Google & Privacy

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by 607, Feb 11, 2017.

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What do you think of Google's dealing with privacy?

Poll closed Mar 25, 2017.
I don't mind it, or I support it. 5 vote(s) 50.0%
I'm not fond of it, or I am against it. 5 vote(s) 50.0%
  1. Hi, it's me again!

    This isn't click-bait, is it? Nah, I wouldn't think so.
    I'm not trying to argue here. I'd like to ask for a bit of help, if possible.
    For school I have to write an 'argument' or a 'consideration'. At least, those are the words Google translate gives me for 'betoog' and 'beschouwing', respectively, and for some reason I couldn't find the reliable English equivalents anywhere on the internet.
    In essence, a 'betoog' means I'll be taking a standpoint and have to defend that at all costs, and in a 'beschouwing' I'll be illustrating multiple standpoints and shouldn't take a side myself.
    I won't know which of the two I'll be writing until shortly before the test.
    But I've got plenty of time to prepare both.
    The subject I've chosen, for now, is, as the title might suggest, 'Google & Privacy'. To many people, that might be an antithesis. But I frankly don't really mind what Google's doing and am seeing quite some pros in their ways.
    But of course, I won't have enough information from only my own opinion.
    I need reliable sources. And of course, I'm looking for information myself, and am not expecting other people to do the work for me. ;)

    But if any of you might know any articles or other types of sources (perhaps an interview with yourself? :p) either supporting or opposing Google's dealing with privacy, I'd really like to see them! :)
  2. Of course, your own views are welcome too, perhaps I'll be able to this thread as a source. ;)
  3. first I'd have to know what Google's stance on privacy is, wish I could help but hard to have a stance on something without a declarative statement to start it out
    ElfinPineapple and 607 like this.
  4. (I'd start with the privacy section on the bottom right)

    FYI: Privacy statements can get really technical, really quickly. If you lack the knowledge to understand the specifics behind the privacy process on Google I wouldn't tread too far off the home page.
    607 likes this.
  5. Google, as a large corporate entity, can post whatever it wants as "official policy". But behind the scenes Google is made of many individuals, and individuals often do not adhere to written corporate policy. Just something to keep in mind.
    Sgt_Pepper4 likes this.
  6. I hate Google and privacy.

    They, much like Facebook, have wormed their way into every aspect of people's lives. I don't use Facebook itself, but I use Instagram and WhatsApp, which they own. Other than that, I can mostly avoid them.

    Google isn't that avoidable. Their search engine is the best one out there, and I use it when I need to Google something (duh). They own the best browser (in my opinion) available right now. They own a key player in entertainment that pretty much killed TV (YouTube). They have their own range of mobile devices that are pretty solid phones. They have a great mobile operating system (Android) that is the most popular in the world. They're even making their own cars, investing in science, and many other things.

    That's great. They make great products and people use them. I wouldn't have a problem with this if they didn't use it to collect data on their users.

    They use street view vehicles to collect data from inside people's homes, such as passwords and e-mails - didn't admit that until they got sued. They use Gmail to collect information on you and sell it to advertisers, then they lied about it until they got sued. They broke through Apple's anti-tracking measures in Safari and tracked its users for months until they got fined $22 million by the Federal Trade Commission. Then they used Android to do the same thing, but multiple times worse - they collected WiFi passwords, probably so many more things, and then they sell it to other companies and will tell governments about their data when asked. They record you when you use their 'OK, Google' feature to get your voice.

    Hell, their 'My Activity' page is just creepy. https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity

    These are intense violations of privacy, and worming your way into people's everyday lives and selling data about what they think is private is seriously flat out disgusting.

    There are pros: catching criminals, helping the government with things that might genuinely have good intentions. But they are seriously outweighed by the cons: people have to give up their privacy, the government hardly ever does anything with good intentions and neither do big businesses - that data they can give can and will be used maliciously, and they'll know everything about you.

