14 ms·

Googler, opinions are my own. Google has been doing this for a while, as can be seen when the reporters wrote about it 2 years ago: https://www.theverge.com/20

• Eighth 5y ago
  I think it's more talking about gmail purchase records, which can be viewed here: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/category%3Apurchases https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/category%3Apurchase...
  • potatoman22 5y ago
    It's pretty deceptive that they don't disclose these are categorized and stored for advertising purposes. That's unethical IMO.
    • eth0up 5y ago
      On the About Gmail page, in large bold text is stated: "We never use your Gmail content for any ads purposes" emphasis mine. That might qualify as deceptive.
      • jsnell 5y ago
        Why do you think that this is being used for advertising purposes? Because HN user potatoman22 asserted that with no evidence?
        • eth0up 5y ago
          Yes, because whimsical potato, I am true, fearless believer and desciple, hater of evidence, prophet of assumption, protector of anonymous tubers. Not because google is in the business of data and advertising or has the ability to cleverly manipulate language to their advantage or would ever consider being evil. I'm quite confident google wouldn't use such data in ways that could be connected to advertising. All your google data are belong to privacy.
          • nindalf 5y ago
            > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
            • eth0up 5y ago
              Bear in mind that while I can't refute you, the parent question was pretty snarky in its implication.
          • potatoman22 5y ago
            HAIL THEE, MAN OF POTATO
        • potatoman22 5y ago
          I don't have any evidence, I just assumed it was being used for that from other discussion on this post.
          • jsnell 5y ago
            Right, and in the absence of evidence making assumptions is a very natural human thing to do. But eth0up went through the trouble of finding pretty compelling evidence that the data was not being used for advertising purposes, quoted it, and still chose to believe the opposite.
      • sorokod 5y ago
        Compare and contrast with "We will never use...'
  • floatingatoll 5y ago
    Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, there is no UI for removing this category when it's incorrect or when I wish to opt out. Ironically, since the only purchases my Gmail contains receipts for are for someone who isn't me but apparently decided to use my email address, whatever database these are feeding that Google thinks is "about me" is steadily being corrupted to death by a complete stranger. Oh well :)
    • kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      > Oh well :) Not going to be so great when they engage in criminal activity that points back to you. I do a password reset on their account whenever I find someone using my email. Then you can change the email to a throwaway or delete the account. It's unsafe to let it be.
      • floatingatoll 5y ago
        There is a long paper trail full of evidence of my attempting to contact people to get them to stop sending me someone else's email. If some idiotic prosecutor can't tell the difference between some jerk in Missouri and me, they deserve the judge's derision when the confusion is uncovered. Gmail does not allow changing email addresses, and if I delete the account, I lose access to a recovery email that I'm executing a multi-year migration away from. That's simply not an acceptable step to take to mitigate the unlikely risk you describe. There's also some jerk at AOL who forwarded their email to me mistakenly over a decade ago, and I've tried to contact AOL, which of course they won't consider since I'm not the person who set the broken forward. While I appreciate your concern, I've already taken it into consideration as best as permitted by the tools available. If you are aware of a way to change a gmail address without creating a new Google Account, then of course I would love to hear about it.
        • OldHand2018 5y ago
          It's a lost cause. I'm over a decade into the transition you are undertaking and I've basically just accepted that it will always be an account I can't get rid of - so I use it as a "you need my email address but I don't trust you" account. Nobody ever has any concern if you give them a gmail account. Over 50% of the email this account receives is for other people and frequently the "To:" field isn't even an exact match for my address! If you do start getting stuff that looks like it might cause you problems: be proactive. Do not wait around to embarrass some prosecutor. By that time, you've already spent thousands of dollars and had your reputation dragged through the mud. I once started getting legal threats meant for someone else. I had a lawyer call up that lawyer and it was cleared up in less than 10 minutes. Another time I started getting emails from/to a person with the same name as me at the State Department that definitely should not have been sent through a non-government server. I talked to someone I knew at the US Attorneys Office about it and those emails stopped immediately (doubt that guy still works there, LOL).
  • comeonseriously 5y ago
    Interesting. So, my gmail is fname.i.lname@gmail.com. I see SOMEONE else's purchase in my history. That persons name is shown as fname lname@gmail.com. Same as mine except .i. is three spaces. WTF? Does Google have a bug here? Is there an actual real life human I could send this to? Edit: the only purchase I see of mine are for Apps I bought from the play store. These don't show up in the link that the Googler posted above.
