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Genuinely, why should I care? What harm is likely to happen to my life by sticking with Google, a service provider I find convenient? EDIT: I don't want to be

Genuinely, why should I care? What harm is likely to happen to my life by sticking with Google, a service provider I find convenient? EDIT: I don't want to be accused of fan-boying or astro-turfing. I just see "Avoid Big Company X because they collect your data" a lot and I just can't give a damn about companies collecting my data. Be my guest, if it means I get free stuff. My data is boring tech nerd data, use it to deliver relevant vacuum cleaner ads, I don't care. I block them anyway.

XCSme 6y ago
I think the biggest problem is Google becoming a monopoly, when you rely daily on tens of their services. Than, if for some reason, they decide to close your account or use your data to "be evil", there's not much you can do.
- nickelpro 6y ago
  Is there a history of Google de-activating accounts arbitrarily? I agree this would be a huge problem, but I'd be similarly devastated if my ISP stopped doing business with me, or any other email provider if I wasn't on gmail. True, if Google deactivated my account I'd lose a little bit more than just gmail, but any company I do business with arbitrarily cutting me off would be on the same magnitude of problematic. That seems like a risk you take just by doing business with third-parties at all.
  - eyeball 6y ago
    I would be screwed if google deactivated my mail account. So many accounts linked.
    - cube00 6y ago
      There's never been a better time to get your own domain and take back control before it happens.
      - eyeball 6y ago
        I bought a proton mail account ... but that probably presents the same problem. someday proton mail decides to shut down users. less likely I guess. what's the least pain way to have your own domain fronting an email service provided by someone else?
        judge2020 6y ago
        All services have arbitrary usage agreements and can terminate your account at any time if some automated system is triggered, or even if a human makes the wrong call. > what's the least pain way to have your own domain fronting an email service provided by someone else? If you're asking about moving from Gmail to protonmail, your best bet is to set up forwarding from Gmail and go through your most important accounts to change the email.
  - XCSme 6y ago
    I remember seeing a few cases of Google account de-activation every year. Not sure how often it happens, but it does happen. I personally use Gmail and really like it, I don't expect to have any problems with them, but I do know that my account being deleted at some point for no reason is a real possibility. I think that email is a bigger problem as it's the main connection between you and all the other services you use online. Lose your email address? You're going to have a hard time recovering the accounts on all the other services.
    - npsomaratna 6y ago
      The risk with Google is that (if you're like most of us), you're likely to be using several of their services. If you're flagged in any one of those services (for whatever reason), you run the risk of losing access to all of their services at once - including Gmail.
    - nickelpro 6y ago
      I totally agree with this point, it absolutely does happen. It's just every time I investigate a given incident further it is either: A) A clear ToS violation where Google is completely in the right with the suspension B) An engineering error that is fixed in a day or two. Which puts Google in the same camp as every other tech company I do business with, and every other email provider for that matter. Moreover, given the hundreds of millions if not billions of gmail users and only handful of suspension stories, I'm probably less likely to face suspension on Gmail than other platforms.
  - jaynetics 6y ago
    > Is there a history of Google de-activating accounts arbitrarily? Yes. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+%22google%22+%22my+account%22&ia=web# https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+%22google%2...
    - nickelpro 6y ago
      Can you be more specific? I see two links that are directly related to account suspension on the front page of DDG. One related to Newpipe, where the comments on HN call it out as a likely troll, and another with a dead link.
      - ciarannolan 6y ago
        Here's a better search of this stuff: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=google%20account&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
    - npsomaratna 6y ago
      Example: https://support.google.com/adsense/thread/11487570?hl=en https://support.google.com/adsense/thread/11487570?hl=en "I uploaded a YouTube video, which was a normal video in my eyes.. that got removed for inappropriate content and got my account disabled. Now my access to the gmail address is blocked" Being banned from Youtube because you violated their TOS is one thing. Losing access to Gmail at the same time, because everything is linked to the same Google account? That's excessive.
      - nickelpro 6y ago
        That's a fair criticism, and perhaps a good reason to not use Gmail. But that's not an arbitrary deactivation, and it doesn't support totally avoiding Google in all things.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    > Is there a history of Google de-activating accounts arbitrarily? Absolutely. And usually the only solution is to make it known virally so that someone that works at Google try to intervene for you.
  - jrnichols 6y ago
    There's the issue of them arbitrarily disabling accounts, but also what if someone takes over your account? You've lost everything at that point.
    - Guidii 6y ago
      Google recommends two factor authentication to reduce this risk. https://www.google.com/landing/2step/ https://www.google.com/landing/2step/ (Proper security is helpful with or without Google....)
  - tibyat 6y ago
    Your question is obviously irrelevant. Whether or not they have flagrantly abused the power is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not they could, how easy it would be to do so, how damaging it could be, and what protections we would have once they have done so. This is the threat presented by internet monopolies and their fetish for violating our privacy. Also consider that no company has managed to stay on top indefinitely. Once their growth slows, and they become desperate to appease shareholders, what won't they do to make that happen? Long after fads have changed, supposed benevolent coding wunderkinds have moved on, the troves of data will still be there, ripe for the MBA's, the lawyers, the mitt romney's, god knows who, to leverage. The argument "they've been nice about it so far, so why shouldn't we keep doing it?" is a fucking joke.
    - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
      "What do all men with power want? More power." "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I feel like we have to re-learn the lessons of history every few decades. These things have never worked out well for us in the past and yet despite thousand of historical examples, in every generation or three, a not-small group of people arises swearing that this time is different. Literally the only way to protect humanity from itself is to prevent the concentration of power and here we are, doing it again.
      - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
        Go ahead and downvote folks, the bug is in your head and now you can't get it out. You know you can't ignore it, as much as you want to.
  - minimuffins 6y ago
    It doesn't matter! Don't give them the power to! There's a Richard Feynman quote from the Challenger postmortem: absence of a particular kind of failure in the past doesn't guarantee absence of the same kind of failure in the future.
- deleted 6y ago
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boocoo 6y ago
For one, Google could identify you since on Chrome you might have your name, address, and phone number saved for auto-fill, and sell your information to companies. They could sell your information to a certain company if their AI identifies you, for example, as a left-wing elderly male. I think the recent documentary that got deleted off Youtube explains it. Google also censors results a lot compared to Yahoo and DuckDuckGo so you'll mostly get popular sites. An example is how when I searched "youtube deleted documentary" Yahoo and DuckDuckGo got the right results but Google didn't. For Youtube, it dominates video uploading so it can delete and censoring things easily and all you can do is complain.
- nickelpro 6y ago
  None of those things affect my life. They may be moral or principle concerns for you, but they're not for me.
  - simplehuman 6y ago
    Why should i care for your opinion? It does not affect my life. See, its easy to type nonsense like this.
    - angrais 6y ago
      But what you typed is not nonsense. Much like this, e.g. I don't care what you think :) If we all cared about what every other hackernews user wrote ... We'd probably go a wee bit mad. Certainly my thumbs would be side from responding to y'all
  - Razengan 6y ago
    This post is not just for you.
    - nickelpro 6y ago
      No, but this reply was for me
strangescript 6y ago
People have been raising flags about this for literally decades now and the other shoe has yet to drop in any kind of meaningful way. Everyone is tracking you online, but for some reason we only care about it when its companies that make good products that we like to use. Would you rather they not target you with ads and sell google searches for a nickel each? Meanwhile, I had an ad in my gmail yesterday for Google Fi, sign up today, its super easy! Except I already have google fi. Google's ad service literally couldn't check my gmail account against google fi accounts (apparently).
- pydry 6y ago
  >People have been raising flags about this for literally decades now and the other shoe has yet to drop in any kind of meaningful way. The threat model I work off is "fascist government seizes power in the United States and sequesters all data for all citizens from the top 15 large corporations". Then they get to work weeding out undesirables. This would happen, I'd estimate, in the space of about a month although if history is anything to go by, the signs will have been flashing for a while. You could just switch at that point, I suppose, and hope that something in the last 15 years of emails, chats, your entire contact network and your location history doesn't incriminate you along with the fact that you just switched.
  - gkoberger 6y ago
    Sure, but if that happens... I think we're fucked either way? I think any providers would be just as susceptible (maybe more so; Google ostensibly has the means to protect data, legally and technologically), and your data would already be on Google's servers unless you only emailed or chatted with other non-Google users.
    - pydry 6y ago
      No, you're not fucked either way. In fact, if you're white, middle class, etc. you're probably better off than most and will be given the most leeway. If your data on google/facebook/microsoft/amazon servers is kept to the bare minimum (& kept innocuous), if you self host and if you keep your data on smaller services your chances of getting caught up in a dragnet operation are minimized. Your chances of having an elevated "risk" score because of some stray data point (e.g. some people you emailed once, or some guy's house you visited) is minimized. They're not going to keep track of everybody personally, but they will be running machine learning models all up and down every data point you left to pick out anything suspicious.
raspyberr 6y ago
Accepting this is setting a precedent that you're happy for companies with a lot of power to have efficient systemic influence. This has already (it's barely been 10/20 years) started to influence the outcome of elections. Literally the cornerstone of a functioning democracy. And you're saying you don't care.
- nickelpro 6y ago
  Information distributors do more than influence elections, they completely control them. Walter Cronkite impeached Nixon, Pulitzer and Hearst started the Spanish-American war, and FAANG companies, directly or indirectly, nudge the needle on elections. I don't see how Google is unique or notable in this regard.
  - ciarannolan 6y ago
    It's not unique in this regard, therefore it doesn't matter? Is that your argument? Also, comparing the relative power of newspaper men to Google doesn't make much sense.
    - nickelpro 6y ago
      >It's not unique in this regard, therefore it doesn't matter? Is that your argument? Yes. Any group that controls information distribution controls what we know about the world. By controlling what we know about the world, they control politics completely. This is axiomatic, there is no way around it, you can't personally observe everything that happens therefore you must have it reported to you. The person or people doing that reporting control your worldview. Google isn't bad for playing a role in that information economy. >Also, comparing the relative power of newspaper men to Google doesn't make much sense. You're right, the newspaper and television men of yore were far more powerful than Google is or ever will be. More Americans watched Cronkite than watch all evening network news combined today, and 70% of the people who watched him trusted that his was factual reporting. No news source in the world today has that kind of trust, definitely not Google.
