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You're right. But, Google does understand that their users don't want to be tracked. They just don't care. The real solution is to "Get off Google". If everyon

You're right. But, Google does understand that their users don't want to be tracked. They just don't care. The real solution is to "Get off Google". If everyone reading this did that, would it impact them? No, they would be fine. But I think it's better to do something rather than nothing.

Despegar 7y ago
>If everyone reading this did that, would it impact them? No, they would be fine. But I think it's better to do something rather than nothing. As with climate change, systemic problems can't be solved with individual action.
- techsupporter 7y ago
  This seems like a cop-out to me. “What can I, as one person do? Just don’t bother since the impact is tiny.” I think people leave out the word “only” in statements like yours. Systemic problems can’t be solved with only individual action but the actions of many individuals can very much set examples, serve as encouragement to others, shift norms, and make the political space for regulated or coordinated action more available. We should not exempt ourselves from individual action, especially when it is inconvenient, simply because our small change won’t single-handedly solve the whole problem. This goes for browsers, “free” email, privacy, and environmental impact.
  - jeromegv 7y ago
    True. Customer boycott have worked in the past. DELETEUBER campaign was quite a big PR nightmare for Uber and this could be measured in their market share vs Lyft. Same from buying power. You can either buy from small business and make a difference for a family. Or you can keep shopping at big box stores. Sure it feels like a small impact, but this isn't small at all for the small business. Those things add up.
  - Despegar 7y ago
    We should not waste our time with individual action when that urge to do something should be directed at politics, policy, and law. Dealing with a monopoly at an individual level is an exercise in futility.
- radisb 7y ago
  They can. In the same way they were created: By individual action.
  - i_cant_speel 7y ago
    The problems were created because incentives aligned for people to make decisions that lead to the problem. The only way to revert it is to change the incentives. And that can't be done by just me or you.
    - radisb 7y ago
      >The only way to revert it is to change the incentives. Or people could change their decisions.
      - i_cant_speel 7y ago
        Yes, but you aren't going to get enough people to change their decisions to have an impact without changing their incentives. Right now people are incentivized to use these "free" services because they feel like that's what is in their best interest. And to be honest, they are probably right in the current state of the world. I would be significantly worse off if I refused to use any Google services. I literally wouldn't be able to do my current job. Making any type of change isn't going to come from us, but from regulators who force change.
        radisb 7y ago
        > Yes, but you aren't going to get enough people to change their decisions to have an impact without changing their incentives. It is not my purpose to change anyone's decision but mine. That alone is enough impact for me. > I would be significantly worse off if I refused to use any Google services. I literally wouldn't be able to do my current job. You have a tough choice indeed (I am in the same situation). But the choice is yours. And yours alone.
        7y ago
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > As with climate change, systemic problems can't be solved with individual action. But they can certainly be improved.
input_sh 7y ago
I still use some Google products because it's far too inconvenient to get rid of them (notably, Android and YouTube), but I got rid of pretty much anything else that "normal people" rely on: search, maps, Chrome (or any Chromium-based browser), analytics, calendar, drive, assistant, Gmail etc.
- jahabrewer 7y ago
  What's your Maps replacement? I tried getting off it but got too frustrated with the alternatives I tried (maps.me, something using OSM).
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    Apple Maps is not too bad. I only fall back to Google Maps less than once a week.
    - readams 7y ago
      Once a week is a pretty high rate for total failure forcing fallback to a different app entirely.
  - nroach 7y ago
    Part of the problem is that tracking at scale really does add convenience (automatic home to work detection, traffic pattern detection, real-time routing around events.) But then using that information for other purposes (advertising your nearest fast food restaurant) isn't seen by users as compelling compared to the user's purpose of sharing that information. That's one reason why GDPR and its enforcement has been so weighted towards the _purposes_ of data collection and enforcing adherence to stated purposes. The problem, of course, is that incentives are misaligned and the company's purpose in collection and use is often different from the user's purpose. And the laws are still written to the service provider's purpose not the users' purpose. Its left to the company to align them. I use Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps. Each has a perceptibly different balancing of those purposes.
  - def_true_false 7y ago
pacala 7y ago
"Get off Google" or "Get off the Internet"? Where by "Internet" I mean "running 3rd party code talking back to a server over a global network". One way is going back to the original WWW design of hyperlinked documents, removing cookies and javascript altogether. Tracking becomes limited to the set of hyperlinked documents accessed, which could be proxied by a 3rd party for anonymization purposes. However, there are a few downsides. * No authentication to remote servers. Forget web email, shopping or banking. On the plus side, forget social media as well. * No business model for content publishers. * No rich web UIs, for example maps. Is there a middle ground?
- defanor 7y ago
  > One way is going back to the original WWW design of hyperlinked documents, removing cookies and javascript altogether. While it doesn't seem likely to be viable even for a single person (primarily because of the government and banking services), it sounds rather nice to me, and such a sentiment pops up here and there. > No authentication to remote servers. No certain types of custom authentication, but standard HTTP authentication doesn't require executing freshly loaded code. Even custom forms-based authentication doesn't require to do that, or to use cookies. > No business model for content publishers. This is probably meant to be exaggerated; surely there are content publisher business models not reliant on JS-powered advertisement (e.g., subscriptions, tracking-free advertisements, donations, perhaps merchandise). > No rich web UIs, for example maps. I find this example rather interesting: it's a common and old application of pushing the limits of web browsers, and a seemingly common example of the need to do so (perhaps because maps are useful to many people, and the need in a specialized UI for those is hardly controversial). But it also seems quite sensible to me to use a dedicated program (which doesn't run on top of a web browser, that is) for mapping.
  - pacala 7y ago
    Thank you. The business model is likely faulty reasoning by my part: Observe that in current world the most effective business model is advertisement, out-competing alternatives, then incorrectly concluding it is the best in all possible worlds.

