3 ms·

Just out of curiosity, what do people typically slam google for? I feel like I have a lot of trust in their services -- a hell of a lot more than facebook, and

by jenius 12y ago

Just out of curiosity, what do people typically slam google for? I feel like I have a lot of trust in their services -- a hell of a lot more than facebook, and somewhere around on par with apple. Sure, they collect a bunch of your data, but it's for the purpose of them being able to serve more relevant ads to you if I'm not mistaken, since that's where most of their money is made, and their ads are fairly clean and not questionable as far as I've seen. Overall, they have really solid products that have been incredibly useful to me, and you can see how they are working hard on so many important things: surpassing apple on the mobile design front with material design, cranking out bleeding edge and experimental innovations like self-driving cars and glass, and even working on a lot of projects that help to bring technology to those who don't have it, like project loon, the lower cost and open source android stuff, etc -- and these projects have actually been making a really big difference in third world countries (with no strings attached unlike facebook's total bullshit "charity" initiatives). I'm not a google fanboy by any means. I more or less just use gmail and calendar, and just got an android phone after having an iphone 4 for like four years just to try it out. Just pointing out things I have passively observed about how they run. I would really love to hear the other side of the story though to perhaps balance my perspective a bit more!

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
"Sure, they collect a bunch of your data, but it's for the purpose of them being able to serve more relevant ads to you if I'm not mistaken, since that's where most of their money is made." You gloss over this as if its not a big deal.
- techrat 12y ago
  Please cite examples in which Google has demonstrated that they could not be trusted with information that they use to deliver targeted ads to you. Did they ever pull a Facebook-esque social experiment by trying to limit what you saw in order to manipulate your feelings over the course of a day? Do they sell personal information about you for other companies to use however they please? Think about this a little bit before you respond with a generic, mouth frothing "BUT GOOGLES SELLS YER INFO" when they actually don't. They sell access to you when you are exposed to ads. Not access to your info.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > Did they ever pull a Facebook-esque social experiment by trying to limit what you saw in order to manipulate your feelings over the course of a day? I'd also like to point out that the drama around Facebook's social experiment was totally overblown. People essentially mixed up what Facebook did (something not unlike an A/B test) with what some imagined Facebook in theory could do (silently but significantly influence emotional state of users), and after articles started calling this "manipulating your feelings" the Internet totally lost it. After all, the extent to which Facebook "manipulated your feelings over the course of a day" is much smaller than, say, 9gag's or that of a television ad. This is the same problem as the one you're complaining about here - generic accusations about totally overblown things.
  - ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
    By your logic, since AFAIK the NSA hasn't ever targeted me specifically, then they must be a okay!
    - techrat 12y ago
      >By your logic, since AFAIK the NSA hasn't ever targeted me specifically, then they must be a okay! An exact example of the false equivalence fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Well, is it? Personally, I am beginning to fear that the whole idea of privacy starts to block progress and in the end we'll have to choose between the two. Apart from the dystopian future everyone fears, there are also astoundingly huge amounts of good things that can happen thanks to data companies like Google or Facebook collect.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
Yup, I'd like to know it too. Everything I saw or read confirms that they're one of the most benevolent big companies ever, and yet for some vauge reasons they are called evil.
- bnb 12y ago
  Google tries to copyright cookies: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0156738.html http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0156738.html Bullshit actions in partnership with Apple: http://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unsealed-documents-show-steve-jobs-brutally-callous-response-after-getting-a-google-employee-fired/ http://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unsealed-documents-show-st... And, to me, the worst - Bulling the CSS WG: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0103.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0103.h...

by jenius 12y ago

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago

"Sure, they collect a bunch of your data, but it's for the purpose of them being able to serve more relevant ads to you if I'm not mistaken, since that's where most of their money is made." You gloss over this as if its not a big deal.

techrat 12y ago
Please cite examples in which Google has demonstrated that they could not be trusted with information that they use to deliver targeted ads to you. Did they ever pull a Facebook-esque social experiment by trying to limit what you saw in order to manipulate your feelings over the course of a day? Do they sell personal information about you for other companies to use however they please? Think about this a little bit before you respond with a generic, mouth frothing "BUT GOOGLES SELLS YER INFO" when they actually don't. They sell access to you when you are exposed to ads. Not access to your info.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > Did they ever pull a Facebook-esque social experiment by trying to limit what you saw in order to manipulate your feelings over the course of a day? I'd also like to point out that the drama around Facebook's social experiment was totally overblown. People essentially mixed up what Facebook did (something not unlike an A/B test) with what some imagined Facebook in theory could do (silently but significantly influence emotional state of users), and after articles started calling this "manipulating your feelings" the Internet totally lost it. After all, the extent to which Facebook "manipulated your feelings over the course of a day" is much smaller than, say, 9gag's or that of a television ad. This is the same problem as the one you're complaining about here - generic accusations about totally overblown things.
- ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
  By your logic, since AFAIK the NSA hasn't ever targeted me specifically, then they must be a okay!
  - techrat 12y ago
    >By your logic, since AFAIK the NSA hasn't ever targeted me specifically, then they must be a okay! An exact example of the false equivalence fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
TeMPOraL 12y ago
Well, is it? Personally, I am beginning to fear that the whole idea of privacy starts to block progress and in the end we'll have to choose between the two. Apart from the dystopian future everyone fears, there are also astoundingly huge amounts of good things that can happen thanks to data companies like Google or Facebook collect.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

Yup, I'd like to know it too. Everything I saw or read confirms that they're one of the most benevolent big companies ever, and yet for some vauge reasons they are called evil.

bnb 12y ago
Google tries to copyright cookies: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0156738.html http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0156738.html Bullshit actions in partnership with Apple: http://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unsealed-documents-show-steve-jobs-brutally-callous-response-after-getting-a-google-employee-fired/ http://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unsealed-documents-show-st... And, to me, the worst - Bulling the CSS WG: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0103.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0103.h...