Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it...
I nominally pay for these services, but I suspect it makes me a vassal instead of a serf. Google consumes. Google contemplates. Google cognates. Google knows. Google sees me while I will never get to see it.
At face value, as long as Google is Google, everything is okay but what happens when google is Google no more? When it goes to join the great corporate farm in the sky? What happens to the exabytes of data they’ll have gathered by then? Who will own it once Google is Google no more? What will happen to our lives once the data changes hands a decade or four from now?
Are there any contingency plans for the largest dataset on Earth? Do we get to know these plans?
Who the fuck owns MySpace now?
Say what you will about Apple (and I’ve said a lot), at least I know where we stand. I have switched to iOS and I recommend that you should do the same. At the very least, Google will no longer know when you sleep.
The "Don't Be Evil" corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over "oops, we didn't mean to break that for you!" isn't here anymore.
The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state.
I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ugh ugh.
I have applications that does E2E for contacts and calendars that I'll have to find an iOS solution for.
I loathe the notch.
But my next phone will be an iPhone.
Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire/Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can't keep you totally from it as long as you're on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways.
And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view.
I fully switched from Android to iOS when iPhone X came out in November 2017.
I realised in the next months that the perceived "freedom to tinker" on Android is something hugely overrated. I could achieve almost everything I wanted on my iPhone -- it just took a bit of time to find the proper apps. Later Apple added the Shortcuts which is a very solid automation app.
Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that's a huge plus in my eyes. What are Android apps doing with that? You guessed it, scan your internal storage and SD card and upload them feck knows where (and this has been proven by many advanced Android users). iOS' sandboxing is not a bug. It's a feature which I appreciate a lot.
I'll not shy away from the fact: there are areas that I miss from Android. For example, I could have inspected WiFi strength signal with an Android phone and I cannot with a non-jailbroken iPhone.
Again though, as a guy who used Android phones for 4.5 years before switching to an iPhone, I found that the uncomfortable feeling of switching to an entirely new (and supposedly more "locked down") ecosystem is mostly an illusion created by our brain's unwillingness to endure big changes. You get over it very quickly. Don't trust your brain on these matters, it floods you with non-truisms to avoid cognitive shock.
P.S. I too loathe the notch. So after 15 months with the iPhone X I switched to iPhone 8 Plus. Easily the best phone on the planet to this day (plus a bigger screen and a slightly bigger battery). Now I dread the day the device will no longer be sold.
> And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view.
While "deleted" might take a while (eventual consistency FTW), any company with a presence in the EU has a lot to lose if such a scheme (beyond what they declare, eg. "31 days to recover your account") ever sees the light of day.
And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view.
This came many times before and it is incorrect. If you delete your data from google, it is deleted permanently. Deletion of multiple backups takes longer, but eventually it is gone, forever.
It's one thing to compare iOS and Android, but if we're gonna talk about actually buying phones, it's worth looking at some other aspects here. Such as being able to unlock the bootloader on some android phones and potentially run an alternate OS on them. Whether it's just LineageOS, which is essentially a better-tasting Android, or something even more different like Sailfish or postmarketOS. I don't believe there is a similar option or community effort around Apple devices.
I ordered a new old-stock Nexus 5X to run KDE Plasma on. Fuck both Google and Apple. I hope the Purism and Pinephone actually get released as well so we have more real Linux options.
I hate we live in a world with totally non-standard mobile hardware. Back in the day you could wipe Windows and run Linux on nearly anything. Maybe you would only get VESA graphics or text, but it would at least boot.
PostmarketOS is trying to make a dent in it, but we still have huge gaps in hardware support.
As a lifelong Android user, I'm pretty close to switching to Apple/iOS because of Google's gross surveillance behavior. I used to have the same qualms about the lack of features or components, but I recently began to see those complaints as pedantic.
I'm seriously considering my next phone to be one I build.
The hardware is available - cheap 4G LTE modules that plug right into a Raspberry Pi Zero exist; that and a cheap touchscreen will get you around 90% of the functionality most of us need, hardware-wise. You won't have a camera, or motion sensors. You will have GPS, voice, data, a screen, storage...
Basically everything you need for most purposes. And adding a camera and an IMU isn't that difficult, either.
The difficult part is - as always - the software. But people out there are building those pieces. Quite a bit can be done using plain-old Raspbian and Python on top, because the cellular module is essentially a virtual serial port device, and everything else has simple drivers or is otherwise easy to interface to.
Where I'll probably start, though, is with the idea of a custom "cyberdeck"; I already have most if not all of the parts, I just need to find the time to do it. It's form factor will be close to what the TRS-80 Model 100 was, though the screen will be...well, different. I'm considering a few options; probably a standard 800x600 HDMI screen along with a secondary 128x64 monochrome serial GLCD.
The ultimate thing about the whole project is independence (well, as independent as I can get - still have to pay some piper - aka T-Mobile - but maybe voip over wifi could be done in the future?) - and customization.
I may not have everything I want in the beginning, but what I want may only be a bit of extra coding, a tad bit of soldering, or likely a bit (or a bunch!) of both. I'm honestly tired of the games Google and pals are playing; kicking them to the curb may be the best thing to do.
> Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire/Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can't keep you totally from it as long as you're on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways.
There must be some kind of way outta here.
How about carving out a Google-free chunk of the web, and then only visiting sites for which you're somehow certain there's zero Google in them (no Google Analytics, no DoubleClick, no fonts, none of the other junk they use to track you). Otherwise you'd be slapped in the face by a dire warning akin to those for the expired SSL certificates.
> The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state.
This is the key point. Google came of age during the GWB administration, when the folly of trusting government was more clear than it had been for decades, and under Schmidt's leadership Google became a major defense contractor.
It's impossible to know how much unlawful surveillance has already been done thanks to Google's collaboration/complicity.
How can Google earn back some trust? Implement warrant canaries at the google account level, decline to do business with the Pentagon, and come forward and reveal all of the shady and unethical things the firm has done, and simply ask the public for forgiveness.
There are things I would miss on iOS (e.g. widgets, dual sim, sdcard, headphone, more RAM) but for example Backup is is so much better on iOS! I fear that my android breaks at some point and I lose some data because there is no proper way to do full system backup. I have to use as much cloud services as possible and it has always been a big pain for me to upgrade to a newer android device. And I remember how straightforward it was and probably is on iOS.
