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The problem with acting on that statement is the assumption that Google will use their knowledge of security to protect everything their customers / service con

The problem with acting on that statement is the assumption that Google will use their knowledge of security to protect everything their customers / service consumers want protected, such as privacy. Google has a very fundamental conflict of interest w.r.t. privacy that stems both from revenue (advertising) and product development (e.g., labelling personal data acquired from consumers). Google will almost certainly act against their data product producers (individuals) best interests based on its very deep requirements to obtain private benefits from not protecting them.

mav3rick 7y ago
Google's privacy controls have been very good over the years.
- svachalek 7y ago
  True if you mean "control" in the sense of "package and sell".
- metalliqaz 7y ago
  Google apparently* has good, accessible privacy controls, however by using them to increase your privacy, you effectively break many of their apps. They are designed to work with your personal information. * I have no way of knowing if they actually delete any personal data when I ask them. I suspect that they just don't show it to me anymore.
  - kartayyar 7y ago
    This is not true. Deleted data is indeed deleted. Making sure deleted data is actually deleted is super important to Google and any other company because of GDPR compliance. This is the kind of thing that you go over laborious detail in over privacy design docs at Google to make sure you have it covered. Source: I'm a Xoogler.
    - metalliqaz 7y ago
      That's cool, but my privacy isn't about compliance. The government can't keep up with the likes of Google. The top-level comment was about the alignment problem between my interests and Google's. I'm sure there's plenty of cases where the data meets the government's definition of "anonymous" but it really isn't. Also I'm sure that there are cases that data is kept for law enforcement even though I've been told it's gone.
- jhayward 7y ago
  How can this be asserted in a transparent way? Are you aware of any of Google's internal practices and use of data that have been audited by an external entity and published for review? How would you rate Google's use of Location History to tell advertisers when you visit their store in terms of "very good privacy controls"? "The AP learned of the issue from K. Shankari, a graduate researcher at UC Berkeley who studies the commuting patterns of volunteers in order to help urban planners. She noticed that her Android phone prompted her to rate a shopping trip to Kohl’s, even though she had turned Location History off. “So how did Google Maps know where I was?” she asked in a blog post ." "At a Google Marketing Live summit in July, Google executives unveiled a new tool called “local campaigns” that dynamically uses ads to boost in-person store visits. It says it can measure how well a campaign drove foot traffic with data pulled from Google users’ location histories." "Google also says location records stored in My Activity are used to target ads. Ad buyers can target ads to specific locations — say, a mile radius around a particular landmark — and typically have to pay more to reach this narrower audience." [1] https://www.apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb https://www.apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb
  - Symmetry 7y ago
    There's a huge difference between Google Maps telling advertisers when you visit a store and Google Maps serving you advertisements based on where you go without telling the advertisers where you are. Google, the creature of code and databases certainly knows where you are at all times just like your cell phone provider does. But if any advertiser or human being at Google knew that it would be a huge breach of privacy.
    - jhayward 7y ago
      There is a very large industry focused on "re-associating" so-called anonymized information back to PII. Store visits are very easy to re-associate, and ad targeting can be used to de-anonymize people as well. It is virtually impossible to certify that any given disclosure, no matter how grouped, anonymized, fuzzed, etc. is incapable of being re-associated given other data and time. I also do not subscribe to the rather expedient definition that your privacy hasn't been violated as long as no human has seen the data. That's an unsupportable claim. As long as my privacy is only a millisecond away from anyone's view on whim, mistake, or trivial disclosure, or some automated system has made some decision that affects me based on my private data I have been violated.
lph 7y ago
Memories of a talk in grad school where we had a guest from Google (also an alum of the school) presenting. He had been with Google from early days and had a hand in their biggest products, including Gmail. It was a very good talk, and I don't mean to disparage it, but someone from the audience asked him a question about user privacy and he answered it by describing how good Google's security is. Like, he didn't quite see the difference between privacy and security. It was illuminating.

mav3rick 7y ago

Google's privacy controls have been very good over the years.

svachalek 7y ago
True if you mean "control" in the sense of "package and sell".
metalliqaz 7y ago
Google apparently* has good, accessible privacy controls, however by using them to increase your privacy, you effectively break many of their apps. They are designed to work with your personal information. * I have no way of knowing if they actually delete any personal data when I ask them. I suspect that they just don't show it to me anymore.
- kartayyar 7y ago
  This is not true. Deleted data is indeed deleted. Making sure deleted data is actually deleted is super important to Google and any other company because of GDPR compliance. This is the kind of thing that you go over laborious detail in over privacy design docs at Google to make sure you have it covered. Source: I'm a Xoogler.
  - metalliqaz 7y ago
    That's cool, but my privacy isn't about compliance. The government can't keep up with the likes of Google. The top-level comment was about the alignment problem between my interests and Google's. I'm sure there's plenty of cases where the data meets the government's definition of "anonymous" but it really isn't. Also I'm sure that there are cases that data is kept for law enforcement even though I've been told it's gone.
jhayward 7y ago
How can this be asserted in a transparent way? Are you aware of any of Google's internal practices and use of data that have been audited by an external entity and published for review? How would you rate Google's use of Location History to tell advertisers when you visit their store in terms of "very good privacy controls"? "The AP learned of the issue from K. Shankari, a graduate researcher at UC Berkeley who studies the commuting patterns of volunteers in order to help urban planners. She noticed that her Android phone prompted her to rate a shopping trip to Kohl’s, even though she had turned Location History off. “So how did Google Maps know where I was?” she asked in a blog post ." "At a Google Marketing Live summit in July, Google executives unveiled a new tool called “local campaigns” that dynamically uses ads to boost in-person store visits. It says it can measure how well a campaign drove foot traffic with data pulled from Google users’ location histories." "Google also says location records stored in My Activity are used to target ads. Ad buyers can target ads to specific locations — say, a mile radius around a particular landmark — and typically have to pay more to reach this narrower audience." [1] https://www.apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb https://www.apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb
- Symmetry 7y ago
  There's a huge difference between Google Maps telling advertisers when you visit a store and Google Maps serving you advertisements based on where you go without telling the advertisers where you are. Google, the creature of code and databases certainly knows where you are at all times just like your cell phone provider does. But if any advertiser or human being at Google knew that it would be a huge breach of privacy.
  - jhayward 7y ago
    There is a very large industry focused on "re-associating" so-called anonymized information back to PII. Store visits are very easy to re-associate, and ad targeting can be used to de-anonymize people as well. It is virtually impossible to certify that any given disclosure, no matter how grouped, anonymized, fuzzed, etc. is incapable of being re-associated given other data and time. I also do not subscribe to the rather expedient definition that your privacy hasn't been violated as long as no human has seen the data. That's an unsupportable claim. As long as my privacy is only a millisecond away from anyone's view on whim, mistake, or trivial disclosure, or some automated system has made some decision that affects me based on my private data I have been violated.

lph 7y ago

Memories of a talk in grad school where we had a guest from Google (also an alum of the school) presenting. He had been with Google from early days and had a hand in their biggest products, including Gmail. It was a very good talk, and I don't mean to disparage it, but someone from the audience asked him a question about user privacy and he answered it by describing how good Google's security is. Like, he didn't quite see the difference between privacy and security. It was illuminating.