6 ms·

Just more Google marketing. Trying to win hearts and minds, while like Facebook, profiting off of the sale of user data.

by eat 12y ago

knowaveragejoe 12y ago
I must have misread something. Doesn't it say "ex" in the title? Regardless of how you feel about the company, Google has some of the brightest minds in the world working for them in any given field. Being one of the top security guys at Google is a pretty strong credential, I don't see why it wouldn't be mentioned forthright. I fail to see how this is Google marketing.
- flurpitude 12y ago
  '“He has quite a hacker mind,” says Heather Adkins, Google’s manager of information security, “Of everyone I’ve ever hired at Google, I’d put him in the top one percent of technical capability.”' The guy must be quite smart.
- marincounty 12y ago
  I hope the "brightest minds" realize the negative sentiment the mere mention of Google is eliciting? I honestly couldn't even read the article because of how they exploited me. At first--it was innovative; now they are just irratitaing.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
digitalengineer 12y ago
Comparing Google with aggressive governments? Last I knew I was not forced to be a user of Google products. Also: Google does not track and arrest/beat up people with other opinions than the rulers.
- nfoz 12y ago
  I find it extremely difficult to avoid interacting with Google products: - a LOT of the web employs google analytics to track you - very many of my contacts use Gmail, so perhaps the majority of my email ends up on their servers - Friends take photos of me that are uploaded to Google+ - My home and car have been captured by the GoogleMaps surveillance van I agree that it's important to distinguish Google vs. governments. But let's not pretend that you can "opt out" of Google's surveillance on you, even if you aren't using their products. Edit: Let's also acknowledge that whatever Google collects, the governments have access to.
  - BrandonMarc 12y ago
    Yes, Google Analytics is on most of the web. Guess what else is? AdSense. Even if a site doesn't have Analytics, if it has AdSense, then most of the same tracking comes into play. A massive fraction of the web - at least, the websites that get traffic - has either or both of these built in.
  - aragot 12y ago
    > I find it extremely difficult to avoid interacting with Google products I think that's not what digitalengineer was talking about. He was saying you can't opt out of governments and violent or unfair law enforcement, whereas you can opt out of Google products. So the OC reminds us Google is pretty tame compared to govts.
- anon1385 12y ago
  >I was not forced to be a user of Google products Well forced is perhaps a little strong, but it's nearly impossible to avoid giving information to Google if you use the internet. Not using the internet is increasingly not a choice available to people in modern society. The argument here about mobile phones applies just as much to the internet in general: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6707202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6707202 http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-bec... >Despite the fact that I spend hundreds of dollars a year and hours of work to host my own email server, Google has about half of my personal email! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731414 >Google Analytics is on a substantial proportion of the Internet. 65% of the top 10k sites, 63.9% of the top 100k, and 50.5% of the top million[1]. My own results from a research project I did using the Common Crawl[2] corpus estimates approximately 39.7% of the 535 million pages processed so far have GA on them. >The real key to tracking is the referrer data. For the vast majority of clicks, you land on a site that has Google Analytics or you've just left one that did. As Google Analytics tracks your referrer, that means they still have your full browsing history if you jump from GA => !GA => GA => !GA => …
  - freehunter 12y ago
    Besides the Gmail part, blocking GA and using Bing or DuckDuckGo isn't the end of the world. I use Bing because of Bing Rewards, and I haven't had to do a Google search in ages. I've heard really good things about DDG as well.
- jamespo 12y ago
  Anyone would think it's difficult to block Google Analytics
  - anon1385 12y ago
    Now stop Google seeing your email: http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-bec...
    - mike_hearn 12y ago
      Maybe you could use this handy open source Chrome extension: https://code.google.com/p/end-to-end/ https://code.google.com/p/end-to-end/ (guess who developed it)
      - anon1385 12y ago
        >Maybe you could use this handy open source Chrome extension And how exactly does that help me when a gmail user emails me (or replies to my email) without using pgp? Perhaps you meant to say "Maybe you could persuade every person you might ever contact over email to use this obscure Chrome extension". If you think this is a solution then you have massively misunderstood the problem. Communication is an issue of social groups. What matters is what most people are doing. The choices made by any individual are irrelevant unless most other people do the same. I know that is probably difficult to fit into your existing individualistic model of how the world works.
        mike_hearn 12y ago
        It's obviously a solution. You don't like it because you suspect correctly that the people you want to communicate with care less about the issue than you do, but that doesn't mean it's not a solution. Indeed it's the only solution possible ...
walls 12y ago
Why would Google ever sell user data? It's worth much more in their hands alone.
- hackuser 12y ago
  > Why would Google ever sell user data? It's worth much more in their hands alone. That depends on the price.
  - lallysingh 12y ago
    There's just ExxonMobile and Apple with enough money (by market cap).
    - e12e 12y ago
      I for one, would be perfectly fine with a great company like ExxonMobile purchasing my data in order to re-educate the misguided people that think Exxon isn't building a better future for our children's children. /s According to http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070714/apple-google-tesla-which-will-be-first-reach-1-trillion-market-cap.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070714/apple-... it would appear that the Norwegian Pension Fund (~800Busd) could also (theoretically) purchase google (especially considering you'd "only" have to buy 51%). Interesting thought. Also, a cursory search for other candidates seem to indicate Mitsubishi Corp has a market cap of 3.1T? But maybe I'm reading that wrong -- I'm not used to looking at these numbers.
      - AaronIG 12y ago
        > Also, a cursory search for other candidates seem to indicate Mitsubishi Corp has a market cap of 3.1T? ... That's in Japanese Yen, which is ~34.5B USD.
        e12e 12y ago
        I figured it might be, thanks for clarifying :-)