    Screw that. It's some extreme violation of human rights, oftentimes this data collection is undisclosed so people aren't aware it's happening (notice how many times they've been sued? Because it's ILLEGAL), and it's a violation of the idea of a free web (which I wholeheartedly support and I'd imagine 90% of those using do too).

    Did that give you an alternative viewpoint?
  7. I was planning to write something today, but it looks like Jamie did it for me. :p
    Great post, thanks. That confirms what I've already found.

    The main thing I'm worrying about with this project, though, is that I need to be able to defend both sides. :p
    And so far, I've got many sources against Google... but the only place I've found that's favourable of Google's ways is, well... Google's own pages.
    Still, I think this could be an interesting subject, but I will have to find some sources for the other stance, too.
  8. Well a pro for this could be that all of this data they're tracking is being used to make it easier for you, the user, to use the products. It saves common search terms so when you reuse them they are there, etc etc.

    If some company out there wants to buy that data then so be it... Google provides all these services to you for free. So they need to make money somehow, right?

    The alternative is that you start paying to use google search, you pay for a license for Chrome, etc.. and nobody wants that.
    TomvanWijnen, 607 and jkjkjk182 like this.
  9. That's a great argument!
    Thanks!
    If I can't manage to find any more official sources that mention that, I'll try to cite you. ;)
  10. Google and privacy, you hinted at this yourself, are mutually exclusive. When using Google's services you can depend on two things: You're going to use very user friendly and well worked out software. But you're also going to be paying for using all that by giving up your privacy and being exposed to tons of advertisements.

    And I seriously think that some people have no idea, what so ever, how deep the whole thing goes.

    Let's use an example: social media. You're logged on to Facebook/Twitter/etc. to keep up, and you're browsing the web. A lot of websites will provide links which allow you to like or share whatever it is you're looking at on social media. Easy right? However, what people forget is that this also means that every time you visit such a website your visit there will become known to the social media site as well. They can effectively track you.

    It's simple: your browser collects data from the Internet. But if you visit a website then don't think that everything you see on their webpage originates from that one single website. It can be, but when a site uses social media bars or buttons then those will be provided by the actual social media site itself. Effectively making your browser contacting them to retrieve that content. And since you were still logged on they can see exactly what happened.

    Google knows this and so devised an even better way to utilize this: Google Analytics. The perfect tool for lazy webmasters: all you have to do is insert a small javascript routine in your webpages and you're done! The moment someone contacts your site the javascript will make their browser contact Google to let them know that they're using that website. Providing them with everything they need to collect data which can then be used to show statistics.

    Of course this goes even further: the same thing which I mentioned with regards to social media also applies here: Google can basically track you. And because Google Analytics is pretty popular they can track you across tons of websites. Even doing so much as changing some settings on the Google search engine can be enough to establish yourself as identifiable. Of course it works even better when you got a Google account ;)

    From that point of view Google is definitely a threat in my opinion. But...

    The other side of the medal is that people also allow themselves to be tracked. The "I got nothing to hide" mentality is very well present. Of course: it doesn't matter what you (don't) have to hide, the real problem is how the other party is going to use said information. And it's relatively easy to block quite a bit.

    For example, in my Opera browser I allow the use of Javascript, but I block sites/url's like google-analytics.com, googleadservices.com and a few others. I've tried this, and it works perfectly: when I visit websites which use Google Analytics then they can't track me. I'm invisible. So much for real time statistics ;)

    Did you know that if you visit a website and from there decide to visit another that the new site can track your origins? It's called the referrer tag, and it's actively used by webserver logging tools to provide information on which search keys were used on a search engine prior to visiting your website. But it also works when a user simply hops between websites. Now, this isn't really a bad thing because without it many things (like this forum!) wouldn't work. But it can be abused. As such I also rely on the NoRef plugin which prevents this kind of information from being sent. Unless I allow it of course. Social media? I'm also using StopSocial, which effectively blocks all those links. Even if I were logged onto one of those sites then it still couldn't track me.

    So Google evil? I do think so, but it's not as if you can't do anything about it yourself if you want to. But truth of the matter is that most people don't care, or don't want to bother with the extra hindrance (before I got NoRef working as it does now I had to whitelist plenty of websites ;)).

