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I have four arguments as to why google are behaving this way with regards to this data. I’ve no idea which, if any, they operate by: 1. It’s actually crap and

I have four arguments as to why google are behaving this way with regards to this data. I’ve no idea which, if any, they operate by: 1. It’s actually crap and they don’t want their advertisers to know that their ads are sold based on crap quality data/don’t want the backlash of doing a poor job helping 2. Most people at google care a lot about privacy (either in the secret kept between you and google sense or the more common sense definition people seem to use on hn) and they don’t really think about this data as something the firm has/should release 3. They are afraid that if governments realised they had this data then google would be regulated or every minor security agency/random government department would be demanding access to it by law. 4. They strongly feel that surveillance by (well intentioned?) private companies is ok but by governments it os not.

WatchDog 7y ago
Re: #1 The quality of their location data is pretty easy to audit personally by looking at ones location history.
- renewiltord 7y ago
  And it's fantastic. I love the location timeline feature they build for you from it.
- dan-robertson 7y ago
  I expect google buys data from data brokers and this is counted as sufficiently anonymous to not be included in the location history google shows. But this misses the point because looking at your location history shows you the quality of a tiny fraction of Google’s location data and don’t tell you much about the rest of the data
munificent 7y ago
I work at Google but don't have any visibility into this project, nor do I speak for Google on this. My uninformed guess is that the answer is more precisely: 5. They very much want this project to succeed so that it can save lives. They know privacy concerns are (rightly) an existential threat to the success of the project, so they are trying to address those by drawing this firm line. It's not 1 or 3 because anyone can look at the location data Google gathers on them and judge for themselves if it's crap. Just search for "view google location history" and it will take you right there. I think 2 is pretty close to the mark. Despite HN's understandably cynical take, everyone I talk to at Google cares a lot about user privacy.
- dan-robertson 7y ago
  Why do people/google suddenly start caring about privacy now? You can only see the tiny fraction of data that relates to you, and only the data that has been identified to you. This says very little about the quality of the rest of the data google have. Doing the double slit experiment once with a single election will not tell you much about quantum mechanics.
- mackrevinack 7y ago
  "Just search for "view google location history" and it will take you right there." is that really all there is? they are showing you everything? theres no shadow profile?
jtolmar 7y ago
> 2. Most people at google care a lot about privacy (either in the secret kept between you and google sense or the more common sense definition people seem to use on hn) When I worked at Google, I saw a lot of earnest efforts to keep data private, in a way that really was sufficient (k-anonymized with large k, for example), but in ways that have no outward proof that it was happening. Send all possible data to the server, then make sure it's properly clustered and scrubbed before it gets stored or analyzed. And it's not easy to explain to someone who can see the whole system that from an end-user's view this is identical to just scooping up everything.
- karaterobot 7y ago
  I can verify that, from an outsider's perspective, this is indistinguishable from just scooping up everything and saying "trust us, we care about your privacy".
- iaml 7y ago
  Doesn't this mean other people who might MITM the data flow (like NSA) would get the whole lot instead?
thelittleone 7y ago
3. It's worth considering that governments may or are likely to have people within these big firms. Also, Google and Apple where part of PRISM. So there is a history of cooperation.

WatchDog 7y ago

Re: #1 The quality of their location data is pretty easy to audit personally by looking at ones location history.

renewiltord 7y ago
And it's fantastic. I love the location timeline feature they build for you from it.
dan-robertson 7y ago
I expect google buys data from data brokers and this is counted as sufficiently anonymous to not be included in the location history google shows. But this misses the point because looking at your location history shows you the quality of a tiny fraction of Google’s location data and don’t tell you much about the rest of the data

munificent 7y ago

I work at Google but don't have any visibility into this project, nor do I speak for Google on this. My uninformed guess is that the answer is more precisely: 5. They very much want this project to succeed so that it can save lives. They know privacy concerns are (rightly) an existential threat to the success of the project, so they are trying to address those by drawing this firm line. It's not 1 or 3 because anyone can look at the location data Google gathers on them and judge for themselves if it's crap. Just search for "view google location history" and it will take you right there. I think 2 is pretty close to the mark. Despite HN's understandably cynical take, everyone I talk to at Google cares a lot about user privacy.

dan-robertson 7y ago
Why do people/google suddenly start caring about privacy now? You can only see the tiny fraction of data that relates to you, and only the data that has been identified to you. This says very little about the quality of the rest of the data google have. Doing the double slit experiment once with a single election will not tell you much about quantum mechanics.
mackrevinack 7y ago
"Just search for "view google location history" and it will take you right there." is that really all there is? they are showing you everything? theres no shadow profile?

jtolmar 7y ago

> 2. Most people at google care a lot about privacy (either in the secret kept between you and google sense or the more common sense definition people seem to use on hn) When I worked at Google, I saw a lot of earnest efforts to keep data private, in a way that really was sufficient (k-anonymized with large k, for example), but in ways that have no outward proof that it was happening. Send all possible data to the server, then make sure it's properly clustered and scrubbed before it gets stored or analyzed. And it's not easy to explain to someone who can see the whole system that from an end-user's view this is identical to just scooping up everything.

karaterobot 7y ago
I can verify that, from an outsider's perspective, this is indistinguishable from just scooping up everything and saying "trust us, we care about your privacy".
iaml 7y ago
Doesn't this mean other people who might MITM the data flow (like NSA) would get the whole lot instead?

thelittleone 7y ago

3. It's worth considering that governments may or are likely to have people within these big firms. Also, Google and Apple where part of PRISM. So there is a history of cooperation.