Google is more dangerous than Facebook. In the later you usually have a persona you pretend to be. But Google knows you better than yourself. You can’t lie to Google. Is your teenage daughter pregnant? Do you have a disease that is socially rejected? Do you want to have an abortion? Are those pimples in your groin an STD? Are you secretly looking for another job? Google probably knows that before you do. And their business plan is making money out of that information.
And let’s never forget Eric Schmidt:
http://precursorblog.com/?q=content/googles-top-ten-anti-pri...
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place;"
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo 12-7-09.
The "Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it;"
Said Google Chairman Eric Schmidt 10-1-10 per the Atlantic.
"Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are;"
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told the 2010 Techonomy conference.
"We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about;"
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt 10-1-10 per the Atlantic.
"It's a future where you don't forget anything…"In this new future you're never lost...We will know your position down to the foot and down to the inch over time;"
Explained Google Chairman Eric Schmidt at TechCrunch, 9-28-10.
"No harm, no foul;" Concerning Google's unauthorized collection of WiFi signals from tens of millions of homes in 33 countries over three years, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told the Times of London in May 2010.
Fun fact: Google collects much more data from Android devices than from iOS devices. This might be unsurprising, and even obvious, but I was surprised how precise and intrusive that data is.
The whole time I was using an Android phone with my google account logged in on the device, google recorded and retained basically everything. My location, without even me using the maps app. My old contacts which I deleted from my contacts lists were still in the records. Any IPv4 or IPv6 address my phone was assigned to. This was even more creepy than facebook's data trove. I deleted my data on facebook as far as I could and also the account (not just deactivated) and I deleted most of the data google had on me. The problem is that I only can assume that all the data is now gone, but how can I be sure?
Google might constantly assure that they handle everything with care, but the extent of their intrusion into my private life is really scary.
Not saying Google is a saint, but it's orders of magnitude better at privacy than Facebook:
- Malicious actors can't access most Google data has on you. Especially not by releasing psychological quiz app.
- Google is not tracking logged out users. New id is assigned to logged out users only for very short periods of time.
- Mostly compliant with GDPR for years prior to the regulation being released. The same can't be said for Facebook.
- Search results are much harder to manipulate by malicious actors than Facebook news feed ranking - based on the history of such manipulations.
- I don't work on either right now, but at the time I did Google had way much better internal access controls for employees.
Amassing personal data can be considered unethical on some levels, but amassing personal data can't be equated with being bad at privacy. Among "personal data hoarders" Google is by far the most coginzant about keeping that data private.
Google tracks online behaviour on an industrial scale. It's baffling how little scrutiny the company faces, least of all from the tech community who often rush to it's defence. (Does a multi-billion dollar company need your defence?)
When you create a Google account, you're asked to provide your name, your gender, your date of birth, your location and your mobile phone number. Some of your most personal and private details, all of which will now be tied to your online behaviour.
That ceaseless data capture starts right from school, where millions of students use a cloud-based OS called ChromeOS that records everything they do. It's quite horrible that this is happening - the kids don't even get a say, it's the adults who've decided this.
It doesn't matter if that information is only collated in aggregated form and detached from user accounts, we don't know how that information could be mined or analysed either now or in the future. (In fact, I suspect that even Google hasn't figure all the possible uses of the ginormous quantity of user behaviour it has captured and continues to capture).
And we've seen from Spotify and Netflix how even aggregated data can reveal very private and personal user behaviour.
Google and many of it's supporters conflate security with privacy. Just because Google hasn't ever suffered a breach of user data, people say that Google can be trusted. You can't have privacy without security, but security by itself does not equal privacy. You're still being tracked relentlessly by Google no matter how securely it's storing your online behaviour.
The difference is that Google doesn't share that information with other firms. Having centralized information for a user is important to many (you can always spread it across multiple emails and accounts) but I think violation of privacy is the main reason Facebook is under investigation not centralization of data.
My personal gut feel is that in the fairly long history (for a tech co), we’ve seen surprisingly little malicious use of data come from google. In a company of their size I’d expect a lot more screw ups and scandles, so perhaps they deserve a little more trust?