To be fair, each of these either already is or is becoming the norm on Android phones as well (at least, ones at a similar price point iPhones). Several of the top end phones have notches and no headphone jack, and I haven't had an Android phone with an SD card slot for about five years now.
> Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire/Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can't keep you totally from it as long as you're on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways.
Do you really intend this statement in regards to pure AOSP/LineageOS (ie microg)?
Yes Android will always be a product of a surveillance company, rather than being focused on user-centric security. But I would think that microg should be enough to deprivilege Google's backdoors, and generally avoiding stuff from the Play (Yalp) store should shield you from the bulk of OS-facilitated commercial surveillance. If you have information to the contrary, please share!
Obviously given the choice I'd rather run an OS not designed by a surveillance company, but it's awfully hard to find a pocket-sized computer that can. I look forward to PostmarketOS, but I don't think we're anywhere close there.
For me the worst part is that you don't own the pocket-computers (PC/phones) that you buy.... please let me install an OS that I can trust.
there is https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility for ChromeOS devices but on many phones, it is currently not possible to install a 3rd party OS, unless you figure out how to root them yourself... and even then, some of its hardware will probably not be compatible because they don't release drivers
I wish a Librem 4 was available (a lot cheaper then the Librem 5)
Loathe is a strong word. And I loathe everything about Apple and the iPhone.
But I think I'll get an iPhone next. And it's not even because I hate Google or because I don't like Android. I just believe in voting with my dollars. And Apple at least is masquerading as a company that makes a product and wants to sell that. I like the idea of the transaction. I buy my phone and then I own it; I'm done.
With Google, I buy the phone, and the phone owns me.
2013–present: Time Inc. and Meredith Corporation ownership
On February 11, 2016, it was announced that MySpace and its parent company had been bought by Time Inc.[18] Time Inc. was in turn purchased by the Meredith Corporation on January 31, 2018.[20]
In May 2016, the data for almost 360 million MySpace accounts was offered on the "Real Deal" dark market website. The leaked data included email addresses, usernames and weakly encrypted passwords (SHA1 hashes of the first 10 characters of the password converted to lowercase and stored without a cryptographic salt[68]).[69] The exact data breach date is unknown, but analysis of the data suggests it was exposed around eight years before being made public, around mid-2008 to early-2009.[70]
On March 18, 2019, it was revealed that MySpace lost all of their user content from 2016 and earlier in "a server migration gone wrong". It was widely reported that over 50 million songs and 12 years worth of content was permanently lost, and there was no backup.[71]
This already happened to me. Around 14 years ago I created a MySpace musician page and apparently I put in my real birthday. It must have been public although I surely didn't intend it to be, and some sort of large data aggregator site picked it up. Later I deleted my MySpace page but the data aggregator still had my info.
The data site had tools to remove your data, but before I knew my data was even there, Google bought the site sometime around 2011 and shut it down, and added the data to their own system.
Today, if you search my full name on Google, it shows an infobox on the side with my real birthday. Google considers birthdays non-private enough that they won't let me remove it. I'm no celebrity but I get that info box because I had a MySpace musician page once over a decade ago.
My birthday now appears nowhere on the internet except that Google search infobox. MySpace, the original aggregator, all gone - but the data lives on.
We don't have a Right To Be Forgotten law where I live but if we ever get one, I know where I'll be going first.
The blatant disregard for privacy is what bothers me the most.
Like when I started getting push notifications from Android for my credit card payment with my exact balance due, which they could only have gathered by parsing my emails from the bank. It's easy to resolve that by changing the contact info/settings with the bank, but just the fact that engineers at Google thought users would appreciate having their private financial information parsed and stored by Google services is absurd.
It should never have crossed anyone's mind to even do that, let alone advertise it as a feature.
Honestly I love stuff like this. Going into Google Maps and seeing my Airbnb marked out, including dates, or where my train is departing and when, that's dope.
I'm guessing the multiple people telling you they think the feature is useful won't change your mind about "nobody could possibly want this", though.
> which they could only have gathered by parsing my emails from the bank.
You say it as if it's a revelation or discovery, when Google is very upfront about surfacing relevant information and reminders based on your inbox.
On more than one occasion, this feature has helped me take actions on pending work items like payments, renewals and so on.
You don't want Google to show you ads, fair enough.
You don't want Google to surface for you (and only you) useful information that helps you organize your life.
It almost sounds like you just want Google to give you hundreds of dollars of compute, storage and service out of the goodness of their hearts.
I think both you and Google would be better off without each other.
Wait, so you trust them to store the email, and parse it for something like spam detection, but not for some smarter feature? What specifically are you concerned about that is a problem with this and not with them having the email in the first place? Sounds like you shouldn't be using Gmail at all tbh.
I'm a user. I appreciate it. It's puzzling that you think it's such a deeply unpopular feature. Third party bill reminders isn't a taboo or unexplored territory.
> but just the fact that engineers at Google thought users would appreciate having their private financial information parsed and stored by Google services is absurd.
Counterpoint: I find this feature super useful. (and I know a lot of other people who do as well).
> push notifications from Android for my credit card payment with my exact balance due
Or "you have been served with a summons to appear at... See transportation options" (beta soon?). When a company has so completely lost sight of what its customers see as creepy that it advertises creepiness as a feature, it has lost its way.
Can't we make the same argument about Apple. What happens when apple stops being apple, when they don't have the smart phone dominance and decides to venture back into Ads. Or who owns apple when someone else has to.
I understand why anyone would want ios now but your argument is about the future.
The point the parent is making is that Apple doesn’t have your data in the first place, therefore if things go south, or they become nefarious, you’ll have to give them your data first.
> but 100 years will anyone care that you had the flu on May 7 2019
My future health care provider might. Maybe they’ll spike rates by figuring out how often I’m ill using this data.
Maybe I will marry a congressman someday and the sext that I sent today to my BF will be used to blackmail us.
Maybe 30 years from now, people will be able to use my youthful indiscretions as leverage.
Maybe I won’t get certain jobs because of where I’ve been or whom I’ve accidentally been close to in the location data.
Maybe my sleeping habits will lead to higher life insurance rates.
Russia and private actors have already personally targeted millions of people using highly directed ads to move an election using publicly available data. Imagine what they could do with Google’s data. Target congressional aides? Target the POTUS’ mistress (or mister)?
