Google servers before being consumed by the apps that run on your phone locally? That says it all to me.
smsm42 7y ago
> With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. That sounds like a behavior of a honest service provider. Worse behavior would be if they'd help candidates which match their political biases, but work against candidates that disagree with them. That would look like abusing their position of a steward of a world-wide platform. > With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. Isn't political campaigning part of the discussion? If so, why is it bad to give candidates equal access to tools to perform this campaigning? Would you begrudge a printer that would print signs for any candidate, no matter who they are? If not, how electronic signs are functionally different from printed ones? > everything is happening violently. I feel people are really abusing the word "violently" nowdays. Nothing that happens on facebook is violence, it's mostly just talk.

bhtru 7y ago

If you have time, can you elaborate why you believe Google is a larger threat to personal liberty and privacy?

malvosenior 7y ago
Google has far greater potential for invading an individual's privacy than Facebook does. Google has Android, Chrome, search, maps and gmail (and now photos). Those are all very critical pieces to a person's real world life. Facebook has FB, Instagram and WhatsApp. Yes, some private communication but it's limited to "social networking". Your taxes and utility bills don't get mailed to FB Messenger. You don't search for cancer research on Instagram and Facebook can't tell what other apps are installed on your phone.
- code_duck 7y ago
  I’ve been getting ads on Instagram for health issues I discussed on reddit.
- tozeur 7y ago
  I met a lady the other day who said that her job at google was a PM for their advanced technologies group doing “infiltration” into people’s lives.
dylan604 7y ago
I too was curious of this balance weighting. FB slurps in all of the data that users voluntarily post. Google just learns things through inference about users whereas FB is getting data posted directly by the user. Seems to me that FB is able to be way more invasive.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  Do you not consider Gmail data posted voluntarily by the user? How about search queries or calendar entries?
  - 7y ago

pan_peter 7y ago

Social networks live by the sword of voyeurism and die by the sword of voyeurism. This is not something Google has to worry about.

walls 7y ago

Google has your data and uses it for themselves. Facebook has your data and gives it (or leaks it) to anyone with money.

55555 7y ago
They both sell ads and offer advanced targeting options. Very similar businesses.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jonny_eh 7y ago
  Facebook didn't get in hot water for selling ads.
JohnFen 7y ago
Google and Facebook are exactly the same on this score. They both collect as much data about you as they can get their grubby paws on, they both use that data for themselves, and they both allow others to leverage that data in exchange for cash.

fromthestart 7y ago

Has there been any evidence of abuse and misdirection on the part of Google at the same level as Facebook? This is more than just negative press, this is a question of how data collection has been misused, and what lies executives have told about current and future plans surrounding privacy and data abuse. But, personally, I'm staying away from FB, Google, Amazon, Snapchat, et al for the reasons you've mentioned; negative press or no, I cannot ethically work for companies that are haphazardly building the foundations of a potential technocratic dystopia in their chase for profitability.

GCA10 7y ago

Google makes a lot of genuinely useful products and services. We've all got to wrestle with the privacy tradeoffs of "free" maps, "free" email, "free" Android, etc. But at least the satisfaction of using well-built tools to accomplish more is enough of an offset to many people. Facebook is much more likely to be seen as a guilty pleasure, or a marvelous time-waster, or something else that's a bit farther down the utility curve.

citrablue 7y ago
Perhaps in some countries/demos. I'd bet Instagram and WhatsApp for free, basic communication are seen as much higher utility in a significant amount of the global population.
- Vinnl 7y ago
  But much of that utility comes from the fact that everyone uses it, rather than some inherent quality of the product, like is the case for Maps. Feeling somewhat "forced" to use it does not help with a positive view of the company.
- screye 7y ago
  > Instagram Don't see its utility. It is a proper time waste. > Whatsapp It is indeed the most popular, but isn't unique in what it offers. Many others do what whatsapp does just as well, but none have the number of users.
saagarjha 7y ago
Facebook makes products that many people find genuinely useful, it just makes fewer of them.

_bxg1 7y ago

Google collects more data, but they're much less free-wheeling with how they share it around. Pick your poison I guess.

JohnFen 7y ago
I pick neither. This whole debate about who is worse, Google or Facebook, is a bit ridiculous. They're both unacceptably awful, and practically speaking I don't think it matters which is more awful than the other.

JohnFen 7y ago

> google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty I disagree. I think that on the whole, they're both about the same. But in terms of integrity, honesty, and ethics, Google has a (small) lead on Facebook.