8 ms·

Reminds me of how google moved maps.google.com to google.com/maps so that they can ask for location permission in your browser for the whole google domain.

whyenot 3y ago
So I guess they have gone a full 180° on that "Don't Be Evil" thing. For Google employees with a moral compass, that must be a little confusing/upsetting.
- autoexec 3y ago
  I'm not sure there are Google employees with a functioning moral compass. If there are, they must have learned to just ignore it. Can you work directly for an evil company, knowing that it's doing evil, and still consider yourself moral? Especially when you're got the skills to easily get highly lucrative employment elsewhere?
gnu8 3y ago
Google should move maps to a subdomain so they can request location permission for only that app!
- turtles3 3y ago
  Unironically this? It might violate gdpr to get consent for the purposes of maps but then use it in more contexts. I guess they might include all purposes when the user is asked, and at that point it boils down to whether the user is being asked consent for overly broad purposes or whether it is legitimate to bundle all the Google apps together. It's internet explorer all over again.
rootsudo 3y ago
Wow, that is sneaky. I didn’t even notice, the dns record is a redirect. Wow.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- n2d4 3y ago
  You can't redirect sites like that with DNS. All of those domains resolve to the IP of a load balancer (probably the same one minus some anycast routing), which then decides whether to show the requested service based on the HTTP Host header, not the DNS record. You can quickly verify this by looking up mail.google.com via DNS and putting that IP into your browser bar, which will redirect to google.com instead of opening Gmail. A CNAME record would just mean they use the same load balancer. $ curl -H "Host: mail.google.com" 142.251.16.17 ...gmail-specific html $ curl -H "Host: maps.google.com" 142.251.16.17 ...gmaps-specific html $ curl -H "Host: www.google.com" 142.251.16.17 ...google search-specific html
  - rootsudo 3y ago
    Thanks, that is really insightful! :)
quitit 3y ago
Similarly Google (and Facebook) moved to a combined privacy policy - it effectively grants permission for all services to collect all types of data, including data you wouldn't expect each service to be collecting. All while using examples that mislead the user into thinking such data collection is limited. For example, if one reads the Privacy clause regarding collection of financial/transactional information they might assume that this is due to Google Pay, what they'd be missing is that even services such as Gmail, Maps and Photos are also collecting financial data. As mentioned, where examples exist in the policy, they always paint a more obvious, narrower collection of data. According to Google's own admissions on the App Store, their services such as Maps, Photos and Gmail each individually collect location, financial history, purchases, contacts, user content such as photos, videos, audio (and any others), search history, amongst other personal data. The majority of this data has no bearing on the apps functionality whatsoever and comparable services don't collect -any- of this information.
- EMIRELADERO 3y ago
  Is that privacy policy also present in the EU? This screams GDPR violation.
- jkubicek 3y ago
  > even services such as Gmail, Maps and Photos are also collecting financial data. Do you know how this would work? How would Google Maps collect financial data on me?
  - tyzoid 3y ago
    Ever searched for hotels by filtering on price via maps?
  - jonas21 3y ago
    Maps and Photos let you enter your credit card info to buy stuff in the app (you can order food in Maps and prints in Photos). This is not unusual. Every app that offers food delivery or prints lists "financial info" on their App Store privacy label. And if you drill down into the details, it's specifically payment information. As far as I can tell, the Gmail app does not collect financial info (it's not in the App Store privacy label).
trissylegs 3y ago
They also did that for chat. When hangouts was replaced with "chat" chat moved to mail.google.com. Which means allowing notifications for email allows it for chat as well.
- mananaysiempre 3y ago
  Huh? There has been chat in the Gmail web interface since before Google defederated from Jabber, although I believe it didn’t have notifications aside from changing the window title, for lack of browser APIs at the time.
  - trissylegs 3y ago
    Wait no. I'm thinking the other way around. It was chat could enable notifications for hangouts.google.com. But when it moved to mail.google.com now allowing chat notifications allows mail notifications, which I didn't want.
stasmo 3y ago
I use http://google.com.au/maps http://google.com.au/maps for maps now because of that sneaky behavior.
- KMag 3y ago
  Clever workaround!
- dunham 3y ago
  Interesting that the colors are different for parks and water.
- zelphirkalt 3y ago
  I use openstreetmap for years now. Because of a never ending shit stream of abuse and rule bending and just plain illegal activities from Google.
yborg 3y ago
Also didn't notice this. It's actually kind of impressive how they hard they went into breaking the "Don't Be Evil" typecasting.
- zaxomi 3y ago
  When they sent out the directive to remove "Don't Be Evil" someone was too lazy and just removed "Don't", so ever since then it's been "Be Evil". That explains a lot, doesn't it?
  - m463 3y ago
    Remember when microsoft first created windows, you would launch it by typing: C:\> WIN (I can't recall, did they have paths then? was it C> instead?)
  - Jensson 3y ago
    "Be profitable" is enough to explain everything, no need to go further than that. Every large company does similar things, because that is where "be profitable" takes you until regulations catches up.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      Every large company does similar things, but essentially no company on Earth is capable of doing it at the scale that Google does. This makes Google being evil a much larger problem than other large companies like Nike.
    - tmnvix 3y ago
      "Be more profitable". Remaining profitable hasn't been a problem for Google.
      - Jensson 3y ago
        Nah, "be profitable" is enough, once you go down the details. For example, if every change to the Google homepage needs to be profitable, then they can't ever make ads easier to ignore. Scale that up to data collection etc, and you get Google today.
vore 3y ago
But your browser tells you when your location is being used? It’s not like Google can secretly use your location without your browser alerting you to it?
- noarchy 3y ago
  >But your browser tells you when your location is being used? Is that a question? Yes, it does, at least mine does. >It’s not like Google can secretly use your location without your browser alerting you to it? Same thing, ts that actually a question? You shouldn't have location permission being used without your consent.
  - vore 3y ago
    Yes and Google doesn't because you need to consent every time to give it location permission. What's the problem then?
crazygringo 3y ago
Is that actually known as the reason for certain, or is that reason being assumed? Because I've seen that presented as a hypothesis but never any actual evidence. I recall another hypothesis had something to do with better Maps integration on Search pages. I'm sure there are lots of potential internal technical reasons for such a switch. Location permissions is just one possibility.
- mcast 3y ago
  I'm almost certain the main reason for switching was to bring more cohesiveness between Google apps and/or legacy infrastructure reasons.
- mike_d 3y ago
  Things that are searches (like maps) moved onto the search domain (www), other stuff like docs and ads stayed on property specific subdomains. Anything not a core google service (experiments and projects built by outside vendors) moved to withgoogle.com.
- gerdesj 3y ago
  I dimly recall it being noticed at the time but I suspect it was really a convenient side effect ie a contributory factor and not the primary reason. I think "branding" is far more likely. google.com is the brand and a single entry point landing on search which then points you at what you "need". Note how you search and can click on the buttons underneath the bar to move into images, maps etc. Maps is just another specialized form of search.
- johnfn 3y ago
  Of course this opinion is not based on reality in the slightest. HN looooves to come up with wild conspiracy theories like this and reiterate them as fact, especially when they prove a corporation is secretly doing something evil.
willio58 3y ago
Wow, so plainly evil it's crazy.
nextaccountic 3y ago
Is there any browser that can allow location just for urls under google.com/maps? Firefox should do this
xnx 3y ago
It makes a lot of sense to unify web and geographic search in a seamless way. Many users would prefer not to have to grant permissions twice when they do a search like "<product> near me".