    And let's not ignore the most obvious: Google maybe evil(ish), but they do know how to appeal to the masses. Most of their software and services are top notch. There is a reason why they're so popular. So they're most definitely are doing something right ;)
    607 and JesusPower2 like this.
  11. I just fail to see what's so evil about this. Are they taking money out of your pocket? are they harming your life in any way by wanting to show you effective ads?

    Here's the deal, most companies know that in order to get users to use a web app it has to be free. So in order to pay for it they use company-sponsored ads. This way it's free to the end user but the company makes their money back. So now the next step is that those ads have to be useful, otherwise no one is going to click on them and thus companies aren't going to want to sponsor the ads anymore because they aren't getting any business from it. So now companies like Google found a way to make the ads more useful. If you block the data and thus make yourself invisible then those companies don't know that their ad was effective.

    Until someone shows me what "evil" things a company is doing with this big data then I'm not going to buy into the argument that it's evil.

    I've heard some folks saying that they don't want companies making money off of their information and that's fine.. but then you need to pay for the service you're receiving then. If you pay for it then you can expect some privacy but otherwise you're out of luck because the company needs to make money.
    607 and ShelLuser like this.
  12. Could just google for "google violate privacy". Seems to be a quite of bit of illegal activity around that collected data.
    ShelLuser likes this.
  13. A few examples...

    Google streetview. They had cars driving around which snapped pictures from the streets they were on and the surrounding areas. So far, so good. Apart from the fact that Google also snapped pictures of what could be considered private areas. Under (inter)national law (this is covered under nation law in most but not all countries) you're not allowed to snap pictures of a private property without consent. There are strict regulations as to what is considered public terrain and what not. At first Google ignored the whole thing and provided opt-out services (=you had to complain before they took action). I hope you can agree that not following the law isn't exactly a good thing.

    In addition the streetview cars also massively collected wifi data. Every open wifi they found got traced and logged. In other words: they would check out everything there was to find about your network. Public shares, printer names, everything. The original plan was even to provide this information within street view so that people could find spots where they could use "free" Internet.

    Two things here: the argument which I myself used is obviously valid: "If you don't want this to happen to you, then don't open up your network". But that also assumes that every person with a wifi router has the knowledge of doing that. Or that their equipment actually provides these features.

    Second: some internet connections are still charged based on data amounts. Do you really think it's ethical to totally ignore that in order to provide a service for people to find "free" internet access?

    Do Not Track. As you probably know we have a cookie law. Totally ridiculous in my opinion but there is a bit of truth here: websites would leave cookies on your machine which allowed other websites to determine what you had been looking at. Have you been looking at new computers? Then chances are high that you'll be finding tons of computer advertisements throughout the web, all thanks to a few cookies which got left behind.

    In order to provide more privacy all major browser vendors (Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple, Opera) came together and worked on a new standard: "Do not track". It would be a setting which could be enabled, and if so the idea was that websites would not (be able to) leave any traceable cookies. Google refused, and many people believe it's all because of a new patent they wanted to exploit. Just for context: Opera is a company which mostly gains its revenue from advertisements, and even they supported this idea.

    Misleading users: Google has a service called Adwords which allows webmasters to pay Google after which they will advertise the website through their network (for example by mentioning it in specific search results, the commonly seen "sponsored links"). Google also often provides trial runs of this. A person gets a virtual amount of credits to spend on advertising, they advertise and oh wow: they will see their hit rates drastically rise. Surely that's solid proof that this method works?

    Yah, about that... There have been many (myself included) who run their own servers, and thus their own logfiles, and who started to trace back some of those hits. Surprise, surprise: many hits originated directly with Google itself. It might not be fully evil, but it is misleading and most definitely unethical. In the real world such tactics would be filed as swindling. It's also against the law ;)

    Attacking authors: There are plenty of authors who believe in freedom of speech, and go through many lengths to make that happen. For example by providing free (electronic) copies of their work online, while also providing users ways to buy hard copies. I'm not joking: Google has shut down many authors who tried to sell their books through Google based on a copyright violation. They were spreading material which was also sold through Google and therefor in violation of copyright. Even though they were sharing their own work.

