I don’t the issue with Google is that they are careless with user data. It’s extremely valuable so of course they protect it, even from their own employees. That doesn’t mean they don’t collect, analyze and monetize shitload of data on everyone. Their business model is the problem.
I hear a lot of different far out theories: microphone spying on Android (as a feature, not some 0-day bug), manipulating search results nefariously, handing information over to the government, and dozens more. Google wants user profiles to sell ad segments, but beyond that they do not want your data:
Some data is product-scoped. Emails, pictures, YouTube videos, etc. Google can’t just delete these because people want them back heh. Most product-scoped data is not accessible for analytics at all. For example, there’s no scanning gmail to inform ad decisions. Data is encrypted in ways that would make that impossible, e.g. only an SRE or bug investigation might be able to review a specific email. Another example is Maps tracking data. Maps Timeline is now user-device local. Google no longer has the data. Thats pretty impressive, to have a timeline feature and not have the data!
All the other tracking and analytics data (that comes from every individual user) have time-locked controls. Data types expire at specific business intervals ranging from hours, weeks, months, and more rare is a about 1.5 years. Some very special types may get retained indefinitely, such as legal holds, or data that is business-produced (as opposed to user-produced). There are both row and column wipeout processes always running for hundreds of reasons.
Google has aggressive internal goals to cut costs. They don’t want to host infinite pictures and videos. They improved consolidating user data so that Google Wipeout is pretty much a guarantee that you are gone from their system. Very few people do that though, so they also push the data plans to recoup some of those costs.
Yeah, they are excellent at monetizing data, but IMO it’s not for sacrificing user privacy. From my engagement with privacy communities, that is not well understood at all.
You are 100% right, people tend to make up crazy theories while trying to make Google more evil than it is. My main issues with Google are:
using Youtube viewing data to push braindead clickbait content at everyone to maximize engagement. It’s been proven many time that watching Youtube radicalizes people and it’s a huge problem affecting entire generations
Locking down platforms like Android: first paying companies to put their apps and services on phones and now locking down AOSP and side loading. It’s just a dick move to force everyone to use their platform and sell more ads on it. They are trying to do the same with web
supporting fascists financially and selling tech to war criminals, obviously, but that’s unrelated to data
I don’t care that much for other products because I don’t use them, I have all the ads blocked and it doesn’t really affect me.
Search and YouTube’s ranking algorithm (and all the dimensions and weights/coefficients) are trade secrets and 99% of the company will never see for pretty good reasons. I never had access to them. I have discussed with multiple YouTube people that know the algorithm skewed towards bubbles for exactly the reasons you said: it is literally more engaging. My understandimg is it was the kind of unintentionally, institutional bias-type when you don’t properly control for human psychology. The top line metrics get adjusted to try and compensate for these things in ways I am not too familiar with (for example changing the metric from “watched minutes” to “positive engagement” because Google does not want angry viewers). IMO they were too slow to respond and are definitely culpable in misinformation and radicalization in our culture. I was never in YouTube so I can’t speak to it in any more specific terms.
Android I wholeheartedly agree, but to play the devil’s advocate, I provide a lot of support for non-tech folks. They are constantly losing their email credentials, getting spyware/adware/malware, etc. There’s a lot of cases of scams guiding people to allow third party apps and allowing permissions they should never be allowing. People are far too gullible and can’t see warnings right in front of their eyes. I don’t know that Android is improving it by locking down AOSP. I personally moved to GrapheneOS after leaving Google and I know it’s not for everyone, but it’s got some nice improvement. Google gets paid by phone companies to have play store and a bunch of services installed, and then Google pays back the companies to have their search as a default. The first part never really gets brought up, but phone companies could go without Google services. They just don’t want to make the competitive investment. It’s disappointing.
100%. Google could easily disallow specific uses of their systems. ANTIFA and anti-police state could be terms, but they don’t. And Google is so freaking profitable, theres zero reason to cater to those business segments AT ALL. It would be a boon to their company image to actively NOT participate. So disappointing.
I don’t the issue with Google is that they are careless with user data. It’s extremely valuable so of course they protect it, even from their own employees. That doesn’t mean they don’t collect, analyze and monetize shitload of data on everyone. Their business model is the problem.
I hear a lot of different far out theories: microphone spying on Android (as a feature, not some 0-day bug), manipulating search results nefariously, handing information over to the government, and dozens more. Google wants user profiles to sell ad segments, but beyond that they do not want your data:
Some data is product-scoped. Emails, pictures, YouTube videos, etc. Google can’t just delete these because people want them back heh. Most product-scoped data is not accessible for analytics at all. For example, there’s no scanning gmail to inform ad decisions. Data is encrypted in ways that would make that impossible, e.g. only an SRE or bug investigation might be able to review a specific email. Another example is Maps tracking data. Maps Timeline is now user-device local. Google no longer has the data. Thats pretty impressive, to have a timeline feature and not have the data!
All the other tracking and analytics data (that comes from every individual user) have time-locked controls. Data types expire at specific business intervals ranging from hours, weeks, months, and more rare is a about 1.5 years. Some very special types may get retained indefinitely, such as legal holds, or data that is business-produced (as opposed to user-produced). There are both row and column wipeout processes always running for hundreds of reasons.
Google has aggressive internal goals to cut costs. They don’t want to host infinite pictures and videos. They improved consolidating user data so that Google Wipeout is pretty much a guarantee that you are gone from their system. Very few people do that though, so they also push the data plans to recoup some of those costs.
All the user data they collect is downloadable: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en. Everything there can be deleted.
Yeah, they are excellent at monetizing data, but IMO it’s not for sacrificing user privacy. From my engagement with privacy communities, that is not well understood at all.
You are 100% right, people tend to make up crazy theories while trying to make Google more evil than it is. My main issues with Google are:
I don’t care that much for other products because I don’t use them, I have all the ads blocked and it doesn’t really affect me.
All fair criticisms that I also hold.
Search and YouTube’s ranking algorithm (and all the dimensions and weights/coefficients) are trade secrets and 99% of the company will never see for pretty good reasons. I never had access to them. I have discussed with multiple YouTube people that know the algorithm skewed towards bubbles for exactly the reasons you said: it is literally more engaging. My understandimg is it was the kind of unintentionally, institutional bias-type when you don’t properly control for human psychology. The top line metrics get adjusted to try and compensate for these things in ways I am not too familiar with (for example changing the metric from “watched minutes” to “positive engagement” because Google does not want angry viewers). IMO they were too slow to respond and are definitely culpable in misinformation and radicalization in our culture. I was never in YouTube so I can’t speak to it in any more specific terms.
Android I wholeheartedly agree, but to play the devil’s advocate, I provide a lot of support for non-tech folks. They are constantly losing their email credentials, getting spyware/adware/malware, etc. There’s a lot of cases of scams guiding people to allow third party apps and allowing permissions they should never be allowing. People are far too gullible and can’t see warnings right in front of their eyes. I don’t know that Android is improving it by locking down AOSP. I personally moved to GrapheneOS after leaving Google and I know it’s not for everyone, but it’s got some nice improvement. Google gets paid by phone companies to have play store and a bunch of services installed, and then Google pays back the companies to have their search as a default. The first part never really gets brought up, but phone companies could go without Google services. They just don’t want to make the competitive investment. It’s disappointing.
100%. Google could easily disallow specific uses of their systems. ANTIFA and anti-police state could be terms, but they don’t. And Google is so freaking profitable, theres zero reason to cater to those business segments AT ALL. It would be a boon to their company image to actively NOT participate. So disappointing.