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It is the undisclosed consolidation of information sources that Google holds that scares me. I think most considered Fitbit account a small privacy issue. The

It is the undisclosed consolidation of information sources that Google holds that scares me. I think most considered Fitbit account a small privacy issue. The Google ecosystem on the other hand is enormous, highly entwined in our lives, extremely intrusive, and information collection & sale is done surreptitiously. I think most, even non technologist feel the negative in this, even if they cannot articulate it.

jsnell 4y ago
But again: how does the account system switch matter for any of that? Like, what is the thing that's suddenly possible for them to do when you log in using a Google account rather than a Fitbit one? If they're willing to maliciously (and at ludicrous risk for low payoff) do some kind of cross-account sharing of health data for unrelated purposes, why would it be any harder to associate a Google account with a matching Fitbit account, than to associate two Google accounts? You seem to be making an argument, in vague generalities, for why they shouldn't have been allowed to buy Fitbit. But that deal was approved by the regulators across the world, after concessions, so there is no point in relitigating that. Is there a concrete argument for why they should require indefinite support for a legacy account system? There is a pretty obvious reason for why people cannot article why they feel negative about this... Because they are feeling negative about something else entirely, and projecting. But this particular change is be strictly an improvement: it's going to be much better to argue against the things that actually bother you, not use this as a proxy.
- Bakary 4y ago
  We can simplify the situation quite well and avoid the projection. It's too late to do anything about the acquisition, but Google is too powerful and too shady to begin with, and should be vigorously opposed in anything it does or tries to do by default on that basis alone.
- cush 4y ago
  > Like, what is the thing that's suddenly possible for them to do when you log in using a Google account rather than a Fitbit one? The data has different terms of use, depending on the account. Your personal health data is imperative for the Google ad wheel to keep spinning
autoexec 4y ago
I have no doubt that Google knows who is using multiple accounts/devices and they'll stuff your dossier with data from all sources. If you're wearing a device that knows when you're asleep, awake, fucking, or sick and you're sending that data to a third party whose entire business is built on collecting your personal data and you've been viewing that data yourself on a cell phone running their OS you can't care very much about your privacy to start with. Being forced to sign into a google account at that point is a formality.

jsnell 4y ago

But again: how does the account system switch matter for any of that? Like, what is the thing that's suddenly possible for them to do when you log in using a Google account rather than a Fitbit one? If they're willing to maliciously (and at ludicrous risk for low payoff) do some kind of cross-account sharing of health data for unrelated purposes, why would it be any harder to associate a Google account with a matching Fitbit account, than to associate two Google accounts? You seem to be making an argument, in vague generalities, for why they shouldn't have been allowed to buy Fitbit. But that deal was approved by the regulators across the world, after concessions, so there is no point in relitigating that. Is there a concrete argument for why they should require indefinite support for a legacy account system? There is a pretty obvious reason for why people cannot article why they feel negative about this... Because they are feeling negative about something else entirely, and projecting. But this particular change is be strictly an improvement: it's going to be much better to argue against the things that actually bother you, not use this as a proxy.

Bakary 4y ago
We can simplify the situation quite well and avoid the projection. It's too late to do anything about the acquisition, but Google is too powerful and too shady to begin with, and should be vigorously opposed in anything it does or tries to do by default on that basis alone.
cush 4y ago
> Like, what is the thing that's suddenly possible for them to do when you log in using a Google account rather than a Fitbit one? The data has different terms of use, depending on the account. Your personal health data is imperative for the Google ad wheel to keep spinning

autoexec 4y ago

I have no doubt that Google knows who is using multiple accounts/devices and they'll stuff your dossier with data from all sources. If you're wearing a device that knows when you're asleep, awake, fucking, or sick and you're sending that data to a third party whose entire business is built on collecting your personal data and you've been viewing that data yourself on a cell phone running their OS you can't care very much about your privacy to start with. Being forced to sign into a google account at that point is a formality.