simplehuman 6y ago
You shouldn't care. Same way I don't care about giving my data to Google. My data is precious though compared to yours, so I value it.
millstone 6y ago
See some of the stories here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23057365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23057365 People have been locked out of their Google accounts with no explanation and no recourse.
- Akababa 6y ago
  They can't lock me out of my account if I do it myself first!
kevingrahl 6y ago
Here’s an analogy I like to use for people who don’t care about privacy; Its similar to not caring about free speech just because you have nothing to say. It’s not just about you the regular joe who is of no particular interest to companies/governments but about those people who absolutely need it. You not caring about what they do with your data is totally fine but in my opinion you should care that they (in this case Google) have not only yours but everyone’s data. It’s astonishing what you can do with just some metadata. You can influence groups of people like never before. Swing Elections & change governments. Influence public opinion about literally everything to no small degree. You’re not just giving them your uninteresting data you’re also giving them an enormous amount of power.
- bb88 6y ago
  > You can influence groups of people like never before. Swing Elections & change governments. Influence public opinion about literally everything to no small degree. Right, so, has Google done this? Asking because from what I remember the answer has been largely no, but I remember FB selling data to Cambridge Analytica in 2016.
  - minimuffins 6y ago
    Google has not directly intervened in elections as far as we know. Will they ever if we don't take away their power to? Only one way to find out!
    - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
      (Preface - agreeing with you) - And we really can't know it, either. There's some "evidence" that they're willing to tweak search results in favor of their politics of the day but I'd even take that with a grain of salt - mostly because of the original problem: Google is not transparent. It has always worked out well for us to give power to completely opaque entities right? Guys? Guys?
  - millimeterman 6y ago
    Even this commonly parroted "fact" isn't true. Cambridge Analytica exploited a Facebook misfeature that let them scrape a frankly ridiculous amount of data from users who took their quiz thing. Certainly Facebook shouldn't have allowed random apps access to this user data, but straight up selling data would be an act of immense incompetence on Facebook's part. Their whole business is keeping the data to themselves and selling access to targeted advertising based on that data.
minimuffins 6y ago
In short, because pervasive surveillance is a nightmare for a free society and you aren't the only person alive.
anonymousab 6y ago
>Genuinely, why should I care? What harm is likely to happen to my life by sticking with Google, a service provider I find convenient? Someone tries to access your account from a random place, or maybe an old camera video you uploaded to youtube gets flagged erroneously by some contentid or appropriate content automation, and an automated system locks your account permanently, with you forever losing access to your emails and files. And not being allowed to use google services ever again without breaking ToS.
- bryan_w 6y ago
  Why wouldn't you backup your data periodically? You would if you self hosted, it's the same for online services
  - cube00 6y ago
    You can backup your data but the big fear that caused me to move off was GMail. When Google drops the ban hammer on any of its services (eg. YouTube for using too many emojis) it does it at the Google account level which kills everything. Even worse I've also seen reports Google continues to accept new email and the sender has no knowledge that you're locked out and unable to respond.
  - anonymousab 6y ago
    I'd wager that the vast majority of people don't, or certainly don't for emails.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
If you have no problem with Google's stranglehold on advertising, their role in the demise of local news, brick and mortar business, local economies, and every other way they have contributed to the decline of the internet ... then by all means, enjoy the convenience.
- nickelpro 6y ago
  I don't see how those things as connected to Google. If AskJeeves had won the search wars the all of those things would still happen. Your problem seems to be with capitalism not with Google.
  - LockAndLol 6y ago
    I've read a few of your responses and you've already made up your mind. There's no way you'll budge. At this point, I don't know why people are still trying to win you back. If you can, just edit your original comment and say "and I won't change my mind".
    - nickelpro 6y ago
      Maybe I should have asked, "Why do you care?" Absolutely I made the comment with the intention to debate. The points we're discussing here are all moral and speculative, there is no cut and dry right answer. In those cases I find good faith debate to be the best way to expand my view on the subject, even if I don't end up "budging", at least I understand all the positions a little better.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Herbert Simon, Nobel laureate in economics and one of the fathers of AI, wrote one of the better treatments of the possible future of computer-based data systems in his 1977 essay "What Computers Mean for Man and Society". In it, he addresses concerns: The privacy issue has been raised most insistently with respect to the creation and maintenance of longitudinal data files that assemble information about persons from a multitude of sources. Files of this kind would be highly valueable for many kinds of economic and social research, but they are bought at too high a price if they endanger human freedom or seriously enhance the opportunities of blackmailers. While such dangers should not be ignored, it should be noted that the lack of comprehensive data files has never been the limiting barrier to the suppression of human freedom. The Watergate criminals made extensive, if unskillful, use of electronics, but no computer played a role in their conspiracy. The Nazis operated with horrifying effectiveness and thoroughness without the benefits of any kind of mechanized data processing. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a9e7/33e25ee8f67d5e670b3b7dc4b8c3e00849ae.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a9e7/33e25ee8f67d5e670b3b7d... There is, of course, one slight problem with Simon's argument: The Nazis did make heavy use of mechanised data processing, provided and supported by an American company, IBM. Edwin Black documents this meticulously in his book IBM and the Holocaust: https://ibmandtheholocaust.com https://ibmandtheholocaust.com Whether or not it's possible to transact genocide at similar scale without computerised data records, it's quite clearly far easier to do so with them. Worse, with comprehensive records and rapid identification of any particular meddlesome priest, activist artist, or woman who was warned but nevertheless persisted, it's possible for such regimes, state or non-state, to dip in and retaliate with pinpoint effectiveness. Even the mere suggestion that this is possible can be extraordinarily chilling. https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/103059230160200494 https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/103059230160200494
RonanTheGrey 6y ago
I wonder - Do you wear your COVID mask? Why? How do you feel when others don't - or openly refuse to?
- nickelpro 6y ago
  I do, and think people who don't are morons. COVID represents a clear and present danger, what's the clear and present danger of Google is the nature of my question.
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    So you already accept the premise that caring about more than yourself is an appropriate goal, based on information you trust from others who you take to know better than you. And yet here we are in a different industry, and simply for the sake of your convenience you decide you want to ignore people who know more than you, who are telling you that what Google is doing can be abused and because it can be, eventually will be (because please, point me to ONE example in human history where we have not abused a power we have created). In that case, how about this? COVID isn't personally affecting me, and I don't like wearing the mask, so screw you I refuse to. Do you accept that reasoning? Then why do you accept it here? Physical danger CANNOT be the only measure because that forces physical violence, war, death and destruction to be the only means by which the human race can ever measure progress. And that basically demonstrates that we've learned absolutely nothing. And yet let me be blunt, you already know all that, you're just here trolling, am I right? Go ahead and downvote, it's beyond hilarious to me that you people think your fake internet points mean dick.
    - SquareWheel 6y ago
      > So you already accept the premise that caring about more than yourself is an appropriate goal By wearing a mask, they are directly benefiting others. It offers only small amounts of protection for the wearer. Your argument seems hostile and misguided.
tenuousemphasis 6y ago
I've heard many stories of Google accounts being terminated without the possibility of appeal due to some minor terms of service breach in one of their peripheral services.
asdsadxcxcxcz 6y ago
Would you say the same if you lived in China?
- EugeneOZ 6y ago
  Please provide an example when Google did something harmful to some person in China. Global censorship is not an example - Google doesn't need to collect someone’s data to implement it.
  - asdsadxcxcxcz 6y ago
    It’s not about Google. It’s to demonstrate that in certain situations you wouldn’t say that so confidently, and that your assumptions are based on something very fragile, something that large-scale needle-nudging could have an influence on in your lifetime.
    - EugeneOZ 6y ago
      Article is about Google.
      - asdsadxcxcxcz 6y ago
        The article is, but the discussion isn’t, as any pragmatic discussion about privacy concerns the biggest players within that domain.
rvp-x 6y ago
Here's a report that a Googler used their vast data to spy on and harass people, including minors: https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fired/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fir...
ricardo81 6y ago
One argument I'd make is that it creates a race to the bottom. The fact they have a near search monopoly along with their data collection means they milk the highest amount of revenue per search compared to other search engines by a long margin. To compete with that, other engines would need to be at least as aggressive in their data collection as well as trying to gain market share. Obviously any other engine who uses principles like privacy as part of their mission are at an inherent disadvantage. Search engines can return meaningful adverts pretty much based on keywords used and location searched from- there isn't a "need" for all the other tracking and data collection other than profit.
RonanTheGrey 6y ago
> I don't want to be accused of fan-boying or astro-turfing If you don't want to be, don't post here. Oh, don't like it? That's what you're telling to the people who are disagreeing with you. But it doesn't affect you right? In 7 years this is the first time I've ever seen an honest to god troll on HN. What a first.
- dang 6y ago
  Yikes, please don't post like this here. We ban accounts that do personal attacks, regardless of how wrong the other person is or how right you are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: please don't post flamewar comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24250511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24250511 either. It's really not what this site is for.
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    Thank you dang message received and my apologies. You are right.
    - dang 6y ago
      Appreciated!
swiley 6y ago
It’s not the data collection that made me want to leave, it’s: 1) your account can randomly disappear so you shouldn’t depend on it. Not just for political reasons but things like password reset using a heuristic that can fail leaving you permanently locked out. 2) the abusive anticompetitive behavior was starting to affect me directly. 3) very recently google has started deleting private data containing content they don’t like If you leave over just the data collection that’s extremely noble IMO. In most cases that’s something that affects everyone around you more than it affects you.

