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> Who is being paid in this "auction"? What percentage of customers of search know precisely what they are paying? The latter I'm putting at "so close to zero a

> Who is being paid in this "auction"? What percentage of customers of search know precisely what they are paying? The latter I'm putting at "so close to zero as makes no difference" which makes "price competitive" outcome a little on the absurd side. Honestly, most of the people I've talked with know about Google's business model. They give answers ranging around here abouts: * I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide. * DuckDuckGo are probably a honeypot; they gather as much or more information as Google, and lie about it. * Even if I switch search engine, they'll probably get all my info some other way anyhow, and I don't have the skill or time to try to find everything that could be leaking information. * Google supplies a better search engine, so it's worth it. * Using DuckDuckGo as my search engine, when I'm using Android as my OS, seems like a waste of time, and I'm not buying a new phone.

harry8 6y ago
Everything you say there underlines and reinfoces the point that the percentage of customers who know precisely what they are paying is so close to zero as makes no difference. That's a problem for a market.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  Another read of the situation is that the transaction does not cost these folks anything they value. You may want them to value it (whatever you think "it" is, I'm not sure) but they don't.
  - rrobukef 6y ago
    For me, I cannot put a value to the transaction. I have done enough searches that can embarrass me, label me, or hurt me. Maybe some were illegal; I probably am on a lot of lists. Political searches are enough to alienate a lot of people. How do you estimate how my searches affect my income for the coming years? Privacy and ads are an unequal marketplace where the consumer lacks information. And looking at VPN incidents, perhaps it is fundamentally unequal. A consumer can never verify if information freely given is stored or abused.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      > For me, I cannot put a value to the transaction. I have done enough searches that can embarrass me, label me, or hurt me. Maybe some were illegal; I probably am on a lot of lists. Political searches are enough to alienate a lot of people. How do you estimate how my searches affect my income for the coming years? Probably zero, because absent a search warrant they aren't ever revealed to anyone but you.
      - etripe 6y ago
        > Probably zero, because absent a search warrant they aren't ever revealed to anyone but you. Are you unaware of parallel construction or do you think it poses no real danger?
        asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        I think it poses minimal danger to the vast, vast majority of people. For people who are doing crime, though, probably it's best not to use search while logged in or from their own IP.
      - rrobukef 6y ago
        The first value is definetly not zero, enough companties profit from selling ads. The second, I'd like to remind you of the Target pregnancy story (possible hoax) or, more real, the Ashley Madison leaks.
  - harry8 6y ago
    >the transaction does not cost these folks anything they value. Absolutely and you can say that about literally everyone who gets caught by a confidence trickster and some do. It really hasn't worked out for too many indigenous cultures where that was used as the precise justfication, for example. Usuary is another one you can defend that way and people do. It's not so commonly held anymore by those not profiting from it. When there is a tradeoff between what is good fo soceity at large being the people who live in it and what is good for for a big company's market dominance the latter is meant to come absolutely last and be tolerated if it doesn't infringe anything much else of value to the people. I can't see that as being the case here. No doubt Zuckerberg disagrees because he's convinced anything good for him and his company is pefection for society by the definition that he wants to do it. Nobody understands what they are paying. Nobody understands their liability. Google et al all desperately hide it and have done a bait and switch to make it happen. There is _NO_ informed consent to the contract and the contract is invalid.
    - tangjurine 6y ago
      Well said
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      >Absolutely and you can say that about literally everyone who gets caught by a confidence trickster and some do. No, you cannot. Because with a confidence trickster there is usually an element of regret afterwards. The folks we are talking about have generally been using Google for years and years. If the other shoe is going to drop it's sure taking its time.
jfoster 6y ago
"I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide." Can I offer a variation of this one? I care about privacy. I wouldn't want a human to be looking over my searches. That said, if they're just using the data to serve me relevant ads and it's all either automated or aggregated so that I'm never personally identified, then I'm cool with it at the personal level. I say "at the personal level" because I think there's still a practical problem when it comes to politics. It seems too easy to sway elections using it. Not even necessarily by shaping the results in any way. Simply by being able to identify the groups of users who will vote a particular way in particular electoral divisions, and then seeking to lift their voting rate above the average. (eg. by prompting/reminding them to vote)
- bishalb 6y ago
  Most people and I mean upwards of 98% (even the tech savvy ones) don't care much about privacy as much as the HN bubble seems to(or pretends to).
  - dx034 6y ago
    It's also hard to argue against it. In the end, Google uses all that data to make more money with ads. And having relevant ads for your taste isn't necessarily bad for many. The amount of data collection is truly bad for people living in totalitarian regimes or have sensitive jobs but that's not the majority of friends for most of us. For the rest, the lack of privacy has no negative impact on their life and is unlikely to have in the near future, so there's no reason to change. Wanting change to benefit all of us is what we try (and fail) with preventing climate warming.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  I understand your point but from my perspective I care a lot. Things do not stop there; it's the nature of companies to take more and more for entirely rational reasons (money), but those reasons eat deeper into the boundary between them and you. If one allows them the thin end of the wedge, one will get the rest, slowly, and slowly accept it a la boiling frog, rationalising it all the way (maybe not you specifically, but many will. Why? It's the easiest thing to do). You've already mentioned the problem of politics, in effect you've just acknowledged the rest of the wedge will appear. There will be other reasons.
ivanche 6y ago
> * I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide. I find that those people change their attitude immediately when responded with "OK, if you have nothing to hide give me your Facebook/LinkedIn/Instagram/email username and password." All of a sudden, they do have something to hide.
- dx034 6y ago
  Because with password you could impersonate them. If you asked them for their profile infos most are probably willing to give those. There are few people who are really careful about what they share on social media. So that argument doesn't really count.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - swilliamsio 6y ago
    Yea. A better analogy is asking for receipts, payment card history, search history, etc. All things that tech giants know about you that isn't publically available for anyone to see.
  - ivanche 6y ago
    Fair point, although impersonating them was the last thing on my mind.
fsflover 6y ago
> * DuckDuckGo are probably a honeypot; they gather as much or more information as Google, and lie about it. You should suggest https://searx.me https://searx.me to such people. > * I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument > * Even if I switch search engine, they'll probably get all my info some other way anyhow Even if you make it just harder to them, it's a big deal on such scales, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_in_depth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_in_depth > * Using DuckDuckGo as my search engine, when I'm using Android as my OS, seems like a waste of time, and I'm not buying a new phone. Same as above.
crazypython 6y ago
"* I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide." Do you have things you would rather not explain? Do you want to be someone great? What about someone who stands up to these companies? If so, do you want to be doxxed, deepfaked, and your psychological weaknesses probed by your enemies, who can purchase your information from an unscrupulous Google employee? Do you want rich kids to be able to get your information, like someone did to an Instagram account via a facebook employee? I agree that Google is a better search engine.
amelius 6y ago
"I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide." Funny, most people don't even share information about their salary or their bank balance with their friends.
monkpit 6y ago
> I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide. Everyone latching on to this and providing counter-arguments in the HN comments section misses the point. Most of the HN crowd realizes that this is a fallacy. You don’t need to prove your point here. It doesn’t change the fact that (outside of HN) it is a very commonly held belief.