    • ahzhou 5y ago
      Sounds like a security flaw. I’d submit it to a big bounty program.
      • usmannk 5y ago
        The other person probably just entered OP's email address. I don't really get what OP is saying but make sure to note that periods are normalized out.
        • pempem 5y ago
          they are saying us.middlename.mannk@gmail is seeing receipts for us.mannk@gmail.com The dots don't matter.
          • comeonseriously 5y ago
            Exactly this.
            • usmannk 5y ago
              I see, but these "receipts" are just emails. I would be extremely surprised if someone else's emails are getting routed to your gmail inbox. Seems very unlikely...
              • pempem 5y ago
• jldugger 5y ago
  > You can see the information it has already collected if you use Google, by visiting: https://myaccount.google.com/purchases https://myaccount.google.com/purchases The weird thing is that page doesn't even list the purchases I've made from google itself. Does it even work?
  • jeffbee 5y ago
    Did you mean purchases from Google Voice, Google Fi, Google One, YouTube, Google Cloud, or Nest? Or purchases with Google Pay, Android Pay, or perhaps "send money with Gmail"? Recently discovered these all seem to be unlinked, after I has to change my payment instrument in a dozen different places.
    • cryptoz 5y ago
      Related, Google Pay and GPay are totally different apps by Google on my phone. So confusing.
    • luckydata 5y ago
      yeah Google has a pretty serious case of shipping the orgchart.
      • CobrastanJorji 5y ago
        Are you accusing Google, the company that released a Spotify competitor named "Google Play Music All-Access," of shipping its org chart?
        • luckydata 5y ago
          never in my life I would slander my employer in such a way, never!
• lgats 5y ago
  My list seems to stop in May 2021– maybe something to do with being Gsuite user?
  • throwdecro 5y ago
    It looks like there is a section called "Smart features and personalization" in the GMail settings (not the general Google account settings; specifically the GMail settings) under the General tab. It indicates that "Gmail, Chat, and Meet may use my email, chat, and video content to personalize my experience and provide smart features. If I opt out, such features will be turned off." It's strange that this major privacy setting is buried specifically in the GMail section and not mentioned in the main Google account Privacy Checkup. I never knew it existed.
    • tehbeard 5y ago
      Not to give undue credit to Google.... but I do recall a popup in gmail about personalization not too long ago (either this year or last) with the option to opt-out. Might have just been to the EU/UK users though?
• 28619242 5y ago
  So how long does a company have to do something unethical and get away with it so that we're not allowed to complain? Your response is disingenuous as fuck. This was wrong on day 1, and it's wrong today. You know goddamn well that users don't know the implication of Google tracking their purchases.
  • gwright 5y ago
    I read that as just more information not any sort of justification. I reacted more negatively to your response than to the parent.
  • throwawayswede 5y ago
    Not defending Google or dude above, but at this point I really can't blame neither Google nor people working there. Almost everyone in a position to affect change is well aware of this and everything morally reprehensible either Google, Facebook, Apple, Reddit, TikTok, Twitter, Snap, Medium (add like 20 more) does. Complaining about companies will change nothing as long as there are people using them. Whenever the privacy topic comes up a few people come back with I have nothing to hide, or it's too difficult to figure out which is good, or my life is busy and I can't focus on that, or it's all fucked might as well just install cameras in my shower. All this means is that: a lot of people don't care or are too nihilistic to want to change, and neither of these groups deserves sympathy. If you still use Gmail, you don't get to complain that they scan your email, or use it to sell you stuff, etc... If you use Alexa you don't get to complaint that they might be using other trigger words to register interest, or that your parrot ordered something by mistake. These companies have been making their position on all of this extremely well understood over the last freaking decade. If you're in a position to let someone who's genuinely not aware of this and still uses Google, you can maybe consider telling them, if they change then that's a net positive on the side of humanity, if they don't then it's on them.
    • 28619242 5y ago
      >These companies have been making their position on all of this extremely well understood over the last freaking decade I don't think that's fair. These systems are extremely complex. I work in the user privacy space for a company you've heard of, and I can't say that people don't care. I think they don't understand. They don't understand that these companies have PhD educated ML data scientist getting paid outrageous salaries mine your behavior and influence it. I will never, ever blame the user for being exploited. I will always blame the people who continue to work on these systems, because these systems are evil.