XCSme 6y ago

I think the biggest problem is Google becoming a monopoly, when you rely daily on tens of their services. Than, if for some reason, they decide to close your account or use your data to "be evil", there's not much you can do.

nickelpro 6y ago
Is there a history of Google de-activating accounts arbitrarily? I agree this would be a huge problem, but I'd be similarly devastated if my ISP stopped doing business with me, or any other email provider if I wasn't on gmail. True, if Google deactivated my account I'd lose a little bit more than just gmail, but any company I do business with arbitrarily cutting me off would be on the same magnitude of problematic. That seems like a risk you take just by doing business with third-parties at all.
- eyeball 6y ago
  I would be screwed if google deactivated my mail account. So many accounts linked.
  - cube00 6y ago
    There's never been a better time to get your own domain and take back control before it happens.
    - eyeball 6y ago
      I bought a proton mail account ... but that probably presents the same problem. someday proton mail decides to shut down users. less likely I guess. what's the least pain way to have your own domain fronting an email service provided by someone else?
      - judge2020 6y ago
        All services have arbitrary usage agreements and can terminate your account at any time if some automated system is triggered, or even if a human makes the wrong call. > what's the least pain way to have your own domain fronting an email service provided by someone else? If you're asking about moving from Gmail to protonmail, your best bet is to set up forwarding from Gmail and go through your most important accounts to change the email.
- XCSme 6y ago
  I remember seeing a few cases of Google account de-activation every year. Not sure how often it happens, but it does happen. I personally use Gmail and really like it, I don't expect to have any problems with them, but I do know that my account being deleted at some point for no reason is a real possibility. I think that email is a bigger problem as it's the main connection between you and all the other services you use online. Lose your email address? You're going to have a hard time recovering the accounts on all the other services.
  - npsomaratna 6y ago
    The risk with Google is that (if you're like most of us), you're likely to be using several of their services. If you're flagged in any one of those services (for whatever reason), you run the risk of losing access to all of their services at once - including Gmail.
  - nickelpro 6y ago
    I totally agree with this point, it absolutely does happen. It's just every time I investigate a given incident further it is either: A) A clear ToS violation where Google is completely in the right with the suspension B) An engineering error that is fixed in a day or two. Which puts Google in the same camp as every other tech company I do business with, and every other email provider for that matter. Moreover, given the hundreds of millions if not billions of gmail users and only handful of suspension stories, I'm probably less likely to face suspension on Gmail than other platforms.
- jaynetics 6y ago
  > Is there a history of Google de-activating accounts arbitrarily? Yes. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+%22google%22+%22my+account%22&ia=web# https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+%22google%2...
  - nickelpro 6y ago
    Can you be more specific? I see two links that are directly related to account suspension on the front page of DDG. One related to Newpipe, where the comments on HN call it out as a likely troll, and another with a dead link.
    - ciarannolan 6y ago
      Here's a better search of this stuff: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=google%20account&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
  - npsomaratna 6y ago
    Example: https://support.google.com/adsense/thread/11487570?hl=en https://support.google.com/adsense/thread/11487570?hl=en "I uploaded a YouTube video, which was a normal video in my eyes.. that got removed for inappropriate content and got my account disabled. Now my access to the gmail address is blocked" Being banned from Youtube because you violated their TOS is one thing. Losing access to Gmail at the same time, because everything is linked to the same Google account? That's excessive.
    - nickelpro 6y ago
      That's a fair criticism, and perhaps a good reason to not use Gmail. But that's not an arbitrary deactivation, and it doesn't support totally avoiding Google in all things.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  > Is there a history of Google de-activating accounts arbitrarily? Absolutely. And usually the only solution is to make it known virally so that someone that works at Google try to intervene for you.
- jrnichols 6y ago
  There's the issue of them arbitrarily disabling accounts, but also what if someone takes over your account? You've lost everything at that point.
  - Guidii 6y ago
    Google recommends two factor authentication to reduce this risk. https://www.google.com/landing/2step/ https://www.google.com/landing/2step/ (Proper security is helpful with or without Google....)
- tibyat 6y ago
  Your question is obviously irrelevant. Whether or not they have flagrantly abused the power is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not they could, how easy it would be to do so, how damaging it could be, and what protections we would have once they have done so. This is the threat presented by internet monopolies and their fetish for violating our privacy. Also consider that no company has managed to stay on top indefinitely. Once their growth slows, and they become desperate to appease shareholders, what won't they do to make that happen? Long after fads have changed, supposed benevolent coding wunderkinds have moved on, the troves of data will still be there, ripe for the MBA's, the lawyers, the mitt romney's, god knows who, to leverage. The argument "they've been nice about it so far, so why shouldn't we keep doing it?" is a fucking joke.
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    "What do all men with power want? More power." "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I feel like we have to re-learn the lessons of history every few decades. These things have never worked out well for us in the past and yet despite thousand of historical examples, in every generation or three, a not-small group of people arises swearing that this time is different. Literally the only way to protect humanity from itself is to prevent the concentration of power and here we are, doing it again.
    - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
      Go ahead and downvote folks, the bug is in your head and now you can't get it out. You know you can't ignore it, as much as you want to.
- minimuffins 6y ago
  It doesn't matter! Don't give them the power to! There's a Richard Feynman quote from the Challenger postmortem: absence of a particular kind of failure in the past doesn't guarantee absence of the same kind of failure in the future.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