harry8 6y ago

Everything you say there underlines and reinfoces the point that the percentage of customers who know precisely what they are paying is so close to zero as makes no difference. That's a problem for a market.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
Another read of the situation is that the transaction does not cost these folks anything they value. You may want them to value it (whatever you think "it" is, I'm not sure) but they don't.
- rrobukef 6y ago
  For me, I cannot put a value to the transaction. I have done enough searches that can embarrass me, label me, or hurt me. Maybe some were illegal; I probably am on a lot of lists. Political searches are enough to alienate a lot of people. How do you estimate how my searches affect my income for the coming years? Privacy and ads are an unequal marketplace where the consumer lacks information. And looking at VPN incidents, perhaps it is fundamentally unequal. A consumer can never verify if information freely given is stored or abused.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    > For me, I cannot put a value to the transaction. I have done enough searches that can embarrass me, label me, or hurt me. Maybe some were illegal; I probably am on a lot of lists. Political searches are enough to alienate a lot of people. How do you estimate how my searches affect my income for the coming years? Probably zero, because absent a search warrant they aren't ever revealed to anyone but you.
    - etripe 6y ago
      > Probably zero, because absent a search warrant they aren't ever revealed to anyone but you. Are you unaware of parallel construction or do you think it poses no real danger?
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        I think it poses minimal danger to the vast, vast majority of people. For people who are doing crime, though, probably it's best not to use search while logged in or from their own IP.
    - rrobukef 6y ago
      The first value is definetly not zero, enough companties profit from selling ads. The second, I'd like to remind you of the Target pregnancy story (possible hoax) or, more real, the Ashley Madison leaks.
- harry8 6y ago
  >the transaction does not cost these folks anything they value. Absolutely and you can say that about literally everyone who gets caught by a confidence trickster and some do. It really hasn't worked out for too many indigenous cultures where that was used as the precise justfication, for example. Usuary is another one you can defend that way and people do. It's not so commonly held anymore by those not profiting from it. When there is a tradeoff between what is good fo soceity at large being the people who live in it and what is good for for a big company's market dominance the latter is meant to come absolutely last and be tolerated if it doesn't infringe anything much else of value to the people. I can't see that as being the case here. No doubt Zuckerberg disagrees because he's convinced anything good for him and his company is pefection for society by the definition that he wants to do it. Nobody understands what they are paying. Nobody understands their liability. Google et al all desperately hide it and have done a bait and switch to make it happen. There is _NO_ informed consent to the contract and the contract is invalid.
  - tangjurine 6y ago
    Well said
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    >Absolutely and you can say that about literally everyone who gets caught by a confidence trickster and some do. No, you cannot. Because with a confidence trickster there is usually an element of regret afterwards. The folks we are talking about have generally been using Google for years and years. If the other shoe is going to drop it's sure taking its time.