Despegar 7y ago

>If everyone reading this did that, would it impact them? No, they would be fine. But I think it's better to do something rather than nothing. As with climate change, systemic problems can't be solved with individual action.

techsupporter 7y ago
This seems like a cop-out to me. “What can I, as one person do? Just don’t bother since the impact is tiny.” I think people leave out the word “only” in statements like yours. Systemic problems can’t be solved with only individual action but the actions of many individuals can very much set examples, serve as encouragement to others, shift norms, and make the political space for regulated or coordinated action more available. We should not exempt ourselves from individual action, especially when it is inconvenient, simply because our small change won’t single-handedly solve the whole problem. This goes for browsers, “free” email, privacy, and environmental impact.
- jeromegv 7y ago
  True. Customer boycott have worked in the past. DELETEUBER campaign was quite a big PR nightmare for Uber and this could be measured in their market share vs Lyft. Same from buying power. You can either buy from small business and make a difference for a family. Or you can keep shopping at big box stores. Sure it feels like a small impact, but this isn't small at all for the small business. Those things add up.
- Despegar 7y ago
  We should not waste our time with individual action when that urge to do something should be directed at politics, policy, and law. Dealing with a monopoly at an individual level is an exercise in futility.
radisb 7y ago
They can. In the same way they were created: By individual action.
- i_cant_speel 7y ago
  The problems were created because incentives aligned for people to make decisions that lead to the problem. The only way to revert it is to change the incentives. And that can't be done by just me or you.
  - radisb 7y ago
    >The only way to revert it is to change the incentives. Or people could change their decisions.
    - i_cant_speel 7y ago
      Yes, but you aren't going to get enough people to change their decisions to have an impact without changing their incentives. Right now people are incentivized to use these "free" services because they feel like that's what is in their best interest. And to be honest, they are probably right in the current state of the world. I would be significantly worse off if I refused to use any Google services. I literally wouldn't be able to do my current job. Making any type of change isn't going to come from us, but from regulators who force change.
      - radisb 7y ago
        > Yes, but you aren't going to get enough people to change their decisions to have an impact without changing their incentives. It is not my purpose to change anyone's decision but mine. That alone is enough impact for me. > I would be significantly worse off if I refused to use any Google services. I literally wouldn't be able to do my current job. You have a tough choice indeed (I am in the same situation). But the choice is yours. And yours alone.
        7y ago
saagarjha 7y ago
> As with climate change, systemic problems can't be solved with individual action. But they can certainly be improved.

input_sh 7y ago

I still use some Google products because it's far too inconvenient to get rid of them (notably, Android and YouTube), but I got rid of pretty much anything else that "normal people" rely on: search, maps, Chrome (or any Chromium-based browser), analytics, calendar, drive, assistant, Gmail etc.

jahabrewer 7y ago
What's your Maps replacement? I tried getting off it but got too frustrated with the alternatives I tried (maps.me, something using OSM).
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Apple Maps is not too bad. I only fall back to Google Maps less than once a week.
  - readams 7y ago
    Once a week is a pretty high rate for total failure forcing fallback to a different app entirely.
- nroach 7y ago
  Part of the problem is that tracking at scale really does add convenience (automatic home to work detection, traffic pattern detection, real-time routing around events.) But then using that information for other purposes (advertising your nearest fast food restaurant) isn't seen by users as compelling compared to the user's purpose of sharing that information. That's one reason why GDPR and its enforcement has been so weighted towards the _purposes_ of data collection and enforcing adherence to stated purposes. The problem, of course, is that incentives are misaligned and the company's purpose in collection and use is often different from the user's purpose. And the laws are still written to the service provider's purpose not the users' purpose. Its left to the company to align them. I use Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps. Each has a perceptibly different balancing of those purposes.
- def_true_false 7y ago

pacala 7y ago

"Get off Google" or "Get off the Internet"? Where by "Internet" I mean "running 3rd party code talking back to a server over a global network". One way is going back to the original WWW design of hyperlinked documents, removing cookies and javascript altogether. Tracking becomes limited to the set of hyperlinked documents accessed, which could be proxied by a 3rd party for anonymization purposes. However, there are a few downsides. * No authentication to remote servers. Forget web email, shopping or banking. On the plus side, forget social media as well. * No business model for content publishers. * No rich web UIs, for example maps. Is there a middle ground?

defanor 7y ago
> One way is going back to the original WWW design of hyperlinked documents, removing cookies and javascript altogether. While it doesn't seem likely to be viable even for a single person (primarily because of the government and banking services), it sounds rather nice to me, and such a sentiment pops up here and there. > No authentication to remote servers. No certain types of custom authentication, but standard HTTP authentication doesn't require executing freshly loaded code. Even custom forms-based authentication doesn't require to do that, or to use cookies. > No business model for content publishers. This is probably meant to be exaggerated; surely there are content publisher business models not reliant on JS-powered advertisement (e.g., subscriptions, tracking-free advertisements, donations, perhaps merchandise). > No rich web UIs, for example maps. I find this example rather interesting: it's a common and old application of pushing the limits of web browsers, and a seemingly common example of the need to do so (perhaps because maps are useful to many people, and the need in a specialized UI for those is hardly controversial). But it also seems quite sensible to me to use a dedicated program (which doesn't run on top of a web browser, that is) for mapping.
- pacala 7y ago
  Thank you. The business model is likely faulty reasoning by my part: Observe that in current world the most effective business model is advertisement, out-competing alternatives, then incorrectly concluding it is the best in all possible worlds.