whyenot 3y ago

So I guess they have gone a full 180° on that "Don't Be Evil" thing. For Google employees with a moral compass, that must be a little confusing/upsetting.

autoexec 3y ago
I'm not sure there are Google employees with a functioning moral compass. If there are, they must have learned to just ignore it. Can you work directly for an evil company, knowing that it's doing evil, and still consider yourself moral? Especially when you're got the skills to easily get highly lucrative employment elsewhere?

gnu8 3y ago

Google should move maps to a subdomain so they can request location permission for only that app!

turtles3 3y ago
Unironically this? It might violate gdpr to get consent for the purposes of maps but then use it in more contexts. I guess they might include all purposes when the user is asked, and at that point it boils down to whether the user is being asked consent for overly broad purposes or whether it is legitimate to bundle all the Google apps together. It's internet explorer all over again.

rootsudo 3y ago

Wow, that is sneaky. I didn’t even notice, the dns record is a redirect. Wow.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
n2d4 3y ago
You can't redirect sites like that with DNS. All of those domains resolve to the IP of a load balancer (probably the same one minus some anycast routing), which then decides whether to show the requested service based on the HTTP Host header, not the DNS record. You can quickly verify this by looking up mail.google.com via DNS and putting that IP into your browser bar, which will redirect to google.com instead of opening Gmail. A CNAME record would just mean they use the same load balancer. $ curl -H "Host: mail.google.com" 142.251.16.17 ...gmail-specific html $ curl -H "Host: maps.google.com" 142.251.16.17 ...gmaps-specific html $ curl -H "Host: www.google.com" 142.251.16.17 ...google search-specific html
- rootsudo 3y ago
  Thanks, that is really insightful! :)

quitit 3y ago

Similarly Google (and Facebook) moved to a combined privacy policy - it effectively grants permission for all services to collect all types of data, including data you wouldn't expect each service to be collecting. All while using examples that mislead the user into thinking such data collection is limited. For example, if one reads the Privacy clause regarding collection of financial/transactional information they might assume that this is due to Google Pay, what they'd be missing is that even services such as Gmail, Maps and Photos are also collecting financial data. As mentioned, where examples exist in the policy, they always paint a more obvious, narrower collection of data. According to Google's own admissions on the App Store, their services such as Maps, Photos and Gmail each individually collect location, financial history, purchases, contacts, user content such as photos, videos, audio (and any others), search history, amongst other personal data. The majority of this data has no bearing on the apps functionality whatsoever and comparable services don't collect -any- of this information.