boocoo 6y ago

For one, Google could identify you since on Chrome you might have your name, address, and phone number saved for auto-fill, and sell your information to companies. They could sell your information to a certain company if their AI identifies you, for example, as a left-wing elderly male. I think the recent documentary that got deleted off Youtube explains it. Google also censors results a lot compared to Yahoo and DuckDuckGo so you'll mostly get popular sites. An example is how when I searched "youtube deleted documentary" Yahoo and DuckDuckGo got the right results but Google didn't. For Youtube, it dominates video uploading so it can delete and censoring things easily and all you can do is complain.

nickelpro 6y ago
None of those things affect my life. They may be moral or principle concerns for you, but they're not for me.
- simplehuman 6y ago
  Why should i care for your opinion? It does not affect my life. See, its easy to type nonsense like this.
  - angrais 6y ago
    But what you typed is not nonsense. Much like this, e.g. I don't care what you think :) If we all cared about what every other hackernews user wrote ... We'd probably go a wee bit mad. Certainly my thumbs would be side from responding to y'all
- Razengan 6y ago
  This post is not just for you.
  - nickelpro 6y ago
    No, but this reply was for me

strangescript 6y ago

People have been raising flags about this for literally decades now and the other shoe has yet to drop in any kind of meaningful way. Everyone is tracking you online, but for some reason we only care about it when its companies that make good products that we like to use. Would you rather they not target you with ads and sell google searches for a nickel each? Meanwhile, I had an ad in my gmail yesterday for Google Fi, sign up today, its super easy! Except I already have google fi. Google's ad service literally couldn't check my gmail account against google fi accounts (apparently).

pydry 6y ago
>People have been raising flags about this for literally decades now and the other shoe has yet to drop in any kind of meaningful way. The threat model I work off is "fascist government seizes power in the United States and sequesters all data for all citizens from the top 15 large corporations". Then they get to work weeding out undesirables. This would happen, I'd estimate, in the space of about a month although if history is anything to go by, the signs will have been flashing for a while. You could just switch at that point, I suppose, and hope that something in the last 15 years of emails, chats, your entire contact network and your location history doesn't incriminate you along with the fact that you just switched.
- gkoberger 6y ago
  Sure, but if that happens... I think we're fucked either way? I think any providers would be just as susceptible (maybe more so; Google ostensibly has the means to protect data, legally and technologically), and your data would already be on Google's servers unless you only emailed or chatted with other non-Google users.
  - pydry 6y ago
    No, you're not fucked either way. In fact, if you're white, middle class, etc. you're probably better off than most and will be given the most leeway. If your data on google/facebook/microsoft/amazon servers is kept to the bare minimum (& kept innocuous), if you self host and if you keep your data on smaller services your chances of getting caught up in a dragnet operation are minimized. Your chances of having an elevated "risk" score because of some stray data point (e.g. some people you emailed once, or some guy's house you visited) is minimized. They're not going to keep track of everybody personally, but they will be running machine learning models all up and down every data point you left to pick out anything suspicious.

raspyberr 6y ago

Accepting this is setting a precedent that you're happy for companies with a lot of power to have efficient systemic influence. This has already (it's barely been 10/20 years) started to influence the outcome of elections. Literally the cornerstone of a functioning democracy. And you're saying you don't care.

nickelpro 6y ago
Information distributors do more than influence elections, they completely control them. Walter Cronkite impeached Nixon, Pulitzer and Hearst started the Spanish-American war, and FAANG companies, directly or indirectly, nudge the needle on elections. I don't see how Google is unique or notable in this regard.
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  It's not unique in this regard, therefore it doesn't matter? Is that your argument? Also, comparing the relative power of newspaper men to Google doesn't make much sense.
  - nickelpro 6y ago
    >It's not unique in this regard, therefore it doesn't matter? Is that your argument? Yes. Any group that controls information distribution controls what we know about the world. By controlling what we know about the world, they control politics completely. This is axiomatic, there is no way around it, you can't personally observe everything that happens therefore you must have it reported to you. The person or people doing that reporting control your worldview. Google isn't bad for playing a role in that information economy. >Also, comparing the relative power of newspaper men to Google doesn't make much sense. You're right, the newspaper and television men of yore were far more powerful than Google is or ever will be. More Americans watched Cronkite than watch all evening network news combined today, and 70% of the people who watched him trusted that his was factual reporting. No news source in the world today has that kind of trust, definitely not Google.

simplehuman 6y ago

You shouldn't care. Same way I don't care about giving my data to Google. My data is precious though compared to yours, so I value it.

millstone 6y ago

See some of the stories here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23057365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23057365 People have been locked out of their Google accounts with no explanation and no recourse.