In the hands of a Caesar or a Napoleon that data is the power to reshape the Earth, smite your enemies, eviscerate any obstacles and remake the holder into an invincible demi-god.
They deleted 12 years of music uploads, not everything. Username, email, bio, friends, etc. still exists somewhere, but who owns it? What do they intend to do with it?
If you zoom far enough into the future nothing really matters. We still care about now and what happens in our lifetimes. I don’t want to miss out on a great job 10 years from now, or miss insurance coverage at anytime in my future because of Google even if i don’t care how much of this data will be around 100 years from now
You mean the Apple that has designed all their hardware and software to not spy on you?
You mean the Apple that takes IoT security seriously that involves a certification process versus Google who just killed off their Nest ecosystem?
You mean the Apple that stood up to the FBI?
Sure proprietary connectors are on some of their products, but it sounds like you consider USB-C proprietary now? Apple has moved a number of their devices to USB-C and that will probably only go up overtime.
Apple has physical retail presence, which makes purchases, repairs, and other interactions easy for customers.
Apple isn't perfect, but I don't think you're looking at the same Apple everyone else is.
you give them all that valuable personal and private data and then also pay them? why are you so resigned to this? the tradeoff for knowing everything about you gives you what, a few less taps on your phone?
people ignored or minimized it then, but their direction was abundantly clear by 2004 or so: search -> adwords -> adsense -> gmail ---> all-your-data-everywhere (gmail seemed cool at the time until the realization of where all this was going). how is it that so many people are just now waking up to the dangers of google (and facebook, incidentally)?
Is it really that hard to understand? What's the concrete harm so far?
I've been using Google for a couple decades, and I can't really articulate a specific way that I've been harmed. Yes, I realize that there's the potential for harm from a leak or something like that, but it's hardly surprising that the abstract notion of possible harm isn't super compelling to the average user when they're currently getting useful services for "free".
If something is convenient for people and saves them time, they are willing to close their eyes about lost privacy. Until it directly bites them of course -- which won't happen to most of us.
It's just how we tick. And a lot of marketing strategies are based on those specifics.
I'm comfortable with what Google knows about me, and I'm very willing to give them all this information for the technology and convenience they provide. Apple's AI isn't competitive at this time.
I love Google. I bought an Oppo phone. But all my data goes through their app - even when i switch off their SMS feature that data still goes through their app and i guess they intercept it and send it to a dial home server. And I'd rather my data goes to Google. So when I can afford a Google Pixel - gonna buy one
But anyone who thinks he's wrong - Remember into whose hands Java fell.
I also prefer the value proposition of the Apple ecosystem - I give Apple money and they give me stuff -the point of the article is that Apple’s business model puts their products out of reach for most of the world.
its not that people can't see truth due to intelligence.
the ability to see truth has requires only average levels of g.
rather, the ability is bestowed as a gift.
the gift is in the form of trauma through which the actual state of things forcefully injects itself into one's consciousness uprooting the foundations of self and inserting itself.
and until death, it stays.
Google already have many, many advertising partners to whom they gladly provide your location and other data. But they anonymize it, so you are safe ;)
There is a contingency: GDPR. Use my data in ways I don't agree with and you are breaking the law. Best we can do in a world where information wants to and will be free, imo.
I'm impressed with the direction Google is taking, and how they've pivoted in the face of public awareness of privacy concerns.
I like the Google products and services that I use. There are some that I miss (Reader) and some that just confuse me (Bookmarks), but the core works for me.
Based on commentary I've seen, I may be the only person on Hacker News to think so. Regardless, I'm hopeful for the future.
Google did not need to give this stance at I/O. It appears that they're being as transparent as they can about the fact that our data is their business model.
I get it: our online privacy is important. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to remain truly anonymous on the Internet, and this is mostly thanks to Google. However, the converse could be Google using our data for malicious purposes. Has there been any evidence of that? I have not seen any.
I believe we live in an age of online convenience, and not just for the average user. Google generally makes security-conscious products, especially with Chrome. Heuristics has proven to become very effective in combating online malicious behavior. By establishing our identities with Google, Google can generally say "we are who we say we are" with a degree of confidence, without us having to do much of anything. This is generally bad from a privacy stand-point, but can be good from a security stand-point.
Overall, I think Google has done good things for the Internet. But good things sometimes come at a cost, and sometimes third party companies want that cost paid in a way we do not agree with. I think Google is doing all they can to make that point clear.
> the converse could be Google using our data for malicious purposes. Has there been any evidence of that? I have not seen any.
You are right. I have not seen any evidence of this yet either. What frightens me is that IF something happens and Google is compelled or chooses to give that data to an entity to use maliciously there will be nothing we can do.
As I look at it: It is dangerous for that much data about that many people to exist in one place period.
But they did need to do this, because it's great for them. Now there's two new apologies that can be breathlessly recited to excuse surveillance capitalism:
* Google are brave for admitting they have your data!
* Sure it's bad they have so much data, but they can be so much more helpful.
Your reply's funny in a way, because if you jump from the beginning to the end it reads like "I get it: our online privacy is important" and then you give N reasons why it's not. And why Google's awesome for the internet (with capital I).
Google at the end of the day is gobbling up information on billions of people from mobile phones, browsers, e-mail, ads, their search engine, their web analytics, their smart home devices and classroom laptops, Google voice service, captchas and almost anything one can think of. The fact that so much information exists in one place is dangerous in itself, they don't have to actually do anything evil.
But they do anyway: they lock people out of their online lives, out victims to their stalkers, manipulate people into handing over their data with dark patterns, subvert or take over web standards, conspire to keep employee salaries low, sometimes serve malware through their ads, crush competition by illegally promoting their properties on search, illegally prevent Android suppliers to use Android as they wish and so on and so forth.
They've been found guilty in a court of law multiple times on both sides of the ocean.
The only good things they might have accidentally done for the internet were done to cement their power.
The force of the wind hits you less when you already bend in its direction. When the privacy laws are put in place, which they will be, Google will escape most of the wrath. This is just getting their affairs in order for the inevitable.
Yes, but now in some of the use cases they demoed the data itself never leaves the device. The AI models are running directly on the device, so there is no need to transmit user data to cloud servers. This is on contrast to all of their apps running in the cloud and your data living centrally off device. I find this new approach to be a nice balance for user privacy and the necessity of data aggregation in order for the models to be constructed.
