Oh, please. There's a million threads on HN complaining about Google and Facebook. Doesn't even matter if they did something, any post will still have those comments. You can't consider the proportionality of the response by just one thread.
It's really quite amazing that when a company that's hitched it's brand entirely to privacy first commits a big privacy faux pas, hides it for a year, and then doubles down on it not being a problem, you have somehow managed to turn the top voted thread to a discussion on the failings of other companies instead. Bravo.
Fair enough. I do get your point - people seem to go mad about privacy in general. It does sometimes feel (to me) like people aren't as bothered about it with Google as they are with Apple, Amazon or Facebook, but maybe that's just me.
No need to apologise, wasn't trying to call you out or anything, just felt like this was one of the few posts I've read that doesn't whine too much about it.
I read the article, thought to myself, "let's see how HN finds a way to say this is actually bad for privacy", clicked through to comments here, and was not disappointed. The hivemind anti-Google kneejerking is quite out of control.
You think Google feels any pressure from blog comments like that? Well you're wrong. It's pointless bickering - I've always disliked that about reading tech news. People who have no idea how Google even operates and the technology behind the products take for granted and who could never even write a solid business plan seem to love complaining about inane details and playing victim. I'm tired of reading it. Until you can prove Google is doing something wrong or unethical, take your free service and stop complaining. Or switch to another.
If you have criticism that can improve the product, that's different. But these are just childish whines that don't accomplish anything. If Google is overstepping some privacy line, prove it and get them some bad press, like what recently happened with Path mining peoples' contacts. But Google are not malicious predators, and nobody is forcing anybody to use their products, so people need to stop being so melodramatic.
Don't read too much into the comments you see here, it's not representative.
Staunch privacy supporters like myself often use very strong language to describe despicable companies like Google when asked questions about privacy and tracking like the one in this post and HN consistently removes all of those comments because in this world no one's fee fee's may ever be hurt, for any reason. Even if a company essentially permanently lives up your butt, like Google, that is still no reason to hurt people's fee fees.
Google's business model is antithetic with "privacy". This is by design and very much out in the open, they are an advertising company, their revenue is literally and as publicly as possible coming from not keeping your data private. Expecting Google to give you privacy is like asking a funeral home to extend your life. It's just not their business model.
Wow, seconds to minutes after comments highlighted the crass hypocrisy of Google's "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" they are all downvoted.
Hundreds of deflecting comments about coffee at McDonalds and astroturfing. Well done! Can we now talk about how Google uses creepy tactics to undermine privacy and the GDPR?
I'd disagree. There is a trend in HN comments to remind people that a company is a collection of people. Google is a collection of people. There are those of us who care deeply about privacy at Google.
First: it's interesting talking with googlers or reading their thoughts on how Google does ads and data collection. Many people definitely feel the same way as commenters on HN feel. Lots of people are torn on the fact that ads lets us build lots of other cool products for people. I would say this helps motivate other teams, like cloud, do you find other revenue sources for the company so you don't have to be as dated collection focused.
Second: I have seen googlers fight the privacy of users even within my division (payments). Many of us want to do right by our users, and be as privacy focused as we are capable given our constraints. We also know there is a general thought that Google is data collection focused, and one slip up will cause a big drama out on the internet and in the news (Google would likely receive more scrutiny here than some other companies). This helps remind us that we need to treat user data as best we can and minimize what we do collect.
I find it funny that I often get defensive questions from Google and Facebook engineers about their technologies/organizations when I post initial pro-privacy comments on HN, but after being called out and explaining in more detail I never get a response. I guess there's no point for them to argue it further as they're aware of the negative impact, but have made a conscious decision to choose money over morals
> Because technology alone can’t protect your privacy.
Technology alone actually does allow us to choose between "send data to Google and trust that they won't do anything bad" vs. "don't send data to Google and know that they won't do anything bad".
EDIT: I appreciate that you care about privacy. You care about it a lot more than most websites seem to, so it does seem unfair that you're getting more flak in this thread than most websites do even though they run more trackers than you do.
I notice this pattern a lot, in myself and others. When there's a choice between a solution that solves no problems, and a solution that tries to solve the problems but only manages half of them, the latter solution tends to get criticised for the half of the problems it doesn't solve, and the first solution doesn't get criticised at all.
Don't really know what I'm trying to say. Just that the criticism you're getting in this thread (some of it from me) isn't entirely justified, and I'm glad you care about privacy, even if you don't go about it the same way I do.
What the hell is going on in the comments here? It's like half the comments are edgelords with some version of "i am shocked that an advertising company would do such a thing"
Has HN just turned into Reddit? Do people really not care that people's privacy is being dumped down the toilet? Google is known for shit like this. They even scan your emails and alert you when bills are due. Shit like that is not ok. Don't fuck with my privacy unless I opt in.
If you want HN to be a place of real discussion and debate, it's stupid to try to tie people to their companies.
When the company is Google (or of a similar scale) -- and that company claims to care about privacy (but sometimes engages in practices that suggest otherwise) -- then clearly that association is quite relevant. (Its not a huge oversight, but really, if you had put a standard disclaimer at the end of your comment it would have come off a lot more nicely).
But calling people "stupid" for pointing out that this association matters (when it obviously does) is just... "Google-y", I guess.
Is the whole privacy on search thing really a big issue?
Of course it is. Google and Facebook have been pushing the bounds of privacy repeatedly over the years because it is in their financial best interest to do so.
Their primary product isn't search or communication or maps. Their product is plain and simple people's personal information. And, becuase they are a corporation in the USA they are legally bound to maximize shareholder value.
So, of course Google and Facebook have to erode the concept of online privacy. That is their product and that is the value that they are legally bound to maximize.
If they were very clear and up front about this issue, and communicated that information in plain language to their users that would be one thing. But, they don't.
Google doesn't every plainly say, "We track your location with your android phone. We track your searches on Google. We track what sites you visit though our advertising network. We track who you email when you use Gmail. If you use our calendar, we know what your schedule is. We track who you call when you use Google Voice. And, we want you to trust us to do the right thing with that data. We make a crap load of money using everything that we know about you to let other people sell stuff to you. Oh, and by the way, the government can have access to all that data without a search warrant."
So, yes, I do think the privacy issue is pretty important. You have a couple of massive corporations who are for all intents and purposes forced to erode people's concept of privacy. And, if people are going to compete with Google, one of the areas they are very vulnerable is in the area of privacy. Gabriel has been kicking their ass on this, and it's an area where they are vulnerable to competitors.
I say more power to DDG. It's a conversation that needs to be had, and more people need to know about this.
I think there's a certain amount of histrionics here what with bringing up the whole 'evil' thing and your phrase "doesn't care about your privacy'.
I would have bought a more reasoned argument - getting into bed with Google demonstrably involves a tradeoff in terms of privacy - but I feel we're just a small step away from the days of 'Micro$oft' comments on Slashdot now.
Company: Supports measures that lead to additional privacy because they realize how important it is to their users
HN: Don't be tricked, Google is evil.
Like I understand WHY there's a hate boner for Google. I just don't understand why people think it's bad for them to acknowledge the preferences of their users and make decisions accordingly.
It's really quite amazing that when a company that's hitched it's brand entirely to privacy first commits a big privacy faux pas, hides it for a year, and then doubles down on it not being a problem, you have somehow managed to turn the top voted thread to a discussion on the failings of other companies instead. Bravo.
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