Akababa 6y ago
They can't lock me out of my account if I do it myself first!

kevingrahl 6y ago

Here’s an analogy I like to use for people who don’t care about privacy; Its similar to not caring about free speech just because you have nothing to say. It’s not just about you the regular joe who is of no particular interest to companies/governments but about those people who absolutely need it. You not caring about what they do with your data is totally fine but in my opinion you should care that they (in this case Google) have not only yours but everyone’s data. It’s astonishing what you can do with just some metadata. You can influence groups of people like never before. Swing Elections & change governments. Influence public opinion about literally everything to no small degree. You’re not just giving them your uninteresting data you’re also giving them an enormous amount of power.

bb88 6y ago
> You can influence groups of people like never before. Swing Elections & change governments. Influence public opinion about literally everything to no small degree. Right, so, has Google done this? Asking because from what I remember the answer has been largely no, but I remember FB selling data to Cambridge Analytica in 2016.
- minimuffins 6y ago
  Google has not directly intervened in elections as far as we know. Will they ever if we don't take away their power to? Only one way to find out!
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    (Preface - agreeing with you) - And we really can't know it, either. There's some "evidence" that they're willing to tweak search results in favor of their politics of the day but I'd even take that with a grain of salt - mostly because of the original problem: Google is not transparent. It has always worked out well for us to give power to completely opaque entities right? Guys? Guys?
- millimeterman 6y ago
  Even this commonly parroted "fact" isn't true. Cambridge Analytica exploited a Facebook misfeature that let them scrape a frankly ridiculous amount of data from users who took their quiz thing. Certainly Facebook shouldn't have allowed random apps access to this user data, but straight up selling data would be an act of immense incompetence on Facebook's part. Their whole business is keeping the data to themselves and selling access to targeted advertising based on that data.

minimuffins 6y ago

In short, because pervasive surveillance is a nightmare for a free society and you aren't the only person alive.

anonymousab 6y ago

>Genuinely, why should I care? What harm is likely to happen to my life by sticking with Google, a service provider I find convenient? Someone tries to access your account from a random place, or maybe an old camera video you uploaded to youtube gets flagged erroneously by some contentid or appropriate content automation, and an automated system locks your account permanently, with you forever losing access to your emails and files. And not being allowed to use google services ever again without breaking ToS.

bryan_w 6y ago
Why wouldn't you backup your data periodically? You would if you self hosted, it's the same for online services
- cube00 6y ago
  You can backup your data but the big fear that caused me to move off was GMail. When Google drops the ban hammer on any of its services (eg. YouTube for using too many emojis) it does it at the Google account level which kills everything. Even worse I've also seen reports Google continues to accept new email and the sender has no knowledge that you're locked out and unable to respond.
- anonymousab 6y ago
  I'd wager that the vast majority of people don't, or certainly don't for emails.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

If you have no problem with Google's stranglehold on advertising, their role in the demise of local news, brick and mortar business, local economies, and every other way they have contributed to the decline of the internet ... then by all means, enjoy the convenience.

nickelpro 6y ago
I don't see how those things as connected to Google. If AskJeeves had won the search wars the all of those things would still happen. Your problem seems to be with capitalism not with Google.
- LockAndLol 6y ago
  I've read a few of your responses and you've already made up your mind. There's no way you'll budge. At this point, I don't know why people are still trying to win you back. If you can, just edit your original comment and say "and I won't change my mind".
  - nickelpro 6y ago
    Maybe I should have asked, "Why do you care?" Absolutely I made the comment with the intention to debate. The points we're discussing here are all moral and speculative, there is no cut and dry right answer. In those cases I find good faith debate to be the best way to expand my view on the subject, even if I don't end up "budging", at least I understand all the positions a little better.