I agree with you. Google isn't a shining knight of consumer rights and privacy but I don't think they are as bad as every thinks.
They offer a lot of customization for tracking and the ability to turn it off. They don't do anything hyper anti-consumer(IMO) and provide me very good products at either a low price or at the cost of my data(which I'm willing to pay with).
I don't see all the reason for the hate, but it is there, and I'm glad they are taking steps to be more privacy aware.
I'm having hard to time to share your enthusiasm. Google has been leveraging its monopoly more than ever and myself as customer feels our arm getting twisted all the time. They shut down products arbitrarily, most of the time with FU on your face. The quality of main search has been massively in decline with they ignoring most of my keywords and putting generic links all the time. I'm sure they are delusional that this is not the case. Lot of Google products are becoming 2nd rate or even 3rd rate but because of their special treatment on Android and other properties you would be forced to use them anyway. Overall, I don't think Google was the innovative company it used to be. They are mostly in business of milking their monopoly to increase shareholder value.
>It all begins with our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, and today, our mission feels as relevant as ever.
I said this 15 years ago and I will repeat it again. Google is like a man selling boats after a dam brake. They are profiting by managing the problem, not by fixing it. It is to their benefit if the problem actually gets worse. In other words, looking at their long-running effects and initiatives, I see that they aim to change the Internet so that it's completely unusable without their services. (The recent stunts with AMP and Gmail are great, obvious examples, but it didn't start there. It was going on for a very long while.)
This not the kind of thing that I want to spread to my offline life.
Google is also holding the plunger that helped create the dam breakage. Not to mention the pry-bars being applied to any attempts to fix the dam.
EDIT: For those who want to downvote, consider that the vast majority of Google's revenue comes from the use of your personal information to target you with ads, and that most of the advances in ad targeting using personal data have been made by Google.
I think you are espousing an "ADS ARE INHERENTLY BAD" mentality that just doesn't resonate with people. I want to know about the best services that are useful for me. I do not want to be advertised women's swimsuits on Instagram (I'm a male with no interest in purchasing said item). When I see ads that are useless its infuriating. However, when I see an ad for Allbirds or a cool new leather jacket, I feel very much inclined to explore or purchase a product that I will genuinely be happy with. So, ads aren't inherently bad, they become bad or unfulfilling when they aren't personally relevant or become overly invasive in experience or content.
I think this is all just a PR stunt and Google's business model goes against user privacy.
It's quite interesting the way people are more willing to trust Google than Facebook with their data though. I think this might come from Google actually offering more "useful/needed/can't live without" offerings vs facebook's more vanity based services.
For example, Google takes your very privacy sensitive location data but also returns you amazing mapping capabilities (google maps), transit information, nearby points of interests etc.
They might have access to all your text messages, emails, contacts etc but returns you useful features like the last year's Duplex feature or auto reply suggestions in emails etc.
Facebook's vanity based offerings are quite shallow imo - Instagram is just hyper edited pictures to scroll through, messenger/whatsapp might be useful but it has quite good competition from iMessage or simple text messaging. So for people who actually care about privacy, they are still okay with Google having their data but are not okay with Facebook having their data because FB doesn't really offer much of real value. This could be because Google being a much older company than FB. FB has also had quite major privacy issues (Cambridge Analytica being one of the major ones) and they have shown that they really don't care at all about privacy.
One thing to note though, I still don't think Google should operate the way they do and I am not willing to compromise so much of my privacy. That's why I stick with iOS even though I know Android offers more power (especially since I am an iOS and Android Developer). iOS's AI might be inferior but it gets the job done for me and I appreciate the privacy stance of Apple over Google.
It is possible for most people to live their lives without Facebook's Apps.
It is not possible for most people to live their lives without some form of Google, whether it's search, email, drive, maps, docs, or calendar. It's almost impossible to function today without using Google or interfacing with someone who is using Google.
People are more OK with Google because there is no alternative.
Don't forget YouTube! I sort of agree but I think this is changing for better as competition improves. If I were to rate google services in order of importance and lack of decent competition, it would be:
I put YouTube as 0 as it is at the very top of the list. There's virtually no comparable competition for YouTube and that's why Google is also getting away with abusing their power with YouTube trending feed, censorship, demonetization, clickbait etc. YouTube really needs some proper competition but I really doubt any company will want to take over this massive infrastructure. I don't consider Twitch to be a competition for YouTube for non-gaming content.
Maps is the only one which I cannot live without. Apple Maps has improved drastically in the last couple years though but in Canada, they are still not as good as Google. But they seem to be on the right track.
DuckDuckGo is pretty good actually and I think most people can get the job done pretty well with it. For email, there are okay competitions and I still have an alternate yahoo email but they have been going downhill in last few years.
Docs is one place where Microsoft Office is good but Docs is superior if online collaboration is needed.
Dropbox is superior to google drive imo, especially since I am on iOS and Mac.
I have never used Google Calendar as I use iOS offerings and it does pretty well.
I think if Apple can improve their Maps and if Siri stops being so useless, it would be for the better and will help take away some power from Google. And somebody really needs to compete heavily against YouTube.
> For example, Google takes your very privacy sensitive location data but also returns you amazing mapping capabilities (google maps), transit information, nearby points of interests etc.
I think it's more that it returns you what will keep you using the product, so they can sell more ads. Every time I open Google maps on mobile (to see how busy the traffic is, for example), I get a big useless "Explore nearby" window taking up 40% of the screen, which I have to close to be able to actually use the map. I will never want to explore ads for businesses near my house or workplace, and the fact that the app doesn't remember that suggests the true intention.
That's accurate description of their business interests. They keep you hooked onto the product by offering you something which you most likely can't live without (Maps) and in return they also hope you will spend money on things they advertise. You as well as I won't ever click on those explore features / ads but I think there's enough users who do which makes it worthwhile for them to push it in our faces.
Say what you will about Google, they're really good at PR. They and Facebook share the most indefensible tech business model in today's political climate (at least in the west), but Google does such a better job of obscuring and re-framing that fact than Facebook does.
I think there's also a distinction about what you get in return.
When I let Google track my location, I get useful hyper relevant results for searches. When I let it track my emails, I get useful flight reminders and package delivery notifications.
