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> Their whole suite of "free" developer tools (google analytics, google fonts, firebase, ...) are just a means to get information about what people do online.

> Their whole suite of "free" developer tools (google analytics, google fonts, firebase, ...) are just a means to get information about what people do online. Is this actually confirmed to be true? It would make a lot of sense for them to use free-tier GA data for profiling for Display ads etc, but has it ever actually been proven?

advisedwang 4y ago
Probably not for the CDN stuff From https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq: > The Google Fonts API is designed to limit the collection ... the Google Fonts API does not set or log cookies ... resource-specific domains...don't contain any credentials ... IP addresses are not logged. From https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/terms https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/terms > Google Hosted Libraries uses resource-specific domains... Requests unauthenticated ... Google Hosted Libraries only uses cookies as necessary for security and to prevent abuse ... Our systems are designed to remove HTTP referer information before logging But analytics is a totally different story. https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites > when you visit a website that uses...Google Analytics...your web browser automatically sends certain information to Google. This includes the URL of the page you’re visiting and your IP address. We may also set cookies on your browser or read cookies that are already there. Apps that use Google advertising services also share information with Google, such as the name of the app and a unique identifier for advertising > Google uses the information shared by sites and apps to ... personalize content and ads you see on Google and on our partners’ sites and apps So Google's policies do let them use 3rd party Google Analytics data to target ads.
Nextgrid 4y ago
Given the amount of factors that go into ad targeting it's pretty much impossible to prove without a source code audit. It also means it's easy for Google to do it and get away with it as nobody can prove it. Given the business model of Google, I wouldn't be surprised if they did it, especially considering they've already proven their bad faith with various dark patterns and their intentional refusal to comply with the GDPR (for 4 years their "consent" flow wasn't compliant as you couldn't decline as easily as accept).

advisedwang 4y ago

Probably not for the CDN stuff From https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq: > The Google Fonts API is designed to limit the collection ... the Google Fonts API does not set or log cookies ... resource-specific domains...don't contain any credentials ... IP addresses are not logged. From https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/terms https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/terms > Google Hosted Libraries uses resource-specific domains... Requests unauthenticated ... Google Hosted Libraries only uses cookies as necessary for security and to prevent abuse ... Our systems are designed to remove HTTP referer information before logging But analytics is a totally different story. https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites > when you visit a website that uses...Google Analytics...your web browser automatically sends certain information to Google. This includes the URL of the page you’re visiting and your IP address. We may also set cookies on your browser or read cookies that are already there. Apps that use Google advertising services also share information with Google, such as the name of the app and a unique identifier for advertising > Google uses the information shared by sites and apps to ... personalize content and ads you see on Google and on our partners’ sites and apps So Google's policies do let them use 3rd party Google Analytics data to target ads.

Nextgrid 4y ago

Given the amount of factors that go into ad targeting it's pretty much impossible to prove without a source code audit. It also means it's easy for Google to do it and get away with it as nobody can prove it. Given the business model of Google, I wouldn't be surprised if they did it, especially considering they've already proven their bad faith with various dark patterns and their intentional refusal to comply with the GDPR (for 4 years their "consent" flow wasn't compliant as you couldn't decline as easily as accept).