At the same time, they’re at the size and momentum that they should always be under scrutiny even if the answer keeps coming back “yeah they seem to be acting responsibly”. We don’t want to have an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
Reprising my comment from a few weeks ago:
Facebook never gave me anything of value in exchange for constantly monitoring and profilingmy behavior online. in fact, as it became ubiquitous,it added a new chore for me: maintaining ever changing privacy options on a defensive profile on their network.
So it takes peoples time, attention, and details on top of behavioral monitoring.
In contrast, Google provides me with a very competent productivity suite, a superb photo-managing software navigation, maps, aggregate traffic data,and a host of tools to actually build a business and educate myself and others.
Plus i get enterprise class security for my account and -arguably- the best web email service.
The day theres a data breach or in this case a breach of trust, im more likely to view google in a better light and give them the benefit of the doubt. Facebook gets my contempt and scorn.
>Inb4 "well then don't use Facebook": I don't. But that doesn't stop FB from building a shadow profile on me, so if I want some measure of control over my digital footprint, I have no choice or recourse but to open and maintain a defensive profile whose only purposes are a) claim my username / URL used on most services where I'm provided with such a srfvixe, b) "squat" my name and likeness so I can't be unknowingly impersonated on their network and c) keep up with their ever changing privacy controls
>Inb4 "sounds like cringe material from Google's social team": -I don't work for Google. I admit I'd love to, but I'm too old, perhaps. OTOH, I don't see how it's "cringe" since I succinctly describe the services the company does provide for me in exchange for my data and observing my behaviour; services I've used in making a living lately. Try making a living by developing on the FB platform, where every API Iteration makes you re-evaluate your business model.
In the age of information, Google obviously has disproportionate power. Society must raise awareness about concentration of power, post more about this topic, demand justice and transparency from the rulers. I think Google workers have special ethical responsibility to demand transparency and trust, organize and resist evil orders. We all have responsibility as a society to demand justice if we want a promising future.
I absolutely agree Google has a much wider ecosystem they cover: social media with google plus or whatever is left of it, video via YouTube, Images via google Photos, cloud infrastructure via Compute Engine, google work via G Suit, ISP via Google Fiber etc... All these have Term of Services with very broad language they can dragnet collect whatever they want. I don't mind sharing the information and I don't want the government involve and regulate how private entities work. But I also wouldn't mind having this companies put on the spot and have to explain how they handle the data they gather. How they handle ToS and/or Data breach. Facebook is a speck of dust compare to google.
It is funny that my essay on this exact topic don't seem to get much coverage, even though I have been working on the problem for a while now.
The problem I have is the lack of transparency. Google lets you download "all of your data". But it's nothing near the entirety of what they collect about you. It's insulting.
It's time we learn what they know about us. I want to know.
I expect we'll see some major leaks about Google by the end of the year, too.
Facebook is the perfect company to take all the heat. Mainly because Mark Zuckerberg is such an icon.
https://hackernoon.com/why-facebook-is-the-perfect-represent...
The biggest reason Google's name hasnt come up yet is probably because most of these senators are on Google's payrolls. That Google pays for favourable research is already well established.
The fact that no one has even raised a finger at Google, which by all accounts does a more pervasive job at monitoring people, speaks volumes on how well entrenched it is in media circles. The fact that Google can more or less kill any media outlet literally at a flick of a button is reason enough that it should be shut down hook, line and sinker.
It is totally ridiculous. If people really care, why some apps like WeChat controlled by Dictatorship are allowed in America?
Yes.
Google is on the list, but I'm going to break away from the flock and say they shouldn't be next. Credit agencies and data brokers, who facilitate the worst kinds of third-party privacy violation and about whom most people know very little, should go next. Then the government itself. Then Google, and then Amazon.
BTW, if you want to have some fun, just try to imagine that the the government's interest in Facebook's data practices is not so much to regulate it as to copy it - either for the government itself or for election campaigns. IMO that makes a lot of their otherwise nonsensical or inconsistent behavior much more understandable. Creepy. They totally want to know more about us than Facebook and Google put together; they just don't know how.