But Facebook doesn't really need to track my location to offer the service I want from it, the extra privacy invasion very specifically only helps advertisers. By giving it access to my contact list I can add friends more easily which is nice, but it also does so much more analysis of my extended offline friend network than I want it to, which feels like it hurts me more than it helps me.
Both companies are monetizing my private data, but with Google it feels like I get enough out of the deal that I'll (sometimes grudgingly) allow it. With Facebook I feel like it's an adversarial relationship where I have to constantly defend myself from FB. Obviously each person's valuation of the deal will be different; for some people there's no amount of usefulness Google could offer to justify the data they collect. But I suspect for many people Google is on the right side of the usefulness to creepiness ratio.
Flight reminders and package delivery notifications... seriously?
This is what we let Google ruin the internet for?
For all the things people have mentioned here: maps, e-mail, search, docs, etc. there are alternatives. Sure, they're not (yet) as good or convenient but put some effort into this guys.
Facebook’s mistake was making an enemy of the media by demoting their status in the news feed. This has led to many reporters and their friends being put out of a job. Now everyone thinks Facebook is public enemy #1 for selling ads when other major companies have the business model of literally burning the Earth.
Google is a few years older, wiser and has far greater political clout. Being older, google went through what facebook is going through a few years ago. So they are much more savvy and also much more powerful ( politically at least ). I suspect Facebook is spenting their billions buying lobbyists, politicians and media/pr as we speak, just like google did. And microsoft did before them.
I think the bigger differentiator is Zuckerberg's ego. It's made him blind to his own flaws and mistakes and deaf to criticism, and he's maintained an iron grip on the company's steering wheel. I think he may run it into the ground. Google's direction is much less monarchical, and more willing to adapt.
Every company has two mission statements: The stated one and the real one. Google's real mission statement is "make shitloads of money selling everyone's personal information to advertisers."
The noises Google makes about being "useful" are just cover for the fact that being useful is the only way they can entice everyone to give them that personal information for free. If Google could get a law passed that required everyone to have a grain-of-rice sized Android tracker implanted in their body, Google would do it in a heartbeat. And then the need for all that expensive "usefulness" would be over.
This is a very cynical way to look at Google's business. I agree that their business model is based on connecting (mostly relevant) ads from the advertisers to the users with the help of user data but I do find some of those ads pretty useful. Let me just give you one example: I had almost missed the due date for the smog check on my car and at the last moment I searched on Google with query "smog check nearby" and I found the top Ad with the nearest to me and with the cheapest rate for the smog check service. I had a really good and pleasant experience as well. So That's Google for me: It helps me when I need it the most.
I appreciate the fact that they are being transparent about the nature of the deal they are offering. I suppose my own naivete was partly to blame, but I might not have wasted my time going to work there back in 2011-2012 if they had been clearer about their value proposition. I remain convinced that Google is full of intelligent, thoughtful, well-intentioned people who are shackled to a business model I will not participate in, and all of their beautiful technical achievements therefore remain irrelevant to my life.
In particular it doesn't mention the critical problem that Google makes its money from advertising, not from people who pay for premium phones or premium services. That is, you are still the product.
I recognize social positives from advertising, but there is a fundamental conflict when you are dependent on "free" services paid for by a third party.
You can still make money from advertisements if you don’t track everything your users do. Magazines don’t know how long you look at a page and they still sell ads. It’s just harder.
The problem with Google is that it crowds out competition, also that it contributes to a "data smog" environment. The way we would get better services is to pay for them ourselves so we establish a feedback loop such that encourages better services from our point of view (not that of advertisers)
Readit News
I nominally pay for these services, but I suspect it makes me a vassal instead of a serf. Google consumes. Google contemplates. Google cognates. Google knows. Google sees me while I will never get to see it.
At face value, as long as Google is Google, everything is okay but what happens when google is Google no more? When it goes to join the great corporate farm in the sky? What happens to the exabytes of data they’ll have gathered by then? Who will own it once Google is Google no more? What will happen to our lives once the data changes hands a decade or four from now?
Are there any contingency plans for the largest dataset on Earth? Do we get to know these plans?
Who the fuck owns MySpace now?
Say what you will about Apple (and I’ve said a lot), at least I know where we stand. I have switched to iOS and I recommend that you should do the same. At the very least, Google will no longer know when you sleep.
The "Don't Be Evil" corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over "oops, we didn't mean to break that for you!" isn't here anymore.
The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state.
I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ugh ugh.
I have applications that does E2E for contacts and calendars that I'll have to find an iOS solution for.
I loathe the notch.
But my next phone will be an iPhone.
Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire/Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can't keep you totally from it as long as you're on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways.
And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view.
I realised in the next months that the perceived "freedom to tinker" on Android is something hugely overrated. I could achieve almost everything I wanted on my iPhone -- it just took a bit of time to find the proper apps. Later Apple added the Shortcuts which is a very solid automation app.
Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that's a huge plus in my eyes. What are Android apps doing with that? You guessed it, scan your internal storage and SD card and upload them feck knows where (and this has been proven by many advanced Android users). iOS' sandboxing is not a bug. It's a feature which I appreciate a lot.
I'll not shy away from the fact: there are areas that I miss from Android. For example, I could have inspected WiFi strength signal with an Android phone and I cannot with a non-jailbroken iPhone.
Again though, as a guy who used Android phones for 4.5 years before switching to an iPhone, I found that the uncomfortable feeling of switching to an entirely new (and supposedly more "locked down") ecosystem is mostly an illusion created by our brain's unwillingness to endure big changes. You get over it very quickly. Don't trust your brain on these matters, it floods you with non-truisms to avoid cognitive shock.
P.S. I too loathe the notch. So after 15 months with the iPhone X I switched to iPhone 8 Plus. Easily the best phone on the planet to this day (plus a bigger screen and a slightly bigger battery). Now I dread the day the device will no longer be sold.
While "deleted" might take a while (eventual consistency FTW), any company with a presence in the EU has a lot to lose if such a scheme (beyond what they declare, eg. "31 days to recover your account") ever sees the light of day.
If it pans out, you may want to wait for the Librem 5[1], that's definitely my next phone.