jfoster 6y ago

"I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide." Can I offer a variation of this one? I care about privacy. I wouldn't want a human to be looking over my searches. That said, if they're just using the data to serve me relevant ads and it's all either automated or aggregated so that I'm never personally identified, then I'm cool with it at the personal level. I say "at the personal level" because I think there's still a practical problem when it comes to politics. It seems too easy to sway elections using it. Not even necessarily by shaping the results in any way. Simply by being able to identify the groups of users who will vote a particular way in particular electoral divisions, and then seeking to lift their voting rate above the average. (eg. by prompting/reminding them to vote)

bishalb 6y ago
Most people and I mean upwards of 98% (even the tech savvy ones) don't care much about privacy as much as the HN bubble seems to(or pretends to).
- dx034 6y ago
  It's also hard to argue against it. In the end, Google uses all that data to make more money with ads. And having relevant ads for your taste isn't necessarily bad for many. The amount of data collection is truly bad for people living in totalitarian regimes or have sensitive jobs but that's not the majority of friends for most of us. For the rest, the lack of privacy has no negative impact on their life and is unlikely to have in the near future, so there's no reason to change. Wanting change to benefit all of us is what we try (and fail) with preventing climate warming.
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
I understand your point but from my perspective I care a lot. Things do not stop there; it's the nature of companies to take more and more for entirely rational reasons (money), but those reasons eat deeper into the boundary between them and you. If one allows them the thin end of the wedge, one will get the rest, slowly, and slowly accept it a la boiling frog, rationalising it all the way (maybe not you specifically, but many will. Why? It's the easiest thing to do). You've already mentioned the problem of politics, in effect you've just acknowledged the rest of the wedge will appear. There will be other reasons.

ivanche 6y ago

> * I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide. I find that those people change their attitude immediately when responded with "OK, if you have nothing to hide give me your Facebook/LinkedIn/Instagram/email username and password." All of a sudden, they do have something to hide.

dx034 6y ago
Because with password you could impersonate them. If you asked them for their profile infos most are probably willing to give those. There are few people who are really careful about what they share on social media. So that argument doesn't really count.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- swilliamsio 6y ago
  Yea. A better analogy is asking for receipts, payment card history, search history, etc. All things that tech giants know about you that isn't publically available for anyone to see.
- ivanche 6y ago
  Fair point, although impersonating them was the last thing on my mind.

fsflover 6y ago

> * DuckDuckGo are probably a honeypot; they gather as much or more information as Google, and lie about it. You should suggest https://searx.me https://searx.me to such people. > * I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument > * Even if I switch search engine, they'll probably get all my info some other way anyhow Even if you make it just harder to them, it's a big deal on such scales, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_in_depth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_in_depth > * Using DuckDuckGo as my search engine, when I'm using Android as my OS, seems like a waste of time, and I'm not buying a new phone. Same as above.

crazypython 6y ago

"* I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide." Do you have things you would rather not explain? Do you want to be someone great? What about someone who stands up to these companies? If so, do you want to be doxxed, deepfaked, and your psychological weaknesses probed by your enemies, who can purchase your information from an unscrupulous Google employee? Do you want rich kids to be able to get your information, like someone did to an Instagram account via a facebook employee? I agree that Google is a better search engine.

amelius 6y ago

"I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide." Funny, most people don't even share information about their salary or their bank balance with their friends.

monkpit 6y ago

> I don't care about privacy; I have nothing to hide. Everyone latching on to this and providing counter-arguments in the HN comments section misses the point. Most of the HN crowd realizes that this is a fallacy. You don’t need to prove your point here. It doesn’t change the fact that (outside of HN) it is a very commonly held belief.