I'm actually more worried about Google banning my account and every service along with it, and having no way to get it back or even speak to a human about it because I don't have a large Twitter following or a buddy that works at Google.
That sounds like a reasonable concern. I generally worry more about alternative options being bought by someone else, or languishing / deprecation.
In either case, the subject of a decent article might be: setting up automated exports from service features like Takeout, to mitigate the risk of personal service account closures and disruptions.
There are plenty of discussions on HN (including ones where you've participated) regarding privacy. Different people value privacy differently (and privacy means different things to different people). You may not value it as much as others, and that's fine. Ignoring this as you have here with what appears to be a naïve question amounts to trolling. Please don't.
I recognize that other people value privacy more than I do. I also recognize that privacy is unsustainable and unlikely to survive in the future.
I see people seeking privacy as I see technophobes. I'm sure they're genuinely concerned, but I can't help but think they're mistaken. I think it's important to change their minds, as they're otherwise making the transition to a post-privacy world very difficult.
I've asked this question many times before, and nobody managed to explain how privacy would survive through the next 100 years of technological progress. That alone makes me think privacy is not a long-term solution.
Only a handful of people have clarified their position in defense of privacy as temporary and pragmatic (as opposed to ideal). They think that privacy is bad, but they prefer it to the alternative given today's context. I can appreciate this position, and I find it a lot more reasonable than the usual "privacy is good" most people seem to blindly accept.
Ultimately, I'd like to discuss strategies to make the transition to a post-privacy world smoother. This whole pro-privacy sentiment makes it very difficult.
Is it wrong for me to trust Google? I think they have really great secure systems. Their security is the best, imo. Privacy is a bit of concern. I wish they came up with a win-win solution fir that. I dont have prob woth data collection, i provide data for making their systems better,ad targeting, they give me great services, and my data doesn't get sold. Plus, indirectly even Apple and other product users do benefit from it coz google is ahead of others in ML due to the vast data analysis they can do, and when they publish their results and papers, other researchers look at them and kearn from it. But i guess, the last part of my reasoning ( just thought if it right now) is somewhat dipshit coz this is quite obvious. But i think contrary to other's beliefs Google's impact on internet had been very positive. I mean they open sourced so many web standards without taking royalty. Had it been MS,apple they would not have hesitated. I read the book The Google Guys when I was 13, since then have been a G fan, tho I am rational, acknowledge their mistakes,which is difficult to do. Also, as a STEM enthusiast Google's research culture has always attracted me. Larry,sergey were the first 2 people I sorta idolized. Also, Google services like Youtube, Google have benefited me a lot as a student. Due to all tgese reasons, i am a bit biased towards Google. Tho, i try to filter out buas whenever I can.
> What's wrong with data collection and tracking? Privacy seems extremely overrated here on HN. Am I missing something?
Plenty wrong. It seems you're not new here so I'm amazed you asked that question. Have you been living under a rock in 2013?
Just to start, it creates a big power imbalance between consumer and corporations [1] and due to the tightly knit relationship between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley it's also a civil liberties problem [2]. It also screws with your ideology by turning your internet usage into an echo chamber.
Is a power imbalance necessarily wrong? Is it avoidable? Is it suddenly OK if you try to avoid the imbalance but swap one entity for another (dependent on companies versus dependent on your own time/ability to audit code)?
> Is it suddenly OK if you try to avoid the imbalance but swap one entity for another (dependent on companies versus dependent on your own time/ability to audit code)?
It's never 'suddenly' OK. More like 'eventually' OK, as you know, you need to take the time to audit code, etc..
Why would anyone take such efforts to avoid using Google products? That doesn't seem very rational...
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