1 - https://puri.sm/products/librem-5
This came many times before and it is incorrect. If you delete your data from google, it is deleted permanently. Deletion of multiple backups takes longer, but eventually it is gone, forever.
Disclaimer: Googler.
I ordered a new old-stock Nexus 5X to run KDE Plasma on. Fuck both Google and Apple. I hope the Purism and Pinephone actually get released as well so we have more real Linux options.
I hate we live in a world with totally non-standard mobile hardware. Back in the day you could wipe Windows and run Linux on nearly anything. Maybe you would only get VESA graphics or text, but it would at least boot.
PostmarketOS is trying to make a dent in it, but we still have huge gaps in hardware support.
I'm seriously considering my next phone to be one I build.
The hardware is available - cheap 4G LTE modules that plug right into a Raspberry Pi Zero exist; that and a cheap touchscreen will get you around 90% of the functionality most of us need, hardware-wise. You won't have a camera, or motion sensors. You will have GPS, voice, data, a screen, storage...
Basically everything you need for most purposes. And adding a camera and an IMU isn't that difficult, either.
The difficult part is - as always - the software. But people out there are building those pieces. Quite a bit can be done using plain-old Raspbian and Python on top, because the cellular module is essentially a virtual serial port device, and everything else has simple drivers or is otherwise easy to interface to.
Where I'll probably start, though, is with the idea of a custom "cyberdeck"; I already have most if not all of the parts, I just need to find the time to do it. It's form factor will be close to what the TRS-80 Model 100 was, though the screen will be...well, different. I'm considering a few options; probably a standard 800x600 HDMI screen along with a secondary 128x64 monochrome serial GLCD.
The ultimate thing about the whole project is independence (well, as independent as I can get - still have to pay some piper - aka T-Mobile - but maybe voip over wifi could be done in the future?) - and customization.
I may not have everything I want in the beginning, but what I want may only be a bit of extra coding, a tad bit of soldering, or likely a bit (or a bunch!) of both. I'm honestly tired of the games Google and pals are playing; kicking them to the curb may be the best thing to do.
There must be some kind of way outta here.
How about carving out a Google-free chunk of the web, and then only visiting sites for which you're somehow certain there's zero Google in them (no Google Analytics, no DoubleClick, no fonts, none of the other junk they use to track you). Otherwise you'd be slapped in the face by a dire warning akin to those for the expired SSL certificates.
Would that be crazy?
This is the key point. Google came of age during the GWB administration, when the folly of trusting government was more clear than it had been for decades, and under Schmidt's leadership Google became a major defense contractor.
It's impossible to know how much unlawful surveillance has already been done thanks to Google's collaboration/complicity.
How can Google earn back some trust? Implement warrant canaries at the google account level, decline to do business with the Pentagon, and come forward and reveal all of the shady and unethical things the firm has done, and simply ask the public for forgiveness.
instead: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ (i know it's not ready, but it's coming) or https://lineageos.org/
> I loathe the notch.
To be fair, each of these either already is or is becoming the norm on Android phones as well (at least, ones at a similar price point iPhones). Several of the top end phones have notches and no headphone jack, and I haven't had an Android phone with an SD card slot for about five years now.
[edits: formatting/typos]
Do you really intend this statement in regards to pure AOSP/LineageOS (ie microg)?
Yes Android will always be a product of a surveillance company, rather than being focused on user-centric security. But I would think that microg should be enough to deprivilege Google's backdoors, and generally avoiding stuff from the Play (Yalp) store should shield you from the bulk of OS-facilitated commercial surveillance. If you have information to the contrary, please share!
Obviously given the choice I'd rather run an OS not designed by a surveillance company, but it's awfully hard to find a pocket-sized computer that can. I look forward to PostmarketOS, but I don't think we're anywhere close there.
there is https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility for ChromeOS devices but on many phones, it is currently not possible to install a 3rd party OS, unless you figure out how to root them yourself... and even then, some of its hardware will probably not be compatible because they don't release drivers
I wish a Librem 4 was available (a lot cheaper then the Librem 5)
Loathe is a strong word. And I loathe everything about Apple and the iPhone.
But I think I'll get an iPhone next. And it's not even because I hate Google or because I don't like Android. I just believe in voting with my dollars. And Apple at least is masquerading as a company that makes a product and wants to sell that. I like the idea of the transaction. I buy my phone and then I own it; I'm done.
With Google, I buy the phone, and the phone owns me.
From Wikipedia:
2013–present: Time Inc. and Meredith Corporation ownership
On February 11, 2016, it was announced that MySpace and its parent company had been bought by Time Inc.[18] Time Inc. was in turn purchased by the Meredith Corporation on January 31, 2018.[20]
In May 2016, the data for almost 360 million MySpace accounts was offered on the "Real Deal" dark market website. The leaked data included email addresses, usernames and weakly encrypted passwords (SHA1 hashes of the first 10 characters of the password converted to lowercase and stored without a cryptographic salt[68]).[69] The exact data breach date is unknown, but analysis of the data suggests it was exposed around eight years before being made public, around mid-2008 to early-2009.[70]
On March 18, 2019, it was revealed that MySpace lost all of their user content from 2016 and earlier in "a server migration gone wrong". It was widely reported that over 50 million songs and 12 years worth of content was permanently lost, and there was no backup.[71]
and there was no backup
and there was no backup
and there was no backup
Wow.
The data site had tools to remove your data, but before I knew my data was even there, Google bought the site sometime around 2011 and shut it down, and added the data to their own system.
Today, if you search my full name on Google, it shows an infobox on the side with my real birthday. Google considers birthdays non-private enough that they won't let me remove it. I'm no celebrity but I get that info box because I had a MySpace musician page once over a decade ago.
My birthday now appears nowhere on the internet except that Google search infobox. MySpace, the original aggregator, all gone - but the data lives on.
We don't have a Right To Be Forgotten law where I live but if we ever get one, I know where I'll be going first.
Like when I started getting push notifications from Android for my credit card payment with my exact balance due, which they could only have gathered by parsing my emails from the bank. It's easy to resolve that by changing the contact info/settings with the bank, but just the fact that engineers at Google thought users would appreciate having their private financial information parsed and stored by Google services is absurd.
It should never have crossed anyone's mind to even do that, let alone advertise it as a feature.
I'm guessing the multiple people telling you they think the feature is useful won't change your mind about "nobody could possibly want this", though.
