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You can dislike this, you can call it a dark pattern, but the title is inaccurate: > Google is changing its Workspace Settings, including a change that activat

You can dislike this, you can call it a dark pattern, but the title is inaccurate: > Google is changing its Workspace Settings, including a change that activates activity tracking for all users of Google Workspace accounts even if the organization's admin disabled activity tracking for all users previously. The users never turned off tracking. Their organization admin did so for them. Now users have to go do it themselves (edit: they may not even have to do that per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841812). This is significantly less bad than what the title implies. Meanwhile, there are companies that actually just forget user tracking preferences. Amazon for example silently turns browsing history for my account back on every time their cookie expires. Why does Amazon store this as a cookie rather than as a persistent account setting? Great question...

falcolas 5y ago
It was turned off by the entity paying for the service, and that choice is being ignored in the ever growing search for more personal data. Title’s perfectly accurate IMO.
- shafyy 5y ago
  Exactly, they should default to turning it off, not on.
ceejayoz 5y ago
> The users never turned off tracking. Their organization admin did so for them. Now users have to go do it themselves. In some countries, this may put the company in a rough spot legally, and it seems fairly clear the motivation is "we at Google want more tracking, even if the organization paying for the service does not".
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> This is scummy, I’m struggling to understand why this is even scummy. This specific activity tracking isn’t even used for advertising like many are assuming (Source: https://support.google.com/a/answer/11194328?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/11194328?hl=en ). Everything about this article and what it’s implying feels like it was carefully crafted to generate maximum outrage while omitting all of the relevant details that might clarify what’s happening. This article and headline were basically crafted to be ragebait, and it appears to have succeeded.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > I’m struggling to understand why this is even scummy. Y’know what, I edited that out. It does seem to me that the new user preference should default to what the admin set previously. It looks like that may be what is happening though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841812. My original comment had assumed that the article itself, at least, was accurate.
- BeefWellington 5y ago
  Even were we to assume that Google is telling the truth regarding the activity tracking, let's switch the context here and make the setting relatively benign. Imagine Microsoft or Apple were to reset settings around crash reporting, causing all Windows and MacOS systems to begin sending crash report data. Would this be acceptable? This would IMO be scummy as well. Even if all you say is true to the above, if company policy requires it to be off, then this is costing companies money to bring them into compliance with policy, suddenly, because of Google.
BeefWellington 5y ago
I'm not sure how this is an inaccurate title; Users whose tracking was off will now have it activated. The "organization" is the user here for workspace accounts. These orgs are now going to have tracking turned on for a bunch of their accounts.
deleted 5y ago
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falcolas 5y ago

It was turned off by the entity paying for the service, and that choice is being ignored in the ever growing search for more personal data. Title’s perfectly accurate IMO.

shafyy 5y ago
Exactly, they should default to turning it off, not on.

ceejayoz 5y ago

> The users never turned off tracking. Their organization admin did so for them. Now users have to go do it themselves. In some countries, this may put the company in a rough spot legally, and it seems fairly clear the motivation is "we at Google want more tracking, even if the organization paying for the service does not".

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> This is scummy, I’m struggling to understand why this is even scummy. This specific activity tracking isn’t even used for advertising like many are assuming (Source: https://support.google.com/a/answer/11194328?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/11194328?hl=en ). Everything about this article and what it’s implying feels like it was carefully crafted to generate maximum outrage while omitting all of the relevant details that might clarify what’s happening. This article and headline were basically crafted to be ragebait, and it appears to have succeeded.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> I’m struggling to understand why this is even scummy. Y’know what, I edited that out. It does seem to me that the new user preference should default to what the admin set previously. It looks like that may be what is happening though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30841812. My original comment had assumed that the article itself, at least, was accurate.
BeefWellington 5y ago
Even were we to assume that Google is telling the truth regarding the activity tracking, let's switch the context here and make the setting relatively benign. Imagine Microsoft or Apple were to reset settings around crash reporting, causing all Windows and MacOS systems to begin sending crash report data. Would this be acceptable? This would IMO be scummy as well. Even if all you say is true to the above, if company policy requires it to be off, then this is costing companies money to bring them into compliance with policy, suddenly, because of Google.

BeefWellington 5y ago

I'm not sure how this is an inaccurate title; Users whose tracking was off will now have it activated. The "organization" is the user here for workspace accounts. These orgs are now going to have tracking turned on for a bunch of their accounts.

deleted 5y ago

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