| I don’t care about Google’s clout. I use them for less and less and where I use them I don’t care. I use them for email. My email is essentially a curated spam folder. I seldom use it for anything of value. When I do use it, I could care less if the information was made public. I use it for online storage,but again for nothing important. If I lost it all tomorrow my only care would be an outstanding, meaning not yet turned on, assignment for my ML class. Everything else I accept in trade: my data for their service. I use Google Maps. I accept that when I’m driving they will track me. I hope they do. I want to know if I should get off the interstate due to a traffic issue. I don’t watch TV. I have Ad Guard filtering at the network router level. I block Facebook and Twitter there too. I don’t use porn. All Google knows is that I’m a particularly boring human being that probably purchased a dobro given my uptick in how to play the dobro videos. They probably also infer I have mild body dismorphia given some Sapien Medicine videos/sounds I listen too regularly. All this I, a consenting adult, allow them to know in trade for their service. If you don’t like them, there are free means to thwart them. Google will provide you the means to figure this out with their search. As a result, no I don’t care for this kind of worthless handwringing. Go after the leaks at the credit agency. I have no choice but to participate with them. No banner would allow me to opt out. Don’t go after some social media company that we all know is going to sell your data that you traded to get their service. We scientifically know that social media is bad for us all. Why regulate straws when that pandora’ Box of depression is allowed to continue? Grow up. Be an adult. Take responsibility for your choices and entitlement. |
Are you really so sure of your views that you feel that those you disagree with must be less mature than you?
> I use Google Maps. I accept that when I’m driving they will track me. I hope they do. I want to know if I should get off the interstate due to a traffic issue.
You may well already do this, but to actually achieve only being tracked while actively using Maps, I believe you'd have to turn location services on and off each time you use Maps, otherwise Google is tracking you all the time, not just when Maps is open. Assuming an Android device, I'm less sure about how this would play out on iOS.
> All this I, a consenting adult, allow them to know in trade for their service. If you don’t like them, there are free means to thwart them. Google will provide you the means to figure this out with their search. As a result, no I don’t care for this kind of worthless handwringing.
i.e. you are A) aware of what they are doing B) understand that you can intervene and have the skills to put such efforts in place C) hold values such that the tradeoffs doing so implies is acceptable to you.
If everyone was similar to you in these regards, there wouldn't be an issue, but people's awareness of the issues, skills, and values are hugely variable across a population. So while it's worthless handwringing to you, people who hold different values could (and do) disagree.
> Go after the leaks at the credit agency. I have no choice but to participate with them. No banner would allow me to opt out.
Good idea. However, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the efforts against misuse of personal data online are entirely fungible towards efforts of credit agency reform. i.e. not doing this doesn't mean more of that would happen, or that doing this keeps that from happening too.
> Take responsibility for your choices and entitlement.
AFAIK, telling people this isn't effective, so it can really only serve to make yourself feel superior, not really effect change (since I'm assuming you consider yourself to already follow this advice)