You say it as if it's a revelation or discovery, when Google is very upfront about surfacing relevant information and reminders based on your inbox.
On more than one occasion, this feature has helped me take actions on pending work items like payments, renewals and so on.
You don't want Google to show you ads, fair enough. You don't want Google to surface for you (and only you) useful information that helps you organize your life.
It almost sounds like you just want Google to give you hundreds of dollars of compute, storage and service out of the goodness of their hearts.
I think both you and Google would be better off without each other.
Counterpoint: I find this feature super useful. (and I know a lot of other people who do as well).
Or "you have been served with a summons to appear at... See transportation options" (beta soon?). When a company has so completely lost sight of what its customers see as creepy that it advertises creepiness as a feature, it has lost its way.
I understand why anyone would want ios now but your argument is about the future.
>Who the fuck owns MySpace now?
It's all deleted. https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/18/18271023/myspace-music-vi...
My future health care provider might. Maybe they’ll spike rates by figuring out how often I’m ill using this data.
Maybe I will marry a congressman someday and the sext that I sent today to my BF will be used to blackmail us.
Maybe 30 years from now, people will be able to use my youthful indiscretions as leverage.
Maybe I won’t get certain jobs because of where I’ve been or whom I’ve accidentally been close to in the location data.
Maybe my sleeping habits will lead to higher life insurance rates.
Russia and private actors have already personally targeted millions of people using highly directed ads to move an election using publicly available data. Imagine what they could do with Google’s data. Target congressional aides? Target the POTUS’ mistress (or mister)?
In the hands of a Caesar or a Napoleon that data is the power to reshape the Earth, smite your enemies, eviscerate any obstacles and remake the holder into an invincible demi-god.
Epidemiologists? Researchers? Academics? Governments trying to model future disease response based on historical trends?
Just off the top of my head.
They deleted 12 years of music uploads, not everything. Username, email, bio, friends, etc. still exists somewhere, but who owns it? What do they intend to do with it?
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Remember that Apple has been cracked by the FBI, has proprietary connectors, and charges more than anyone.
I couldn't disagree more. Apple is horrible to customers and developers.
I also don't see how "being cracked by the FBI" makes one evil, in fact I think resisting the FBI in the first place makes them good.
You mean the Apple that takes IoT security seriously that involves a certification process versus Google who just killed off their Nest ecosystem?
You mean the Apple that stood up to the FBI?
Sure proprietary connectors are on some of their products, but it sounds like you consider USB-C proprietary now? Apple has moved a number of their devices to USB-C and that will probably only go up overtime.
Apple has physical retail presence, which makes purchases, repairs, and other interactions easy for customers.
Apple isn't perfect, but I don't think you're looking at the same Apple everyone else is.
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you give them all that valuable personal and private data and then also pay them? why are you so resigned to this? the tradeoff for knowing everything about you gives you what, a few less taps on your phone?
people ignored or minimized it then, but their direction was abundantly clear by 2004 or so: search -> adwords -> adsense -> gmail ---> all-your-data-everywhere (gmail seemed cool at the time until the realization of where all this was going). how is it that so many people are just now waking up to the dangers of google (and facebook, incidentally)?
I've been using Google for a couple decades, and I can't really articulate a specific way that I've been harmed. Yes, I realize that there's the potential for harm from a leak or something like that, but it's hardly surprising that the abstract notion of possible harm isn't super compelling to the average user when they're currently getting useful services for "free".
It's just how we tick. And a lot of marketing strategies are based on those specifics.
I can think of many, many outcomes wherein Google’s collected data is more valuable for uses other than “helpful”.
Of course, absent something like GDPR, it's possible in the future Google could change their minds about that.
But anyone who thinks he's wrong - Remember into whose hands Java fell.
Google will probably bury me.
The value proposition to Developers was not very clear, but I imagine a few bad 3rd party apps could severely harm the E2E Google experience.
The minute their CEO went all-in on a US Presidential election well, that ol' Rubicon got crossed.
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Google already have many, many advertising partners to whom they gladly provide your location and other data. But they anonymize it, so you are safe ;)
For now...
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I like the Google products and services that I use. There are some that I miss (Reader) and some that just confuse me (Bookmarks), but the core works for me.
Based on commentary I've seen, I may be the only person on Hacker News to think so. Regardless, I'm hopeful for the future.
Google did not need to give this stance at I/O. It appears that they're being as transparent as they can about the fact that our data is their business model.
I get it: our online privacy is important. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to remain truly anonymous on the Internet, and this is mostly thanks to Google. However, the converse could be Google using our data for malicious purposes. Has there been any evidence of that? I have not seen any.
I believe we live in an age of online convenience, and not just for the average user. Google generally makes security-conscious products, especially with Chrome. Heuristics has proven to become very effective in combating online malicious behavior. By establishing our identities with Google, Google can generally say "we are who we say we are" with a degree of confidence, without us having to do much of anything. This is generally bad from a privacy stand-point, but can be good from a security stand-point.
Overall, I think Google has done good things for the Internet. But good things sometimes come at a cost, and sometimes third party companies want that cost paid in a way we do not agree with. I think Google is doing all they can to make that point clear.
You are right. I have not seen any evidence of this yet either. What frightens me is that IF something happens and Google is compelled or chooses to give that data to an entity to use maliciously there will be nothing we can do.
As I look at it: It is dangerous for that much data about that many people to exist in one place period.
* Google are brave for admitting they have your data!
* Sure it's bad they have so much data, but they can be so much more helpful.
Your reply's funny in a way, because if you jump from the beginning to the end it reads like "I get it: our online privacy is important" and then you give N reasons why it's not. And why Google's awesome for the internet (with capital I).
Google at the end of the day is gobbling up information on billions of people from mobile phones, browsers, e-mail, ads, their search engine, their web analytics, their smart home devices and classroom laptops, Google voice service, captchas and almost anything one can think of. The fact that so much information exists in one place is dangerous in itself, they don't have to actually do anything evil.
But they do anyway: they lock people out of their online lives, out victims to their stalkers, manipulate people into handing over their data with dark patterns, subvert or take over web standards, conspire to keep employee salaries low, sometimes serve malware through their ads, crush competition by illegally promoting their properties on search, illegally prevent Android suppliers to use Android as they wish and so on and so forth.