• barbazoo 5y ago
  > Googler, opinions are my own. Honest question here, why do people put this in their response? I don't think there is any chance that one might thing "kyrra" is speaking on behalf of Google.
  • jamie_ca 5y ago
    It's less a disclaimer of being an official response, I think, and more a case of pointing out a potential bias.
  • JohnFen 5y ago
    I like it when people disclose that they have a deeper connection to a company being discussed than most people. It's fair disclosure, especially because it indicates where their biases may lie (and we all have biases). But once someone says "I work for X", they must also say that they're not representing the company. Companies get a bit upset if their employees appear to be representing company positions without authorization, even if no reasonable person would thing they were.
  • thethethethe 5y ago
    Google requires this disclaimer when you talk about the company publicly, probably for legal reasons Source: I work at Google Disclaimer: Googler, opinions are my own.
    • deckard1 5y ago
      wonder how well this really works. Some comments I see (not speaking of this thread per se, but in general on HN) are really close to conveying internal company information. Which is beyond mere opinion and only available to someone inside the company. Some people clearly use the disclaimer to elevate their "opinion" to the level of authority.
      • wutbrodo 5y ago
        It's not about access to information. It's about removing the possibility of being confused for a spokesperson of Google's. This is in contrast to comments you see here like "hi, Ben Foobar from [company being discussed] here", where the company is being formally represented and communicating with HN. Naturally Google doesn't engage this way on HN, but the disclaimer is written out of habit and an abundance of caution.
• comeonseriously 5y ago
  Mine is empty as well, so I must have found the toggle someplace. Also, I fwd then delete all my gmail to my "real" email account but presumably Google could have already "read" my mail.
  • atotic 5y ago
    Mine is empty as well. I think this article is misleading. The takout list does not come from gmail, but are "purchases made directly within Google Search, Maps, or Assistant". I do wish gmail would keep track of all my purchases. Keeping a folder named "shopping" is ok, but it could be so much more. Next to each purchase I'd love to see: - link to a manual, youtube videos about this product. - remainders when stock is low (for things I might reorder).
• r_klancer 5y ago
  I'm also a Googler these days (via Fitbit). The assumption being made in this entire discussion is that the purchases are mined from Gmail, but that doesn't appear to be correct. From the screenshot, the items are part of the "Purchases and Reservations" activity category that the parent points to. According to to the help documentation of the category, it specifically refers to purchases made directly within Google Search, Maps, or Assistant. I personally have precious few (4) items in this category, particularly when compared to the large number of purchase confirmation emails sitting in my Gmail account. And there is a UI for deleting the purchase records from my history. Meta-comment, I find discussions of this type tend to elide the distinction between data used for personalization with data used for advertising. Say what you will about the very fact that the same organization has both, but I do think the distinction is both important, and communicated well neither by Google nor by anyone else writing on the topic.
  • kreeben 5y ago
    >>the distinction between data used for personalization with data used for advertising Personalization of what, exactly, if not ads? What's the proper distinction, in your view?
    • antattack 5y ago
      Although not what OP intended to say, personalization will eventually mean targeted pricing.
      • ssss11 5y ago
        Exactly. The more data, the more control over interactions the other party has to extract maximum value. I’m always surprised when people don’t understand this. They get it if you talk about the real world, but don’t if suddenly the information is exchanged over computers.
    • nindalf 5y ago
      For example, data on which videos on YouTube I watch are used to personalise my recommendations. My feed becomes subjectively more interesting to me. The ads aren’t personalised because I don’t see any ads. So my data is being used, just for my benefit. Does that make sense?
• Dma54rhs 5y ago
  But Google follows and track you without actually using their products as well, and they do it at massive scale. When the pervert is taking pictures of your daughter at the beach promising to fade out the face you don't take go to other beach as an answer. Your company tracks everyone everywhere, not only on their properties. Zero respect for Google or Googlers just like I have 0 for perverts.
  • dhanna 5y ago
    Your respect is worthless
• spookthesunset 5y ago
  The only item I see is a food delivery I ordered through google maps "order now". Otherwise, nothing.
• wil421 5y ago
  It’s empty for me as well. I guess I opted out of a lot of things.