    Attacking / censoring developers: A few years ago quite a few Android developers noted that although their control panels showed that their apps had been sold they didn't receive any payment from Google. Some tried to e-mail them but that resulted in pretty much nothing. This thread was hosted on Google's android forum and it started to attract quite some attention, when I read it the whole thread was already 3 pages long, so dozens of comments. The result? The thread got locked because "people should contact Google by e-mail" (even though many had already stated to have done that without any results) and 2 or so months later the thread was completely removed. Gone.

    That led to a lot of protests and eventually the thread re-surfaced, but it was never unlocked again.



    I'm sure none or maybe most of these issues won't involve any of us personally, but it does show what kind of a company you're dealing with. When a company willingly and knowingly decides to ignore national law solely for their own gain and profit then something is definitely not right. We have those laws in place for a reason, and it's not up to Google to decide to apply them or not.
    607 likes this.
  14. I don't really spend much time on this subject of Google and privacy but I do know that there is a lot more information, photos, anything about you out there that you don't know about. Once my friend in school was messing around and decided to look her name up on Google and when she did she used her full name and bang there she was a photo of her, her Instagram, her youtube channel, etc..
  15. Since there are so many negatives, I will try to share some positives/justifications.

    First off, Google has to make money. Running the number of services they do and being able to hire the people they have requires tons of money. Somehow, Google has to make money from those services to cover that cost. Around 77% of Google's profits come from advertising. For a company that makes most of its money from advertising, it has to constantly improve its own algorithms to convince companies that their service will give them the most clicks and customers.

    How can Google ensure they provide advertisers the most clicks and customers? They can do it by targeting users based on their interests. If an ad is actually relevant to what a person likes, they are much more likely to click on it. How can Google know what you like? As it turns out, you are literally giving them that information constantly, every single day. The websites you visit, the videos you watch, the search terms you look up, and the locations you visit are all given by you to Google.

    What would happen if Google stopped collecting those things? They would likely have to start putting more content behind paywalls. Someone has to pay and something has to be the product. If you don't want to pay, then you are likely going to be the product.

    If you don't want Google to collect your data but still want them to let you access their services, then you will have to make it up somehow. Would you pay a monthly fee to use Google? From Google's perspective, would you pay monthly fees that cover the cost they lose in advertising? If the answer to both questions isn't yes, then you should either accept that Google will track you, or use alternative services.

    Along with the costs, there is a benefit for you in having all that data collected. First off, there is the chance that you will be shown relevant ads that might actually help you. This is done all over the place, whether it is ads on websites, the results you see on Google, or on your Youtube recommendations. Without information about you, Google can't personalize its services.

    Google also uses information such as recording from your voice searches to better match your voice next time. In your activity, you can actually listen to your voice searches from Google Now.

    Does all of this make Google's use of your privacy worth it? That is up to the individual. Although people like to say "vote with your wallet" it is very unlikely that you leaving their services will have any impact on their policies. Instead, you should try to invest your time, money, and energy into alternatives in order to make yourself less reliant on Google's services.

    Someone breaching your privacy without your consent is definitely a massive violation of your rights. Using Google's services though is willfully giving your privacy away, not Google taking it from you.
    607 and ShelLuser like this.
  16. Wow!
    Thank you all for your input.
    Shel, thanks for the personal, but very well-argued opinion. Wayne, thanks for provoking him to elaborate. ;)
    jkrmnj: thanks for defending the other side!
    I am now quite confident that this is a subject I can use. And I shouldn't need that many arguments anyway, as I am expecting us to not be allowed to use a very high amount of words.
    I did think of another possible subject, yesterday, which happens to be another subject on which ShelLuser and me have got strong, but opposing opinions: AdBlockers. So if this doesn't work out, I could try for that.
    But as it looks now, I actually think I'll have quite enough information to argue well for and against Google, even though official sources standing for Google are quite scarce. :)