[Malarkey73]

I know Google is profiling me and harvesting my data. But it's not using me to harvest my friends information.

I know Google is targeting ads at me - and they maybe AB tested. But those ads are from real companies or organisations - they aren't fake bots or astroturf groups algorithmically designed to tell me what I want to hear.

I'm sceptically watchful of Google, I feel I have a social contract with them where they use me and I use them. I think Facebook has way overstepped that mark.

[jonathanyc]

I sure as hell don't think my Grandma or Dad would have realized that Google's dark pattern[1] "opt-out" dialogs asking if they want to "make Android better" actually were asking for permission to send their location on a minute-by-minute basis to Google. How do you think Google populates their "Popular Times" card on search results?[2] Do you believe that even a simple majority of people going to a hospital, say, for some embarassing infection or a psych eval realize that the fact that they are there is going to be stored permanently on a Google server?

Google for me is the company that epitomizes the idea of false consent justifying near-unlimited data collection and permanent retention. If the man on the street is not aware of what he's agreeing to when he buys an Android phone in a meaningful sense, it is not consent in any meaningful sense.

We as people in tech might be aware. We might even be fashionably cynical in trying to rationalize our awareness of Google's tricks as a "social contract." But with knowledge comes responsibility.

[1]: https://darkpatterns.org/ [2]: Seems to appear/not appear based on opaque conditions.

[MarkMc]

I can't see anything wrong with the opt-out screen during Android setup [1]

The option you refer to says, "Help improve your Android experience by automatically sending diagnostic and usage data to Google."

There is a separate option which says in part, "Anonymous location data will be sent to Google, even when no apps are running".

That seems pretty clear to me - I can't see any dark pattern.

[1] https://fscl01.fonpit.de/userfiles/6473479/image/Nexus_5_mar...

[pelario]

C'mon... Google maps will ask me turn my GPS every damn time I use it; no way "to remember this choice", but if I activated it, it is super happy to remember it.

Still don't see anything wrong?

[aylmao]

> those ads are from real companies or organisations - they aren't fake bots or astroturf groups algorithmically designed to tell me what I want to hear.

How do you know this? As far as we know Google was also used to spread misinformation by Russian entities in the elections [1]. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google invented targeted advertising. Hell, this is the company that boasted about A/B testing shades of blue to earn themselves $200m [2].

Sidenote: Google doesn't have access to your social information or what you "like", which was the reason behind Google+ and the big push to integrate it with Gmail and Youtube. The fact Google failed to get the same breath of social and preference information Facebook has doesn't mean they're more concerned with privacy, it just means they were late to the game and failed.

Google is more zealous about keeping its data to its own though.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/10/09...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/05/why-googl...

[Malarkey73]

I'm in the UK not US so I'm n to totally sure what sort of fake news US electors get.

However during Brexit and UK elections I get political ads and memes via FB. Google don't push that stuff at me.

Google if it (rarely) pushes politics at me pushes links from political parties or identifiable campaign groups. So if it is lies or fake then I and others can hold them to account.

FB often seems to be pushing fake stories - sometime started by fake users - actually started by who knows who. So Propaganda can't be held to account.

Actually I think Twitter problems are more similar to FB - except they maybe lack the deep profiling of social networks that FB have.

[ILikeConemowk]

> Google don't push that stuff at me.

Start using Google News.

[colordrops]

> But it's not using me to harvest my friends information.

That just isn't true. Google has several products that involve a social graph, including Gmail, contacts, chat, and pretty much anything that allows sharing.

[Sir_Substance]

>I know Google is profiling me and harvesting my data. But it's not using me to harvest my friends information.

But is it not though?

Because it analyzes any emails I send to your gmail account, and any SMS messages I send to your android phone. Google will argue about data vs metadata, but really it's all just data, and it's as much about me as it is you. I don't know if Google pioneered shadow profiling, but they certainly perfected it.

My room mate got a pair of home mini's over my explicit objections. He insisted that they send "bytes per hour tops" back to google when idle, and that I was just paranoid for hating them. I did some network inspection to validate that for myself.

They pretty much ceaselessly probe my network, mostly with multicast traffic, and are uploading something in the area of hundreds of kilobytes per minute when idle. I can't tell what they're uploading because they're using secure connections (presumably with pinned certificates, although I haven't checked), but if I were to baselessly speculate, I would guess they are discovering, logging and reporting the comings and goings of android phones on my network so google can follow people as they move from one home to another, possibly mapping IP's to locations.

Now for sure, I'm a lot further down the tinfoil scale than most people, but I disagree with you. As someone who actively works to avoid google, my friends sure do keep inflicting it on me.

[pixl97]

If you have decent network VLAN his equipment on its own subnet.

It is sad we have to secure our networks from equipment straight from the vendor.

[Sir_Substance]

I keep the wifi segregated from everything else on general principals, but I don't subdivide it below that.

[throwaway84742]

>> But it's not using me to harvest my friends information

Of course. It already has your friends’ information.

[eat_veggies]

And your friends agreed to it, same as you. That's the difference.

[throwaway84742]

Not necessarily. Address book access rights on Android and iOS are a gray area. I don’t have control over whether you hand over my contact info to whoever you want. So are incoming emails from outside Gmail, and a bunch of other things. So is tracking of accounts that aren’t even logged into anything, and demographic inference on top of that, etc, etc. I mean we are literally talking about a company that tracks the entirety of the web, and has an overwhelming share of people’s email, search, and video history. You’d have to be unbelievably naive to think that this information can’t be abused.

That’s not to say Google currently abuses it, but some of the ads stuff is way into the gray area territory imo, and god help us all if they decide to get evil for real.

[futhey]

Doesn't this also apply to Facebook? Maybe you could argue it's not current data, but at some point Facebook reached ubiquity, and collected enough data to make sophisticated inferences about everyone.

[squarefoot]

"I know Google is profiling me and harvesting my data. But it's not using me to harvest my friends information."

Hey Google, text Alice, Bob and Lisa I'll meet them at the cafe at 17:30.

[jessaustin]

Don't you have to have them in your address book for this to work?

[squarefoot]

Yes, the information given there is where we meet and when.

[jamiequint]

Neither is Facebook since 2014 when they locked down Open Graph access.

[username223]

> I feel I have a social contract with them where they use me and I use them.

Right -- Google tracks you to target ads, but that's about it, and in exchange, they make useful things like search and Gmail. Facebook tracks you to target ads, but all they make is a website designed to keep you clicking and staring as long as possible. They have somewhere between zero and negative value to their users.