Google Accused of 'Posing' on Privacy (inc.com) 73
"You heard the headline, surely. Google is giving you privacy. Lots of privacy. Privacy here, there and everywhere. You're free. Rejoice. Leap in the air," writes Inc. columnist Chris Matyszczyk -- arguing that there's one huge and painful catch:
Google needs to know everything about you because, as my colleague Bill Murphy Jr. reported, it's after as much of the advertising industry as it can swallow whole. However, Google also needs to look as if it's doing something about privacy, because privacy is the new big thing. Everyone's talking about it and Google is finding itself the subject of more and more lawsuits, as it emerges that the company keeps on tracking you whether you want it to or not.
So what has Google really done with this privacy effort? Yes, it's introduced more privacy and security controls which, in the latest version of Android, might even amount to 50 elements for you to toggle away at. And that is the wicked psychological point. Google is posing to regulators by doing this. It's also putting it entirely in users' hands to work out how all these controls work and what they all mean.
Because it knows the vast majority of users just don't and won't do it.
The column argues that Google "is inviting people to be full-time monitors of what Google may or may not be spying on" -- while at the same time "making sure this is far too much work."
So what has Google really done with this privacy effort? Yes, it's introduced more privacy and security controls which, in the latest version of Android, might even amount to 50 elements for you to toggle away at. And that is the wicked psychological point. Google is posing to regulators by doing this. It's also putting it entirely in users' hands to work out how all these controls work and what they all mean.
Because it knows the vast majority of users just don't and won't do it.
The column argues that Google "is inviting people to be full-time monitors of what Google may or may not be spying on" -- while at the same time "making sure this is far too much work."
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Reminds me of that old joke (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what Google is doing to Facebook right now, and the bear is the various regulators.
Re: Reminds me of that old joke (Score:1)
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So, I work for Google. I am on the only team that defends your data from all of Google. It is a weird threat model: The CEO shows up at your desk with security guards and demands that you hand over a particular user's data by the end of the day or you and your whole team are fired. If you succeed in providing the data, you've failed. To be more specific, we ensure that Google can't see your Android backup/restore data, unless you can prove you know your Android screen unlock secret. If you do, then se
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I still believe that Google is trying to stay one step ahead of Facebook, at least in the perception that they're more concerned about user privacy, particularly in the eyes of the EU regulators.
ON (Score:2)
It should be mandatory to have every conceivable privace feature turned ON by default.
Re:ON (Score:4, Interesting)
What does it matter if Google doesn't honor the privacy flags? Because you don't think they will do you?
Google likely offers privacy settings like many cities continue to offer disabled crosswalk buttons at traffic lights: they're pacifiers, designed to provide an illusion of control to the user. But like the crosswalk buttons, they're not connected to anything. And Google knows full well they're much too big and too complex for any regulator to go in and do meaningful checks, and sue them if they aren't true to their word.
Sadly, the only way to control your privacy with Google is to strive to give them as little information about you to begin with - or better, to offer bogus information to poison their data well.
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The already have that functionality: It is called "do not user their crap"....
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Ok, and how much are you realistically willing to pay monthly for a subscription to their apps and services? These services are available for free due to the data collection. That's the trade-off. Giving you a privacy option and then asking you to manage your own settings shouldn't be a problem compared to what you are getting in return.
First people complain about privacy. So, google lets people opt-out. Now people complain that opt-ing out requires some effort and they want to be spoon fed to a point where
They have it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
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3rd time they've been accused of posing. (Score:2)
Racism... "We hire black people, all the black people!" (Google photo AI identifies black people as gorillas)
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The second one was most assuredly unintentional. You see, "AI" is not intelligent. For this problem, it just identifies general shape and then basically counts the color of the pixels within. That way, black people do look close to gorillas and making that separation is intrinsically harder than for white people and gorillas. Also, if the target market is the US, then black people are a minority and you train your classifiers on the regular case and not the outliers or you can just throw it away. Now, it ma
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And I just explained why and why that might not even have helped. Can you read?
Google employees on slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is the biggest violator of privacy to ever exist in the history of the human race. Full stop.
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Unquestionably, Google is extremely privacy hostile. However, I'd say it's a toss up between them and Facebook for #1 offender.
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The definition of privacy just changed. The old definition meant to keep all your data to yourself. The new is that they can take anything they want, as long as they don't share it.
You know, kind of how like all your friends can keep secrets.
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It is not that your friends can't keep secrets, it is just very difficult so they crowdsource the secret keeping.
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Google is the biggest violator of privacy to ever exist in the history of the human race. Full stop.
Okay, this is going way too far. Let me remind you that in 2017 the ISPs (and their legislators) did this [eff.org]. People mostly talk about net neutrality nowadays, when it comes to bad behavior by the ISPs, and that's certainly important but this is just as bad. Worse than Google.
You can avoid Google if you try, though it takes considerable effort. And Google has, so far, refrained from the worst possible abuses of the data that they collect. Neither of these things apply to the ISPs. They are, as a group, wors
No violation (Score:2)
There's no part of what this article describes, that violates any part of the many terms of service disclosures for their various services that I've agreed to.
Just because people blindly accept agreements without reading them doesn't make the provider guilty of not beating the user over the head with DO YOU UNDERSTAND? And it's just as simple to delete or deny history.
And, your assumed location data is easily used by multiple websites for contextual results.
The real violation of location data privac
Accused? Is the "accuser" stupid? (Score:2)
Google lives and breathes user data. It is the thing that directly feeds their only real revenue-stream: Ads. Anybody halfway smart understands that Google _cannot_ give users privacy, or they can just close their business.
This needs to be repeated until people get it (Score:2)
There is not, and never has been, any such thing as "privacy" online.
One more time, for those in the back:
There is not, and never has been, any such thing as "privacy" online.
Full stop.
Bigger issue (Score:3)
>"Because it knows the vast majority of users just don't and won't do it."
The bigger issue is that most of those "privacy" settings simply don't matter, even if you DO use them. Either because there are other methods to collect or infer the same data, or because the loss of those few elements doesn't greatly affect their necessary overall picture of the user.
Now, this doesn't mean I recommend ignoring whatever privacy controls are offered- do take advantage of them. But if you think it will make a huge difference, I have some swamp land to sell you...
If you really DO want to make a huge dent, here are the top four-
1) Use Firefox as your browser, and turn on all anti-tracking tools and install an adblocker. Never use Chrome.
2) Use some other search engine, such as StartPage or DuckDuckGo. Never use Google.com.
3) Use some other Email service. Never use Gmail.
4) Use some other maps/navigation. Never use Google Maps.
google does respect privacy in there own way (Score:2)