[FiveSquared]

Listen, FaceBook monetizes social interaction. It is completely normal and good to socialize, but Facebook is like someon read your mail and sold it. Oh wait, that’s GMail. My point is that they montitize and manipulate and obfuscate the real truth of their platforms.

[jyrkesh]

Except that FB now has a consistent track record of leaking those "mails" (or friend lists, or interactions, or whatever) to 3rd party entities that I've never authorized to have that data.

Gmail on the other hand has one of the best security track records in the industry, minus state-sponsored snooping (but that's a bit of a different issue, I think). There's zero instance of my Gmail mails being used by Google in anything other than algorithmic ad targeting.

[est31]

Even algorithmic ad targeting can be dangerous. If you are writing love letters to your secret gay lover then that should be between you two and you shouldn't get gay ads during other browsing activity, which might be in presence of others like your employer or family.

[joering2]

Exgoogler here: they have list of sensitive do-not-cross-ad categories that will not show up on your other devices or networks you are or been part of.

Example: google “buy lawnmover” on your cellphone. Most likely other participants of the same LAN will sooner or later experience ads for lawnmovers. Now, google “Best online dating apps” or “im HIV positive how to protect my environment”, noone else than your own device, in limited scope, will see a followup-ads.

[dralley]

Facebook definitely does not. I got an ad to join a Facebook group for bisexuals despite not having any information on my profile or in my post history to that effect.

[creato]

> Example: google “buy lawnmover” on your cellphone. Most likely other participants of the same LAN will sooner or later experience ads for lawnmovers.

I've spent my whole life sharing a wifi network with housemates, family, etc. and I've never once noticed this.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Is there a public list of what Google does and doesn't consider sensitive?

Or is that - just guessing here - considered too sensitive to share with the public?

[est31]

That's a good point. The presence of the list is only beneficial when people don't know it exists: then everyone acts as if they wouldn't know it existed, so all its doing is preventing those sensitive details to be leaked. However, if you know that the list exists, but you don't know what's on it, you might trust it too quickly... and might only find out that something is NOt on the list if it's too late. So then the existence of the list also contributes towards exposure of private details in some instances, while preventing exposure in many others.

[SiempreViernes]

How did this somewhat laudable practice emerge? Was there some internal ethics review that created this solution?

[est31]

That's very cool. Great to have this!

[rock_hard]

Just that Facebook doesn’t use the content of messages to inform ads or ranking!

Gmail does btw

[yoavm]

Gmail doens't do that anymore. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14620608

[sixothree]

That sounds oddly specific that it is only for "gmail ads".