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Until Google gives us a way to turn off their buying a copy of everyone's brick and mortar store credit/debit card transaction data, they cannot be taken seriou

Until Google gives us a way to turn off their buying a copy of everyone's brick and mortar store credit/debit card transaction data, they cannot be taken seriously as a privacy option. >Google has been able to track your location using Google Maps for a long time. Since 2014, it has used that information to provide advertisers with information on how often people visit their stores. But store visits aren’t purchases, so, as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607938/google-now-tracks-your-credit-card-purchases-and-connects-them-to-its-online-profile-of-you/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607938/google-now-tracks-...

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
Even if the mainstream alternatives are also bad, two wrongs don't make a right.
- GeekyBear 7y ago
  "We didn't include an option to turn off data analytics for Siri in the privacy section of the control panel where all the other data analytics options are" is a far cry from "We are now buying a copy of everyone's credit card transactions so you should buy all your targeted ads from our fully armed and operational surveillance capitalism Death Star". (to borrow a Star Wars metaphor)
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    The trouble is that we don't know what Apple is doing. It's mostly a big black box. Maybe they are tracking everyone's location and credit card transactions. I've been on the exact opposite side of this argument for the past year, both here on the internet and IRL. Sure, we can't look inside Apple's systems, but if they say they're doing X Y and Z, we ought to believe them. Apple knows that if something comes to light after they've billed themselves as a privacy company, it will be a big scandal, so they'll want to keep their word. Well, here we are, and now I feel stupid. Fool me once...
    - GeekyBear 7y ago
      The fact that Apple is bragging that they take privacy seriously while Google has been bragging to advertising customers that they have been violating the privacy of everyone's banking transactions is everything you need to know to see that the two companies have a very different approach to user privacy. However, Google can still adopt Apple's position that data collection should be turned off by default and only turned on by the users after you explain what will be done with the data. They won't since spying on users is how they make the vast majority of their money, but they could.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

Even if the mainstream alternatives are also bad, two wrongs don't make a right.

GeekyBear 7y ago
"We didn't include an option to turn off data analytics for Siri in the privacy section of the control panel where all the other data analytics options are" is a far cry from "We are now buying a copy of everyone's credit card transactions so you should buy all your targeted ads from our fully armed and operational surveillance capitalism Death Star". (to borrow a Star Wars metaphor)
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  The trouble is that we don't know what Apple is doing. It's mostly a big black box. Maybe they are tracking everyone's location and credit card transactions. I've been on the exact opposite side of this argument for the past year, both here on the internet and IRL. Sure, we can't look inside Apple's systems, but if they say they're doing X Y and Z, we ought to believe them. Apple knows that if something comes to light after they've billed themselves as a privacy company, it will be a big scandal, so they'll want to keep their word. Well, here we are, and now I feel stupid. Fool me once...
  - GeekyBear 7y ago
    The fact that Apple is bragging that they take privacy seriously while Google has been bragging to advertising customers that they have been violating the privacy of everyone's banking transactions is everything you need to know to see that the two companies have a very different approach to user privacy. However, Google can still adopt Apple's position that data collection should be turned off by default and only turned on by the users after you explain what will be done with the data. They won't since spying on users is how they make the vast majority of their money, but they could.