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by anxious 4687 days ago
I'll avoid making a comment of how NSA talk is hijacking every thread, but I'll attempt to correct your misgivings:

Google's primary business is advertising, meaning that like the publishers of yore they sell "space", now with the advent of technology that "space" gets populated with what the algos determine to be the best suitable ad according to data about the would be viewer of said ad. They don't 'sell their users to advertisers', they offer them a dashboard with which they supply the content of the advertisement, choose the interests they want to target, and measure the effectiveness of it all. Advertisers do not get exposed to user data - they deal with abstractions.
1 comments
acqq 4687 days ago
The point is, Google isn't just "selling space." They collect the data about you, admitting themselves that they prefer to never delete anything. The key word is "targeting," remember? In process, they still know more about you than your mother or partner. Somewhere in their guts, there is a collection of data about you, the depth of it not even imaginable before.

How we got here: Moxie Marlinspike, 2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG0KrT6pBPk

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anxious 4687 days ago
That is a pretty big downgrade in rhetoric on your side: first you were claiming that their business is "surveillance", and that they "sell their users to advertisers" and now that you know better you try to shift the argument to data collection?!

The bottom line is that more data makes better apps, and yes, better ads. I doubt they know you better than "your mother or partner" because I don't know how to measure that (it's an anecdotal, and a fear mongering thing to say).

They collect whatever you allow them to, and they provide ample means of transparency and control. Not to mention the usefulness of their services.

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acqq 4687 days ago
You're completly misinterpreting what I write. I still agree with Schneier that the main mode of their current business is surveillance.

And we slowly got accustomed to it, noticing less and less. The process of it is described by Moxie in the video I've linked to. Do try to watch and think about it.

Btw, it seems this article was flagged to death. Google seems to be sacred here.

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