Another great entry to the gallery of over-hyped, poorly thought-out clickbait.
What this is, as far as I can understand, is a creepy, invasive ‘service’ that for the benefit of alleviating the users of the need to select whatever text they are interested in finding out more about and pasting it into a search-box will cost them an eternal window into their behaviour in the context of whichever app they are using.
Also, it seems to me that this is the ultimate defeat for Google, not a stunning advance: retreating to the God Of The Gaps.
I might be wrong (I usually am), but “oh wow” was not the first thing I thought when I heard of this, it was more along the lines of “oh yuck”. For how much longer will Android/Google users realise that they are the product and that all these actions are simply aimed at mining them more deeply?
In addition to giving Google even more access to data, I wonder what the antitrust implications could be.
Will 3rd parties also be able to user the same hooks that given them access to every other app's text? Wouldn't that turn into a nasty free-for-all where every app tries to steal as much data as possible, now that they can bypass the few restrictions Android imposes?
If access is limited to Google - that is, that this is some "OS feature" instead an app that uses features available to any developer, isn't this effectively the same issue as United States v. Microsoft Corp.?
Surely it would be to Google's advantage to scan as much as they can in the background for targeting ads, even if they actual search is activated on demand.
What this is, as far as I can understand, is a creepy, invasive ‘service’ that for the benefit of alleviating the users of the need to select whatever text they are interested in finding out more about and pasting it into a search-box will cost them an eternal window into their behaviour in the context of whichever app they are using.
Also, it seems to me that this is the ultimate defeat for Google, not a stunning advance: retreating to the God Of The Gaps.
I might be wrong (I usually am), but “oh wow” was not the first thing I thought when I heard of this, it was more along the lines of “oh yuck”. For how much longer will Android/Google users realise that they are the product and that all these actions are simply aimed at mining them more deeply?