Just more Google marketing. Trying to win hearts and minds, while like Facebook, profiting off of the sale of user data.

by eat 12y ago

Just more Google marketing. Trying to win hearts and minds, while like Facebook, profiting off of the sale of user data.

knowaveragejoe 12y ago

I must have misread something. Doesn't it say "ex" in the title? Regardless of how you feel about the company, Google has some of the brightest minds in the world working for them in any given field. Being one of the top security guys at Google is a pretty strong credential, I don't see why it wouldn't be mentioned forthright. I fail to see how this is Google marketing.

flurpitude 12y ago
'“He has quite a hacker mind,” says Heather Adkins, Google’s manager of information security, “Of everyone I’ve ever hired at Google, I’d put him in the top one percent of technical capability.”' The guy must be quite smart.
marincounty 12y ago
I hope the "brightest minds" realize the negative sentiment the mere mention of Google is eliciting? I honestly couldn't even read the article because of how they exploited me. At first--it was innovative; now they are just irratitaing.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

digitalengineer 12y ago

Comparing Google with aggressive governments? Last I knew I was not forced to be a user of Google products. Also: Google does not track and arrest/beat up people with other opinions than the rulers.

nfoz 12y ago
I find it extremely difficult to avoid interacting with Google products: - a LOT of the web employs google analytics to track you - very many of my contacts use Gmail, so perhaps the majority of my email ends up on their servers - Friends take photos of me that are uploaded to Google+ - My home and car have been captured by the GoogleMaps surveillance van I agree that it's important to distinguish Google vs. governments. But let's not pretend that you can "opt out" of Google's surveillance on you, even if you aren't using their products. Edit: Let's also acknowledge that whatever Google collects, the governments have access to.
- BrandonMarc 12y ago
  Yes, Google Analytics is on most of the web. Guess what else is? AdSense. Even if a site doesn't have Analytics, if it has AdSense, then most of the same tracking comes into play. A massive fraction of the web - at least, the websites that get traffic - has either or both of these built in.
- aragot 12y ago
  > I find it extremely difficult to avoid interacting with Google products I think that's not what digitalengineer was talking about. He was saying you can't opt out of governments and violent or unfair law enforcement, whereas you can opt out of Google products. So the OC reminds us Google is pretty tame compared to govts.
anon1385 12y ago
>I was not forced to be a user of Google products Well forced is perhaps a little strong, but it's nearly impossible to avoid giving information to Google if you use the internet. Not using the internet is increasingly not a choice available to people in modern society. The argument here about mobile phones applies just as much to the internet in general: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6707202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6707202 http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-bec... >Despite the fact that I spend hundreds of dollars a year and hours of work to host my own email server, Google has about half of my personal email! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731414 >Google Analytics is on a substantial proportion of the Internet. 65% of the top 10k sites, 63.9% of the top 100k, and 50.5% of the top million[1]. My own results from a research project I did using the Common Crawl[2] corpus estimates approximately 39.7% of the 535 million pages processed so far have GA on them. >The real key to tracking is the referrer data. For the vast majority of clicks, you land on a site that has Google Analytics or you've just left one that did. As Google Analytics tracks your referrer, that means they still have your full browsing history if you jump from GA => !GA => GA => !GA => …
- freehunter 12y ago
  Besides the Gmail part, blocking GA and using Bing or DuckDuckGo isn't the end of the world. I use Bing because of Bing Rewards, and I haven't had to do a Google search in ages. I've heard really good things about DDG as well.
jamespo 12y ago
Anyone would think it's difficult to block Google Analytics
- anon1385 12y ago
  Now stop Google seeing your email: http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-bec...
  - mike_hearn 12y ago
    Maybe you could use this handy open source Chrome extension: https://code.google.com/p/end-to-end/ https://code.google.com/p/end-to-end/ (guess who developed it)
    - anon1385 12y ago
      >Maybe you could use this handy open source Chrome extension And how exactly does that help me when a gmail user emails me (or replies to my email) without using pgp? Perhaps you meant to say "Maybe you could persuade every person you might ever contact over email to use this obscure Chrome extension". If you think this is a solution then you have massively misunderstood the problem. Communication is an issue of social groups. What matters is what most people are doing. The choices made by any individual are irrelevant unless most other people do the same. I know that is probably difficult to fit into your existing individualistic model of how the world works.
      - mike_hearn 12y ago
        It's obviously a solution. You don't like it because you suspect correctly that the people you want to communicate with care less about the issue than you do, but that doesn't mean it's not a solution. Indeed it's the only solution possible ...

walls 12y ago

Why would Google ever sell user data? It's worth much more in their hands alone.

hackuser 12y ago
> Why would Google ever sell user data? It's worth much more in their hands alone. That depends on the price.
- lallysingh 12y ago
  There's just ExxonMobile and Apple with enough money (by market cap).
  - e12e 12y ago
    I for one, would be perfectly fine with a great company like ExxonMobile purchasing my data in order to re-educate the misguided people that think Exxon isn't building a better future for our children's children. /s According to http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070714/apple-google-tesla-which-will-be-first-reach-1-trillion-market-cap.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070714/apple-... it would appear that the Norwegian Pension Fund (~800Busd) could also (theoretically) purchase google (especially considering you'd "only" have to buy 51%). Interesting thought. Also, a cursory search for other candidates seem to indicate Mitsubishi Corp has a market cap of 3.1T? But maybe I'm reading that wrong -- I'm not used to looking at these numbers.
    - AaronIG 12y ago
      > Also, a cursory search for other candidates seem to indicate Mitsubishi Corp has a market cap of 3.1T? ... That's in Japanese Yen, which is ~34.5B USD.
      - e12e 12y ago
        I figured it might be, thanks for clarifying :-)