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Newsflash: pretty much every site like Google already knows exactly who you are. We gave up anonymity a long time ago in exchange for "free".

worthless-trash 1y ago
But will be mandated now.
heavyset_go 1y ago
That's not an excuse to add unaccountable 3rd parties to the mix that will take videos of your face and pictures of your IDs just to use the internet, and who will subsequently lose control of that data in inevitable breaches. It's also doesn't justify any additional chilling of free speech.
willvarfar 1y ago
Google is one of the few free mail+everything+else providers that still lets people sign up and not give any kind of real-world identity. So you can, on a clean phone or laptop or whatever, create a new gmail account without any kind of auth and maintain that persona. In practice this isn't how people are using google services though.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y ago
  No it's been impossible without a phone numner for a while now
  - herbst 1y ago
    I made a Google account without even owning a number a few days ago. Afaik only one of my Google accounts has a phone number and pretty sure that's only because AdSense.
    - Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y ago
      My tinfoil hat theory is that if it doesn't ask for a phone number then it already has a very precise shadow profile about you. Being on linux+firefox+grapheneos compared to windows+chrome+android probably means a lot in that regard. What do you think?
- dannyw 1y ago
  You will eventually be forced to give a phone number, which in many countries including Australia, require an ID to open.
potamic 1y ago
You're missing the point. If one wants to be anonymous there are ways to do so. If we willingly give up anonymity in exchange for free in certain cases, that's our prerogative, but we must have the choice of not needing to do, when necessary.
aembleton 1y ago
That means they can just use 'AI to guess a user's age based on the data the company already has'
spwa4 1y ago
Except this is giving up anonymity, first, everywhere, not on a few sites. Two, the goal is to find an excuse to arrest you, not to get you to buy a birthday present for your niece when it's time. Well, that, and (this is Australia) to refuse you medical care because you looked up "best cigarette" 10 years ago, as well as refuse you unemployment because you Googled "how do people fake a handicap" after watching office space, 20 years ago.
exodust 1y ago
> pretty much every site like Google already knows exactly who you are Depends how much you share with Google when signed in. If I log out of Google services and browse around the web, my browsing activity is not recorded against my Google account.

worthless-trash 1y ago

But will be mandated now.

heavyset_go 1y ago

That's not an excuse to add unaccountable 3rd parties to the mix that will take videos of your face and pictures of your IDs just to use the internet, and who will subsequently lose control of that data in inevitable breaches. It's also doesn't justify any additional chilling of free speech.

willvarfar 1y ago

Google is one of the few free mail+everything+else providers that still lets people sign up and not give any kind of real-world identity. So you can, on a clean phone or laptop or whatever, create a new gmail account without any kind of auth and maintain that persona. In practice this isn't how people are using google services though.

Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y ago
No it's been impossible without a phone numner for a while now
- herbst 1y ago
  I made a Google account without even owning a number a few days ago. Afaik only one of my Google accounts has a phone number and pretty sure that's only because AdSense.
  - Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y ago
    My tinfoil hat theory is that if it doesn't ask for a phone number then it already has a very precise shadow profile about you. Being on linux+firefox+grapheneos compared to windows+chrome+android probably means a lot in that regard. What do you think?
dannyw 1y ago
You will eventually be forced to give a phone number, which in many countries including Australia, require an ID to open.

potamic 1y ago

You're missing the point. If one wants to be anonymous there are ways to do so. If we willingly give up anonymity in exchange for free in certain cases, that's our prerogative, but we must have the choice of not needing to do, when necessary.

aembleton 1y ago

That means they can just use 'AI to guess a user's age based on the data the company already has'

spwa4 1y ago

Except this is giving up anonymity, first, everywhere, not on a few sites. Two, the goal is to find an excuse to arrest you, not to get you to buy a birthday present for your niece when it's time. Well, that, and (this is Australia) to refuse you medical care because you looked up "best cigarette" 10 years ago, as well as refuse you unemployment because you Googled "how do people fake a handicap" after watching office space, 20 years ago.

exodust 1y ago

> pretty much every site like Google already knows exactly who you are Depends how much you share with Google when signed in. If I log out of Google services and browse around the web, my browsing activity is not recorded against my Google account.