They've been found guilty in a court of law multiple times on both sides of the ocean.
The only good things they might have accidentally done for the internet were done to cement their power.
Still a company that collects and sells consumer data and ads right?
"We just have your data, and sell promises to show you exquisitely targeted ads based on our exhaustive data about you."
They offer a lot of customization for tracking and the ability to turn it off. They don't do anything hyper anti-consumer(IMO) and provide me very good products at either a low price or at the cost of my data(which I'm willing to pay with).
I don't see all the reason for the hate, but it is there, and I'm glad they are taking steps to be more privacy aware.
Can you provide some more information about this pivot? I haven't noticed it, and I thought I was paying attention.
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I said this 15 years ago and I will repeat it again. Google is like a man selling boats after a dam brake. They are profiting by managing the problem, not by fixing it. It is to their benefit if the problem actually gets worse. In other words, looking at their long-running effects and initiatives, I see that they aim to change the Internet so that it's completely unusable without their services. (The recent stunts with AMP and Gmail are great, obvious examples, but it didn't start there. It was going on for a very long while.)
This not the kind of thing that I want to spread to my offline life.
> our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible
to Google
EDIT: For those who want to downvote, consider that the vast majority of Google's revenue comes from the use of your personal information to target you with ads, and that most of the advances in ad targeting using personal data have been made by Google.
The vast majority of the revenue comes from search ads, which are intent-based on the keywords in the query.
What you're talking about are display ads / adsense, which is not even close to the majority of their revenue.
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https://imgur.com/a/enJ3C8V
It's quite interesting the way people are more willing to trust Google than Facebook with their data though. I think this might come from Google actually offering more "useful/needed/can't live without" offerings vs facebook's more vanity based services.
For example, Google takes your very privacy sensitive location data but also returns you amazing mapping capabilities (google maps), transit information, nearby points of interests etc.
They might have access to all your text messages, emails, contacts etc but returns you useful features like the last year's Duplex feature or auto reply suggestions in emails etc.
Facebook's vanity based offerings are quite shallow imo - Instagram is just hyper edited pictures to scroll through, messenger/whatsapp might be useful but it has quite good competition from iMessage or simple text messaging. So for people who actually care about privacy, they are still okay with Google having their data but are not okay with Facebook having their data because FB doesn't really offer much of real value. This could be because Google being a much older company than FB. FB has also had quite major privacy issues (Cambridge Analytica being one of the major ones) and they have shown that they really don't care at all about privacy.
One thing to note though, I still don't think Google should operate the way they do and I am not willing to compromise so much of my privacy. That's why I stick with iOS even though I know Android offers more power (especially since I am an iOS and Android Developer). iOS's AI might be inferior but it gets the job done for me and I appreciate the privacy stance of Apple over Google.
It is not possible for most people to live their lives without some form of Google, whether it's search, email, drive, maps, docs, or calendar. It's almost impossible to function today without using Google or interfacing with someone who is using Google.
People are more OK with Google because there is no alternative.
0. YouTube 1. Maps 2. Search 3. Email 4. Docs 5. Drive 6. Calendar
I put YouTube as 0 as it is at the very top of the list. There's virtually no comparable competition for YouTube and that's why Google is also getting away with abusing their power with YouTube trending feed, censorship, demonetization, clickbait etc. YouTube really needs some proper competition but I really doubt any company will want to take over this massive infrastructure. I don't consider Twitch to be a competition for YouTube for non-gaming content.
Maps is the only one which I cannot live without. Apple Maps has improved drastically in the last couple years though but in Canada, they are still not as good as Google. But they seem to be on the right track.
DuckDuckGo is pretty good actually and I think most people can get the job done pretty well with it. For email, there are okay competitions and I still have an alternate yahoo email but they have been going downhill in last few years.
Docs is one place where Microsoft Office is good but Docs is superior if online collaboration is needed.
Dropbox is superior to google drive imo, especially since I am on iOS and Mac.
I have never used Google Calendar as I use iOS offerings and it does pretty well.
I think if Apple can improve their Maps and if Siri stops being so useless, it would be for the better and will help take away some power from Google. And somebody really needs to compete heavily against YouTube.
I think it's more that it returns you what will keep you using the product, so they can sell more ads. Every time I open Google maps on mobile (to see how busy the traffic is, for example), I get a big useless "Explore nearby" window taking up 40% of the screen, which I have to close to be able to actually use the map. I will never want to explore ads for businesses near my house or workplace, and the fact that the app doesn't remember that suggests the true intention.
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When I let Google track my location, I get useful hyper relevant results for searches. When I let it track my emails, I get useful flight reminders and package delivery notifications.
But Facebook doesn't really need to track my location to offer the service I want from it, the extra privacy invasion very specifically only helps advertisers. By giving it access to my contact list I can add friends more easily which is nice, but it also does so much more analysis of my extended offline friend network than I want it to, which feels like it hurts me more than it helps me.
Both companies are monetizing my private data, but with Google it feels like I get enough out of the deal that I'll (sometimes grudgingly) allow it. With Facebook I feel like it's an adversarial relationship where I have to constantly defend myself from FB. Obviously each person's valuation of the deal will be different; for some people there's no amount of usefulness Google could offer to justify the data they collect. But I suspect for many people Google is on the right side of the usefulness to creepiness ratio.
This is what we let Google ruin the internet for?
For all the things people have mentioned here: maps, e-mail, search, docs, etc. there are alternatives. Sure, they're not (yet) as good or convenient but put some effort into this guys.
The noises Google makes about being "useful" are just cover for the fact that being useful is the only way they can entice everyone to give them that personal information for free. If Google could get a law passed that required everyone to have a grain-of-rice sized Android tracker implanted in their body, Google would do it in a heartbeat. And then the need for all that expensive "usefulness" would be over.
I don't even think they need that with everyone having a smartphone.
In particular it doesn't mention the critical problem that Google makes its money from advertising, not from people who pay for premium phones or premium services. That is, you are still the product.
I recognize social positives from advertising, but there is a fundamental conflict when you are dependent on "free" services paid for by a third party.
I don't see tracking as the problem with Google.
The problem with Google is that it crowds out competition, also that it contributes to a "data smog" environment. The way we would get better services is to pay for them ourselves so we establish a feedback loop such that encourages better services from our point of view (not that of advertisers)