Poll of the Day > Why do people criticize Google for having data on you?

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Do people think their search engine and Gmail and map services are like free candy? Something's gotta pay the bills.

Same for Facebook. Who's gonna pay the bills if they can't use user data?

Mostly because they tend to be shady as **** about their data collection practices, and do actually present their services as being free instead of being up-front about how they're funded.
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adjl posted...

Mostly because they tend to be shady as **** about their data collection practices, and do actually present their services as being free instead of being up-front about how they're funded.

They are kinda upfront about the advertising portion.
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I criticize Google for having data on me for the same reason I criticize everyone for having data on me. Namely, I was born into the generation that still had reasonable expectations of privacy, as opposed to the current younger generation that doesn't actually know what the word means, and post all of their private info on their own Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc accounts for the entire world to see of their own free will.

There's going to come a time when people in general have no realistic expectations of anything resembling privacy, where it's just taken for granted that everyone will know everything about you and your video game console and computer and refrigerator and toilet will all have cameras in them constantly spying on you - but I'm still incredibly uncomfortable about the idea of strangers knowing exactly where I do my shopping and what I had for lunch yesterday.

In fact, for the most part, nearly every service that is somewhat open about documenting and potentially selling user data is a service I categorically refuse to use, at least partly for that reason.


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If google uses data i give them... whatever, but if anyone has data I did not consent to - that's actually espionage (since I did at one time briefly hold a government position)
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Politics are going to be interesting in 40 years. By that time everyone will have grown up posting every thought they've ever had on the Internet. I can see it now 50 year old politician being grilled over a racist joke they posted when they were 13. Woman politician being shamed because she posted a pic of herself in her underware when she was 17. It's going to interesting.
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Sensual_T_Rex posted...

Politics are going to be interesting in 40 years. By that time everyone will have grown up posting every thought they've ever had on the Internet. I can see it now 50 year old politician being grilled over a racist joke they posted when they were 13. Woman politician being shamed because she posted a pic of herself in her underware when she was 17. It's going to interesting.

Actually Facebook is under fire right now because of pictures of the King of Thailand wearing a croptop.
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Lokarin posted...

Actually Facebook is under fire right now because of pictures of the King of Thailand wearing a croptop.

Oh don't get me wrong we are getting hints of it now. What I'm saying is the next generations like gen z that'll grow up fully on the net you know the kids whose parents set up there Facebook before they're even born. As for the Facebook being under fire well people will complain about it but nothing will come of it.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I criticize Google for having data on me for the same reason I criticize everyone for having data on me. Namely, I was born into the generation that still had reasonable expectations of privacy, as opposed to the current younger generation that doesn't actually know what the word means, and post all of their private info on their own Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc accounts for the entire world to see of their own free will.

There's going to come a time when people in general have no realistic expectations of anything resembling privacy, where it's just taken for granted that everyone will know everything about you and your video game console and computer and refrigerator and toilet will all have cameras in them constantly spying on you - but I'm still incredibly uncomfortable about the idea of strangers knowing exactly where I do my shopping and what I had for lunch yesterday.

In fact, for the most part, nearly every service that is somewhat open about documenting and potentially selling user data is a service I categorically refuse to use, at least partly for that reason

By signing up for these services, you opt in for that exposure. You could still have all of your privacy by not signing up for anything or, at the very least, using fake info.

As for the notion of being born in a generation where you had an expectation of privacy, I have to laugh. Just because you didn't know that information on you was being compiled and sold at the time doesn't mean it wasn't happening and, more importantly, the idea that marketers are gathering information didn't just come about in the last 30 or so years. Things are widely practiced before lawmakers even start discussing them and data collection goes back before the 1950s. While I'm not sure how old you are, you'd probably need to be older than 100 to have no reasonable expectation of data being collected. The biggest thing to change is awareness of the problem, which allows you to do more to protect yourself.
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I'm more bothered by ISPs rationalizing that they should be able to farm user data like Google.

Because my choices in adult entertainment are no one's business.

Sensual_T_Rex posted...

Lokarin posted...

Actually Facebook is under fire right now because of pictures of the King of Thailand wearing a croptop.

Oh don't get me wrong we are getting hints of it now. What I'm saying is the next generations like gen z that'll grow up fully on the net you know the kids whose parents set up there Facebook before they're even born. As for the Facebook being under fire well people will complain about it but nothing will come of it.

They did a joke about that for the Onion or something where the presidential candidate was the only person who didn't grow up with an internet connection.

That said, not all young people are super-out-there on social. Most of the people with that poor impulse control would never be in a position to run for government.
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My only marketable skills are in something I hate doing

dangit
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkxg03z2PEo
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Zeus posted...

By signing up for these services, you opt in for that exposure. You could still have all of your privacy by not signing up for anything or, at the very least, using fake info.

Yes, which is part of why I mentioned that I tend to avoid signing up for those services. Except for the sort of services that are harder to avoid, or where convenience massively trumps other concerns (like using a credit card to buy via Amazon rather than trying to track down a brick-and-mortar bookstore and paying with cash, etc).



Zeus posted...

As for the notion of being born in a generation where you had an expectation of privacy, I have to laugh. Just because you didn't know that information on you was being compiled and sold at the time doesn't mean it wasn't happening

That's why I said the expectation of privacy and not the straight-up reality of it.

Even if people's expectations of privacy were little more than an illusion, the fact remains that those expectations existed, and will still cause cognitive dissonance when brought up against the cold reality that everyone's info is constantly being bought and sold. And honestly, before the proliferation of computer systems, the DEGREE to which information COULD be bought at sold was at least somewhat limited. Data-mining and personality-typing today is vastly advanced beyond what it was even two decades ago, let alone four, or six.

People who grow up believing that every facet of their lives is known to someone somewhere aren't going to be bothered by the idea that their buying history or search engine history is being sold to someone, because it's just par for the course. But people who spend years of their lives operating on the assumption that privacy IS a thing will absolutely still react negatively every time some new aspect of that invasive reality is brought to light. At least until it keeps happening over and over, and they're faced with the apathy of the young, and eventually they're worn down and burn out, and stop caring whether or not Google knows what sort of deviant porn they're looking up.

It's why people can still muster at least SOME outrage about NSA phone tapping or the government reading your email or the like. Though most of the last few scandals alone those lines also show pretty clearly that the idea of informational privacy is growing weaker and weaker all the time.

As a technological society, we're becoming more and more enured to the idea that no aspect of your life is off-limits to other people.


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For real though how do I get some actual free candy
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I have some in the back of my van, if you're interested. It's right next to the Pokemon cards and the cute puppy.


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