5 ms·

Keeping your private information private

60 points by tantalor 6y ago

camdenlock 6y ago
> Privacy is at the heart of everything we do Good god...
- Minor49er 6y ago
  They don't expose how much information that they have about everyone, let alone what kinds of information. In that regard, they're not wrong.
bprasanna 6y ago
Yes, "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" - Never expected this line from Google! Really google, do you want to have that as your opening statement for a blog post! If the answer is yes, please make us feel confident about it! Found it amusing because, the Privacy in Google is not straight forward (means not promoted by Google, like Apple), the users have to take the responsibility of their privacy by navigating the Settings maze and turn the knobs to attain the real Privacy!
close04 6y ago
Reading about how to hold your data private on Google's blog feels like learning how to have a healthy romantic relationship from a porn site.
annoyingnoob 6y ago
> Control on your terms Not really, my terms are that Google can take a hike.
code4tee 6y ago
"Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" Really? A more accurate statement is probably: "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do. Unless we think we can make money off your data. Then it’s a feature providing great targeted user experiences not a privacy issue. You know, how we block the ‘bad’ trackers in our products, just not our own. We make money off your data with our trackers so it would be silly of us to block those. But other than that sure, yeah, privacy is important. Our marketing people tell me I should keep saying that.” But you know, details.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pszndr 6y ago
  Privacy as in, "we'll keep your data only with us and not share it with anyone else" Which they don't do, don't need to do, and will not do. Since they serve ads themselves, it would work against their own business if the data spread to somewhere else
  - Kednicma 6y ago
    And this tradeoff is implicit in every attempt to move away from Google. For example, watching Youtube means that Google knows which videos I watch; watching Peertube means that some folks in the swarm know which videos I watch. Google is trying to establish a reputation as less likely to extort or ruin you than various advanced persistent threats.
el_nino 6y ago
Google's business model is antithetic with "privacy". This is by design and very much out in the open, they are an advertising company, their revenue is literally and as publicly as possible coming from not keeping your data private. Expecting Google to give you privacy is like asking a funeral home to extend your life. It's just not their business model. Wow, seconds to minutes after comments highlighted the crass hypocrisy of Google's "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" they are all downvoted.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
exabrial 6y ago
> Privacy is at the heart of everything we do No it's not. Fucking outright lies. * You can't use the google assistant without turning on location tracking or web history * You can't use your podcast app without web history * I can't disable Google scanning of my email for product purchases * I can't disable Google tracking me across the web without arcane browser extensions * On-device speech recognition doesn't exist * On the linked page, where's the option to delete my information immediately rather than 3 months?
- anchpop 6y ago
  > On-device speech recognition doesn't exist I know this isn't core to your point but you may be interested to know that it does. I just turned on airplane mode on my Pixel and tried it. It's iOS which doesn't (didn't?) do it on-device.
- manishsharan 6y ago
  > Privacy is at the heart of everything we do Of course it is. They sell our privacy.
- just-ok 6y ago
  As another example, if you’ve ever used Google Maps on iOS, you know how absolutely neutered it is if you don’t log in with your Google account.
- Spivak 6y ago
  Look, I 100% agree with you but there's not much point in trying to fight the river on this one. Google considers Google a trusted entity with your data. From their perspective keeping your data private is about keeping it safe from others.
  - xd1936 6y ago
    100%. Privacy to them is not sharing your information outside of themselves. Honestly, they have a much better track record than many other companies.
- 6y ago
kerng 6y ago
>>Privacy is at the heart of everything we do What an opening statement. An ingenuine statement (not to call it a lie) like this actually prevented me to read further. Maybe a more genuine statement, like "Privacy is important to our users and the safety of our society, hence we want to improve" or whatever would have me read further. First, you have to admit fault, then you get to offer a solution and I decide if I use Google or not. And I don't at the moment.
jedberg 6y ago
Everyone is ripping on their opening statement, but it's because you've all missed the implied missing clause: Privacy [of your data from other humans, except for people in the government] is at the heart of everything we do. They have no problem sharing your data with machines though, especially their own machines. I actually trust that Google doesn't have humans reading my email or looking at my location history. But I also know that their machine learning algorithms most certainly do. And maybe a government agent here or there without telling me...
surround 6y ago
> As always, we don’t sell your information to anyone Well, yeah, obviously. Why would they sell your data to competing ad networks?
daenz 6y ago
You have to establish trust before anyone will believe your claims on privacy. What is the trustworthiness of Google? Pretty damn low, I'd say.
coffeemaniac 6y ago
This is a nice gesture, but as always if you truly value your privacy it's up to you to safeguard it and assume that anything you share (intentionally or inadvertently) with an advertising company like Google will be shared, marketed, and used to track you.
seemslegit 6y ago
Sundar Pichai was personally responsible for google's in-depth user tracking strategy across services, sites and devices even in incognito mode and the overall spywarization of chrome and android. He is dishonourable, untrustworthy and any privacy posturing made by him and google should only serve so as to make their often-involuntary users that much more wary.
infogulch 6y ago
A thing is what it does, not what it says.
goodcjw2 6y ago
I sort of (very cynically) like FB's statement: "Sorry, invading your privacy is just our business model." At least it's honest.
dang 6y ago
We moved some comments to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23642432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23642432 which was on the front page at the same time. Most remain here since they're reacting to a specific sentence in this post.