EMIRELADERO 3y ago
Is that privacy policy also present in the EU? This screams GDPR violation.
jkubicek 3y ago
> even services such as Gmail, Maps and Photos are also collecting financial data. Do you know how this would work? How would Google Maps collect financial data on me?
- tyzoid 3y ago
  Ever searched for hotels by filtering on price via maps?
- jonas21 3y ago
  Maps and Photos let you enter your credit card info to buy stuff in the app (you can order food in Maps and prints in Photos). This is not unusual. Every app that offers food delivery or prints lists "financial info" on their App Store privacy label. And if you drill down into the details, it's specifically payment information. As far as I can tell, the Gmail app does not collect financial info (it's not in the App Store privacy label).

trissylegs 3y ago

They also did that for chat. When hangouts was replaced with "chat" chat moved to mail.google.com. Which means allowing notifications for email allows it for chat as well.

mananaysiempre 3y ago
Huh? There has been chat in the Gmail web interface since before Google defederated from Jabber, although I believe it didn’t have notifications aside from changing the window title, for lack of browser APIs at the time.
- trissylegs 3y ago
  Wait no. I'm thinking the other way around. It was chat could enable notifications for hangouts.google.com. But when it moved to mail.google.com now allowing chat notifications allows mail notifications, which I didn't want.

stasmo 3y ago

I use http://google.com.au/maps http://google.com.au/maps for maps now because of that sneaky behavior.

KMag 3y ago
Clever workaround!
dunham 3y ago
Interesting that the colors are different for parks and water.
zelphirkalt 3y ago
I use openstreetmap for years now. Because of a never ending shit stream of abuse and rule bending and just plain illegal activities from Google.

yborg 3y ago

Also didn't notice this. It's actually kind of impressive how they hard they went into breaking the "Don't Be Evil" typecasting.

zaxomi 3y ago
When they sent out the directive to remove "Don't Be Evil" someone was too lazy and just removed "Don't", so ever since then it's been "Be Evil". That explains a lot, doesn't it?
- m463 3y ago
  Remember when microsoft first created windows, you would launch it by typing: C:\> WIN (I can't recall, did they have paths then? was it C> instead?)
- Jensson 3y ago
  "Be profitable" is enough to explain everything, no need to go further than that. Every large company does similar things, because that is where "be profitable" takes you until regulations catches up.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Every large company does similar things, but essentially no company on Earth is capable of doing it at the scale that Google does. This makes Google being evil a much larger problem than other large companies like Nike.
  - tmnvix 3y ago
    "Be more profitable". Remaining profitable hasn't been a problem for Google.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      Nah, "be profitable" is enough, once you go down the details. For example, if every change to the Google homepage needs to be profitable, then they can't ever make ads easier to ignore. Scale that up to data collection etc, and you get Google today.

vore 3y ago

But your browser tells you when your location is being used? It’s not like Google can secretly use your location without your browser alerting you to it?

noarchy 3y ago
>But your browser tells you when your location is being used? Is that a question? Yes, it does, at least mine does. >It’s not like Google can secretly use your location without your browser alerting you to it? Same thing, ts that actually a question? You shouldn't have location permission being used without your consent.
- vore 3y ago
  Yes and Google doesn't because you need to consent every time to give it location permission. What's the problem then?

crazygringo 3y ago

Is that actually known as the reason for certain, or is that reason being assumed? Because I've seen that presented as a hypothesis but never any actual evidence. I recall another hypothesis had something to do with better Maps integration on Search pages. I'm sure there are lots of potential internal technical reasons for such a switch. Location permissions is just one possibility.

mcast 3y ago
I'm almost certain the main reason for switching was to bring more cohesiveness between Google apps and/or legacy infrastructure reasons.
mike_d 3y ago
Things that are searches (like maps) moved onto the search domain (www), other stuff like docs and ads stayed on property specific subdomains. Anything not a core google service (experiments and projects built by outside vendors) moved to withgoogle.com.
gerdesj 3y ago
I dimly recall it being noticed at the time but I suspect it was really a convenient side effect ie a contributory factor and not the primary reason. I think "branding" is far more likely. google.com is the brand and a single entry point landing on search which then points you at what you "need". Note how you search and can click on the buttons underneath the bar to move into images, maps etc. Maps is just another specialized form of search.
johnfn 3y ago
Of course this opinion is not based on reality in the slightest. HN looooves to come up with wild conspiracy theories like this and reiterate them as fact, especially when they prove a corporation is secretly doing something evil.

willio58 3y ago

Wow, so plainly evil it's crazy.

nextaccountic 3y ago

Is there any browser that can allow location just for urls under google.com/maps? Firefox should do this

xnx 3y ago

It makes a lot of sense to unify web and geographic search in a seamless way. Many users would prefer not to have to grant permissions twice when they do a search like "<product> near me".