dredmorbius 6y ago

Herbert Simon, Nobel laureate in economics and one of the fathers of AI, wrote one of the better treatments of the possible future of computer-based data systems in his 1977 essay "What Computers Mean for Man and Society". In it, he addresses concerns: The privacy issue has been raised most insistently with respect to the creation and maintenance of longitudinal data files that assemble information about persons from a multitude of sources. Files of this kind would be highly valueable for many kinds of economic and social research, but they are bought at too high a price if they endanger human freedom or seriously enhance the opportunities of blackmailers. While such dangers should not be ignored, it should be noted that the lack of comprehensive data files has never been the limiting barrier to the suppression of human freedom. The Watergate criminals made extensive, if unskillful, use of electronics, but no computer played a role in their conspiracy. The Nazis operated with horrifying effectiveness and thoroughness without the benefits of any kind of mechanized data processing. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a9e7/33e25ee8f67d5e670b3b7dc4b8c3e00849ae.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a9e7/33e25ee8f67d5e670b3b7d... There is, of course, one slight problem with Simon's argument: The Nazis did make heavy use of mechanised data processing, provided and supported by an American company, IBM. Edwin Black documents this meticulously in his book IBM and the Holocaust: https://ibmandtheholocaust.com https://ibmandtheholocaust.com Whether or not it's possible to transact genocide at similar scale without computerised data records, it's quite clearly far easier to do so with them. Worse, with comprehensive records and rapid identification of any particular meddlesome priest, activist artist, or woman who was warned but nevertheless persisted, it's possible for such regimes, state or non-state, to dip in and retaliate with pinpoint effectiveness. Even the mere suggestion that this is possible can be extraordinarily chilling. https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/103059230160200494 https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/103059230160200494

RonanTheGrey 6y ago

I wonder - Do you wear your COVID mask? Why? How do you feel when others don't - or openly refuse to?

nickelpro 6y ago
I do, and think people who don't are morons. COVID represents a clear and present danger, what's the clear and present danger of Google is the nature of my question.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  So you already accept the premise that caring about more than yourself is an appropriate goal, based on information you trust from others who you take to know better than you. And yet here we are in a different industry, and simply for the sake of your convenience you decide you want to ignore people who know more than you, who are telling you that what Google is doing can be abused and because it can be, eventually will be (because please, point me to ONE example in human history where we have not abused a power we have created). In that case, how about this? COVID isn't personally affecting me, and I don't like wearing the mask, so screw you I refuse to. Do you accept that reasoning? Then why do you accept it here? Physical danger CANNOT be the only measure because that forces physical violence, war, death and destruction to be the only means by which the human race can ever measure progress. And that basically demonstrates that we've learned absolutely nothing. And yet let me be blunt, you already know all that, you're just here trolling, am I right? Go ahead and downvote, it's beyond hilarious to me that you people think your fake internet points mean dick.
  - SquareWheel 6y ago
    > So you already accept the premise that caring about more than yourself is an appropriate goal By wearing a mask, they are directly benefiting others. It offers only small amounts of protection for the wearer. Your argument seems hostile and misguided.

tenuousemphasis 6y ago

I've heard many stories of Google accounts being terminated without the possibility of appeal due to some minor terms of service breach in one of their peripheral services.

asdsadxcxcxcz 6y ago

Would you say the same if you lived in China?

EugeneOZ 6y ago
Please provide an example when Google did something harmful to some person in China. Global censorship is not an example - Google doesn't need to collect someone’s data to implement it.
- asdsadxcxcxcz 6y ago
  It’s not about Google. It’s to demonstrate that in certain situations you wouldn’t say that so confidently, and that your assumptions are based on something very fragile, something that large-scale needle-nudging could have an influence on in your lifetime.
  - EugeneOZ 6y ago
    Article is about Google.
    - asdsadxcxcxcz 6y ago
      The article is, but the discussion isn’t, as any pragmatic discussion about privacy concerns the biggest players within that domain.

rvp-x 6y ago

Here's a report that a Googler used their vast data to spy on and harass people, including minors: https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fired/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fir...

ricardo81 6y ago

One argument I'd make is that it creates a race to the bottom. The fact they have a near search monopoly along with their data collection means they milk the highest amount of revenue per search compared to other search engines by a long margin. To compete with that, other engines would need to be at least as aggressive in their data collection as well as trying to gain market share. Obviously any other engine who uses principles like privacy as part of their mission are at an inherent disadvantage. Search engines can return meaningful adverts pretty much based on keywords used and location searched from- there isn't a "need" for all the other tracking and data collection other than profit.

RonanTheGrey 6y ago

> I don't want to be accused of fan-boying or astro-turfing If you don't want to be, don't post here. Oh, don't like it? That's what you're telling to the people who are disagreeing with you. But it doesn't affect you right? In 7 years this is the first time I've ever seen an honest to god troll on HN. What a first.

dang 6y ago
Yikes, please don't post like this here. We ban accounts that do personal attacks, regardless of how wrong the other person is or how right you are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: please don't post flamewar comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24250511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24250511 either. It's really not what this site is for.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  Thank you dang message received and my apologies. You are right.
  - dang 6y ago
    Appreciated!

swiley 6y ago

It’s not the data collection that made me want to leave, it’s: 1) your account can randomly disappear so you shouldn’t depend on it. Not just for political reasons but things like password reset using a heuristic that can fail leaving you permanently locked out. 2) the abusive anticompetitive behavior was starting to affect me directly. 3) very recently google has started deleting private data containing content they don’t like If you leave over just the data collection that’s extremely noble IMO. In most cases that’s something that affects everyone around you more than it affects you.