60 points by tantalor 6y ago

camdenlock 6y ago

> Privacy is at the heart of everything we do Good god...

Minor49er 6y ago
They don't expose how much information that they have about everyone, let alone what kinds of information. In that regard, they're not wrong.

bprasanna 6y ago

Yes, "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" - Never expected this line from Google! Really google, do you want to have that as your opening statement for a blog post! If the answer is yes, please make us feel confident about it! Found it amusing because, the Privacy in Google is not straight forward (means not promoted by Google, like Apple), the users have to take the responsibility of their privacy by navigating the Settings maze and turn the knobs to attain the real Privacy!

close04 6y ago

Reading about how to hold your data private on Google's blog feels like learning how to have a healthy romantic relationship from a porn site.

annoyingnoob 6y ago

> Control on your terms Not really, my terms are that Google can take a hike.

code4tee 6y ago

"Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" Really? A more accurate statement is probably: "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do. Unless we think we can make money off your data. Then it’s a feature providing great targeted user experiences not a privacy issue. You know, how we block the ‘bad’ trackers in our products, just not our own. We make money off your data with our trackers so it would be silly of us to block those. But other than that sure, yeah, privacy is important. Our marketing people tell me I should keep saying that.” But you know, details.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pszndr 6y ago
Privacy as in, "we'll keep your data only with us and not share it with anyone else" Which they don't do, don't need to do, and will not do. Since they serve ads themselves, it would work against their own business if the data spread to somewhere else
- Kednicma 6y ago
  And this tradeoff is implicit in every attempt to move away from Google. For example, watching Youtube means that Google knows which videos I watch; watching Peertube means that some folks in the swarm know which videos I watch. Google is trying to establish a reputation as less likely to extort or ruin you than various advanced persistent threats.

el_nino 6y ago

Google's business model is antithetic with "privacy". This is by design and very much out in the open, they are an advertising company, their revenue is literally and as publicly as possible coming from not keeping your data private. Expecting Google to give you privacy is like asking a funeral home to extend your life. It's just not their business model. Wow, seconds to minutes after comments highlighted the crass hypocrisy of Google's "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" they are all downvoted.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

exabrial 6y ago

> Privacy is at the heart of everything we do No it's not. Fucking outright lies. * You can't use the google assistant without turning on location tracking or web history * You can't use your podcast app without web history * I can't disable Google scanning of my email for product purchases * I can't disable Google tracking me across the web without arcane browser extensions * On-device speech recognition doesn't exist * On the linked page, where's the option to delete my information immediately rather than 3 months?

anchpop 6y ago
> On-device speech recognition doesn't exist I know this isn't core to your point but you may be interested to know that it does. I just turned on airplane mode on my Pixel and tried it. It's iOS which doesn't (didn't?) do it on-device.
manishsharan 6y ago
> Privacy is at the heart of everything we do Of course it is. They sell our privacy.
just-ok 6y ago
As another example, if you’ve ever used Google Maps on iOS, you know how absolutely neutered it is if you don’t log in with your Google account.
Spivak 6y ago
Look, I 100% agree with you but there's not much point in trying to fight the river on this one. Google considers Google a trusted entity with your data. From their perspective keeping your data private is about keeping it safe from others.
- xd1936 6y ago
  100%. Privacy to them is not sharing your information outside of themselves. Honestly, they have a much better track record than many other companies.
6y ago

kerng 6y ago

>>Privacy is at the heart of everything we do What an opening statement. An ingenuine statement (not to call it a lie) like this actually prevented me to read further. Maybe a more genuine statement, like "Privacy is important to our users and the safety of our society, hence we want to improve" or whatever would have me read further. First, you have to admit fault, then you get to offer a solution and I decide if I use Google or not. And I don't at the moment.

jedberg 6y ago

Everyone is ripping on their opening statement, but it's because you've all missed the implied missing clause: Privacy [of your data from other humans, except for people in the government] is at the heart of everything we do. They have no problem sharing your data with machines though, especially their own machines. I actually trust that Google doesn't have humans reading my email or looking at my location history. But I also know that their machine learning algorithms most certainly do. And maybe a government agent here or there without telling me...

surround 6y ago

> As always, we don’t sell your information to anyone Well, yeah, obviously. Why would they sell your data to competing ad networks?

daenz 6y ago

You have to establish trust before anyone will believe your claims on privacy. What is the trustworthiness of Google? Pretty damn low, I'd say.

coffeemaniac 6y ago

This is a nice gesture, but as always if you truly value your privacy it's up to you to safeguard it and assume that anything you share (intentionally or inadvertently) with an advertising company like Google will be shared, marketed, and used to track you.

seemslegit 6y ago

Sundar Pichai was personally responsible for google's in-depth user tracking strategy across services, sites and devices even in incognito mode and the overall spywarization of chrome and android. He is dishonourable, untrustworthy and any privacy posturing made by him and google should only serve so as to make their often-involuntary users that much more wary.

infogulch 6y ago

A thing is what it does, not what it says.

goodcjw2 6y ago

I sort of (very cynically) like FB's statement: "Sorry, invading your privacy is just our business model." At least it's honest.

dang 6y ago

We moved some comments to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23642432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23642432 which was on the front page at the same time. Most remain here since they're reacting to a specific sentence in this post.