4 ms·

Google uses every datapoint they get their hands on to track their users. No matter if its a share button, google analytics, youtube embed, custom search, gmail

Google uses every datapoint they get their hands on to track their users. No matter if its a share button, google analytics, youtube embed, custom search, gmail or any other Google product. They can and will use it to track the users.

throwaways885 6y ago
Wrong. They do anonymously: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397?hl=en https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397?hl=en Turn this switch off and there's no tracking. Your data really isn't interesting enough to track.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Why would you trust them though? Their whole business model is based on them knowing as much as possible about everyone so they can better target ads to them. Facebook also tried the promise of "trust us to not use your 2FA phone number for ads" and broke it with no/little ill effects, so there's no reason Google can't do the same. Building & running a service such as Google Analytics is not cheap so they wouldn't be giving it away for free unless they got something out of it.
  - YetAnotherNick 6y ago
    Chrome and android has lot more data than analytics, and if you go that extent to assume Google is lying and using our data, it would be least of my issues of Google using analytics data for displaying ads. I also don't think such a sparse and context dependent data like analytics would help that much to Google for displaying ads. They just want time you spent doing what, which is already present with Google.
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      The two aren't mutually exclusive. They can use data both from GA as well as Chrome/Android. Ultimately, their business model relies on violating people's privacy and thus the safest course of action is to treat them as hostile and avoid them.
    - moooo99 6y ago
      > I also don't think such a sparse and context dependent data like analytics would help that much to Google for displaying ads. Sorry but I think that is a very weird statement. Google Analytics collects a LOT of datapoints. Not only can they track users no matter how they get to that page, they can track how they behave on the page itself. They can track what content is interesting for the user (they know what the page contains after all) and how long you actually stay on the website. They can collect all of that data, without the user knowing and the user himself doesn't even need to use a single Google product. I wouldn't exactly describe that as sparse data collection and the context dependent tracking is what makes Google Ads context relevant.

throwaways885 6y ago

Wrong. They do anonymously: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397?hl=en https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397?hl=en Turn this switch off and there's no tracking. Your data really isn't interesting enough to track.

Nextgrid 6y ago
Why would you trust them though? Their whole business model is based on them knowing as much as possible about everyone so they can better target ads to them. Facebook also tried the promise of "trust us to not use your 2FA phone number for ads" and broke it with no/little ill effects, so there's no reason Google can't do the same. Building & running a service such as Google Analytics is not cheap so they wouldn't be giving it away for free unless they got something out of it.
- YetAnotherNick 6y ago
  Chrome and android has lot more data than analytics, and if you go that extent to assume Google is lying and using our data, it would be least of my issues of Google using analytics data for displaying ads. I also don't think such a sparse and context dependent data like analytics would help that much to Google for displaying ads. They just want time you spent doing what, which is already present with Google.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    The two aren't mutually exclusive. They can use data both from GA as well as Chrome/Android. Ultimately, their business model relies on violating people's privacy and thus the safest course of action is to treat them as hostile and avoid them.
  - moooo99 6y ago
    > I also don't think such a sparse and context dependent data like analytics would help that much to Google for displaying ads. Sorry but I think that is a very weird statement. Google Analytics collects a LOT of datapoints. Not only can they track users no matter how they get to that page, they can track how they behave on the page itself. They can track what content is interesting for the user (they know what the page contains after all) and how long you actually stay on the website. They can collect all of that data, without the user knowing and the user himself doesn't even need to use a single Google product. I wouldn't exactly describe that as sparse data collection and the context dependent tracking is what makes Google Ads context relevant.