Google cares about you. Perhaps a lot more than necessary

MkMkB

Court documents show Google intentionally hid privacy controls

Last year, Arizona's attorney general sued Google for illegally collecting location data from Android users, even after they had opted out of said data

www.androidpolice.com

TEUser2K1

Isn't this reported much earlier ?

Unfortunate reality is that there are nothing private and trustworthy in Internet these days. Everybody want to track you and extract maximum possible information, feed that to analyzing and parsing s/w, push ads as per that. The very advertisement model on internet itself need some scrutiny.

Few people are trying degoogle methods and then reaching other more unreliable services.

vishalrao

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1397032784703655938

nRiTeCh

vishalrao said:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1397032784703655938

I stopped brushing few days ago yet google is showing me last used toothpaste ads daily... seems google isn't that smart to detect that I have unusual habits which can make it go crazy.. I got ya google..

MkMkB

Prole73 said:
Isn't this reported much earlier ?

Unfortunate reality is that there are nothing private and trustworthy in Internet these days. Everybody want to track you and extract maximum possible information, feed that to analyzing and parsing s/w, push ads as per that. The very advertisement model on internet itself need some scrutiny.

Few people are trying degoogle methods and then reaching other more unreliable services.

Yes, the objective was to show how Google is contradicting itself especially when A12 is now launched which is touted to have "location approximation" feature instead of "exact location" feature.
Apple might have nudged Google to follow its footsteps but Google still wants to circumvent its own features.
Nothing surprising here, we all know Google. Just wondering how this would have played out here if we had more stringent laws on privacy, something along the lines of GDPR.

pauldmps

Last year, when Apple implemented data collection labels in App store, Google stopped updates to its apps for months before probably re-engineering them again.

msankadi

Tejas01 said:
.
Apple might have nudged Google to follow its footsteps but Google still wants to circumvent its own features.
.

Haha what steps? Apple is just trying to increase their ad revenue and try to force all companies to go through them to sell ads. Nothing else is more safe with apple or Google apart from marketing hype.

Please do your research on all companies instead of believing one propoganda and rejecting the other.

You can see the sources i have already posted on a thread.

Apple’s Privacy Changes Are Poised to Boost Its Ad Products

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56995192 Apple and Google saying We have all the data about you now, so we will act Al high and mighty, saying we finally care about privacy!!! Hahahaha . We just want to pull up the ladder so that others can't collect the data. Don't be fooled by the hype...

techenclave.com

TEUser2K1

Big corps are only interested in increasing their profit, discussing how honest or methodical they are in exploiting loop holes in law and weakness in humans will only go in vain. Even most govts. get pawned in that game.

Wondering what can be the alternatives which are dependable at least on basic level, what steps individuals can take to protect themselves can be a better discussion.

tech.monk

msankadi said:
Apple is just trying to increase their ad revenue and try to force all companies to go through them to sell ads. Nothing else is more safe with apple or Google apart from marketing hype.

Isn't it same as why Apple is into legal battle with one of the leading game dev, where game dev is trying to bypass apple for in-game purchases and apple insisting on its revenue.

kartikoli

I have first hand experience of how Google collect data and then enriching it further to make a database, Since I work in a Lead Generation company where they have google as client and we get numerous projects where they just send emails and ask us to enrich remaining data like Name/Job title/Company etc... even corporate emails (emails of students, corporate... you name it). Even though the enrichment rate of such lists is not high but we still manage to enrich 25~30% sometimes 40~50% of the date depending on the quality of the list. This is just what we can do for them using open searches you can understand when they combine this data with the database of there own (They know more than what you know of yourself

)

sanjeevram

Privacy is a "MYTH", anyone saying otherwise is fooling themselves.
Only thing which is even remotely left private is banking. (That to bcoz big people have their money in those bank)

tech.monk

I was searching for Poco F1 for this reason only, will try e/os (degoogled Android)

sanjeevram said:
Privacy is a "MYTH", anyone saying otherwise is fooling themselves.
Only thing which is even remotely left private is banking. (That to bcoz big people have their money in those bank)

raksrules

tech.monk said:
I was searching for Poco F1 for this reason only, will try e/os (degoogled Android)

I want to ask if degoogled android OS works well? Sorry but I use android tablets but that too rarely but everywhere we have google services and on my Fire 10 HD, I actually installed google services (play store etc).

MkMkB · May 31, 2021

@raksrules
It works, but with hiccups. The ride may not be that smooth. There are some alternatives to your regular Google apps but if you heavily depend on a particular app based on Play services, then there would be issues.
F droid is the app Store to look into.

tech.monk

raksrules said:
degoogled android OS works well

for day to day, yes

But netbanking apps dont work; same applies if you're fan of any proprietary apps - it might need Google Android Core and at the same moment, degoogled OS's purpose gets defeated.

Their are plenty of ppl on YouTube - who have posted their experience with degoogled OS especially e/os.

ibose

tech.monk said:
for day to day, yes

But netbanking apps dont work; same applies if you're fan of any proprietary apps - it might need Google Android Core and at the same moment, degoogled OS's purpose gets defeated.

Their are plenty of ppl on YouTube - who have posted their experience with degoogled OS especially e/os.

Is it worth all the hassle ? If you have time and a older phone which is fully supported by a stable version and willing to tinker, then maybe yes. I just do these -
1. Replace Google apps with alternatives wherever possible eg. Chrome with Bromite, Messages with SMS Organizer,
2. Switch Google Photos to offline
3. Disable apps via ADB
4. Install Netguard and block any apps from calling home
5. Stopped recording all history for Google apps
I know all this still doesn't guarantee my privacy but its still something ...

xkcd0137

Aurora Store is a pretty good alternative to Google Play Store.

TEUser2K1

Also interesting is:

microG Project

booo

sanjeevram said:
Privacy is a "MYTH", anyone saying otherwise is fooling themselves.
Only thing which is even remotely left private is banking. (That to bcoz big people have their money in those bank)

it is not. you can literally have foolproof privacy. takes a lot of know how and not possible for common people who are not it savvy.

ever heard of the likes of pine phone and other linux phones? but you have to compile linux (yocto project) and install something like ubuntu touch/kde plasma/custom android and then linux firewall and some more thing. you can build an extremely locked down eco system.

like i said it is not for non techy people and lazy ones like me.

with regards to the topic in this thread being educated is the first step towards securing your privacy.

Ramadhir Singh

Everything was done organically and over a period of 6-7 years.
If we educate enough people we might see improvement in another 4-5years.

When remote controls were introduced in TV -- we felt like we had a magic wand in our hands.. we don't have to walk that 2-3m to control the volume of the TV.
Fast forward to today, we have even passed the task of pressing remote button to google/amazon mass surveillance devices and pretend ourselves "super cool".

Forget India, US/CA/AU are building new home (smart homes as we call) which has built-in home automation which listen to each voice 24x7, track and captures video of every visitor ( India also has MYGate) and save it to a centralized repo where even the home owner don't have access and they don't have any control to turn this surveillance.

We (the commoners) have gone too far for that extra 0.1% ease in life. Or for the carrot in the name of "NATIONAL SECURITY".
Remember for a mere 50 fukin rupees SIM 90% of Indian happily and willingly given their and their family trees "all" detail to reliance/Indian govt by standing 2-3 hours of queue.
Our gau-rakhsk PM is a live example what social engineer can do.
And majority of tharki illiterate people who became online doesn't even know what damage they have done to the society.

Obligatory meme:

Google cares about you. Perhaps a lot more than necessary

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Wasseypur