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It's amazing how many people ware willing to let Google (or anyone for that matter) see and keep their most private information for ever. Your online searches a

It's amazing how many people ware willing to let Google (or anyone for that matter) see and keep their most private information for ever. Your online searches and emails can truly show what's on your mind, there's no way I am going to let an advertising company connect them to my real name and address and /or catalog them forever. Nope, not even if you show me what movie is playing when I pass near a theater. I'll manage to do without that or associated advertising that will almost certainly come.

yuhong 13y ago
Can you respond to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5654301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5654301
- OGinparadise 13y ago
  you a stalker now? But here's the answer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5654301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5654301
bad_user 13y ago
Google with their search engine and Gmail and GDocs and all the other services they are offering, do provide a valuable service to users. It's true that users are somewhat the product, the real customers being the advertisers in partnership with Google. However, at least right now, nothing forces you to use their products and leaving Google, even if you aren't a paying customer, is still like voting with your wallet, especially since one user can convince others to leave too. I personally don't mind giving Google my data. Even though I'm fully aware of the implications, I consider it a fair trade, because really, the data that Google has on me is really not that valuable. I do have sensitive pieces of data that I need to store online. And because I am aware of Google's practices, that's one reason for why I'm not using GDrive or Picassa. I'm also a user of the browser's incognito mode when searching for porn, a mode that is fair to remind was popularized by Google Chrome. If I have a beef against Google, is for their awful customer support, even in cases where you are the paying customer. However, that's an unrelated issue and I personally was aware that Google tracked my searches to use for interest-based ads serving ever since they launched Adsense in 2003. To me the backlash against such practices, are 10 years too late.

yuhong 13y ago

Can you respond to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5654301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5654301

OGinparadise 13y ago
you a stalker now? But here's the answer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5654301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5654301

bad_user 13y ago

Google with their search engine and Gmail and GDocs and all the other services they are offering, do provide a valuable service to users. It's true that users are somewhat the product, the real customers being the advertisers in partnership with Google. However, at least right now, nothing forces you to use their products and leaving Google, even if you aren't a paying customer, is still like voting with your wallet, especially since one user can convince others to leave too. I personally don't mind giving Google my data. Even though I'm fully aware of the implications, I consider it a fair trade, because really, the data that Google has on me is really not that valuable. I do have sensitive pieces of data that I need to store online. And because I am aware of Google's practices, that's one reason for why I'm not using GDrive or Picassa. I'm also a user of the browser's incognito mode when searching for porn, a mode that is fair to remind was popularized by Google Chrome. If I have a beef against Google, is for their awful customer support, even in cases where you are the paying customer. However, that's an unrelated issue and I personally was aware that Google tracked my searches to use for interest-based ads serving ever since they launched Adsense in 2003. To me the backlash against such practices, are 10 years too late.