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I am not an engineer at Google but this is I would say if I was. We don't know who you are, you are just a number in a database, and we don't even know what nu
by GuB-42 2y ago
I am not an engineer at Google but this is I would say if I was.
We don't know who you are, you are just a number in a database, and we don't even know what number, we just get the total number of visits for each website, not who visited it. It is like counting cars on a highway, not following your car. Plus, it serves the useful purpose of providing you with better search results, the terms and conditions allow it, and it can be disabled.
- voltaireodactyl 2y agoThe obvious response being that counting cars on the highway is a necessary first step on the road to identifying and then tracking their movements. Similar to how insurance companies have offered voluntary, “anonymized” data dongles for discounts that are now being used (or at least revealed to be used) to collect data most often used to reject claims.
- Ferret7446 2y agoAgriculture is a necessary first step toward a dystopian society, so clearly we should ban agriculture. The logic does not follow. "A is required for B, B is bad, so A is bad" is not logically valid.
- voltaireodactyl 2y agoI absolutely agree — my statement was merely one of fact; to get to point B, one must first achieve point A. Much like inventing the wheel (positive) is a necessary precursor to both ambulances/fire fighting (also positive), as well as DUIs (less positive). The larger point being simply that I find it somewhat disingenuous for those of us who consider it our job to think through problems from many angles to pretend we’re somehow unable to imagine the potential unfortunate consequences arising from our work, given the existing Powers That Be (meaning both entities and trends).
- lolinder 2y ago> we don't even know what number, we just get the total number of visits for each website, not who visited it This is not what a clickstream is. A clickstream requires that the sequence of clicks be preserved, and preserving that sequence undermines anonymity.
- tommiegannert 2y agoIt can be pseudonymous. It doesn't have to undermine anonymity. Google researchers spend time ensuring k-anonymity (for reasonably large k) when using data.
- BrenBarn 2y agoIt's doesn't matter if it's anonymous. Some users simply don't want you to keep any record of their activities.
- mrmetanoia 2y agoForgive my language but I'd expect people here to understand that's horeshit, they absolutely have enough data and patterning to de-anonymize the data. They spent time making it look anonymous.
- tommiegannert 2y agoGP explained what a click stream is and said that preserving click sequences undermines anonymity. De-anonymization is not a conclusion you can draw from only mentioning "click stream." De-anonymization would require linking that click stream with something that identifies the user, rather than the click stream. Perhaps that exists, perhaps not. GP didn't provide enough material to go that far. Exactly because Google has these powers is why they have internal processes to avoid it. Of course there are products that use non-anonymous data, but this idea that everything at Google flows around with user-IDs for everyone to use and abuse is a weird stance. Google has a lot of internal auditing and validation systems when e.g. reading logs and doing feature extraction. But I also got way more respect for Google's internal systems after I worked there than before, so I understand your scepticism.