Comment by arctux | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arctux | Hacker News Reader

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> And I can't vouch for all of Google, but regarding location data, Google has been pretty transparent regarding which data is collected and stored; papers like NYT covered it extensively - see [1].

How did you read that article and come away with the conclusion that Google has been "pretty transparent". The story was written after more than a year of other news outlets reporting on law enforcement using Google's location data to fish for suspects. Google has been providing this data for at least two years before the Times reported on it [0].

> And moreover, Google has been consistently on track to store less private data.

Such as credit card transaction data collected without most people's knowledge [1] or location data after you've explicitly told it not to [2]?

Technology companies need to understand that both words "informed consent" are important. We currently have very little in the way of choices when it comes to data collection. It is simply not possible to opt-out anymore without tremendous effort and personal cost. I like this quote from Maciej Ceglowski:

"A characteristic of this new world of ambient surveillance is that we cannot opt out of it, any more than we might opt out of automobile culture by refusing to drive. However sincere our commitment to walking, the world around us would still be a world built for cars. We would still have to contend with roads, traffic jams, air pollution, and run the risk of being hit by a bus. Similarly, while it is possible in principle to throw one’s laptop into the sea and renounce all technology, it is no longer be possible to opt out of a surveillance society."

[0]: https://www.wral.com/Raleigh-police-search-google-location-h...

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/24/google-can-now-track-your-of...

[2]: https://www.apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb

All these links are year or two old.

A big push towards openness and privacy has happened over the last year.

On an individual level, I don't think it's hard to opt out of Google's tracking.

I won't argue with Maciej's quote, though, because, just like with automobiles, people will still opt into the surveillance society willingly: because the utility it brings them outweighs other considerations.

Ask people if they want to be tracked at all times, and they'll say "no".

Ask people if they want to be able to locate their phone when they lose it, and their answer might be different.

Ask them if they'd want be able to cal 911 and ask to come and help them even if they aren't sure where they are, and you'll get a different distribution of answers again.

In the latter case, lack of "surveillance" is seen as a "tragic shortfall" [0], and adding it is a "feature"[1].

So see, it's not the surveillance per se that people object to. It's implementation details. Welcome to Ceglowski's world.

[0]https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/02/22/cellphone-911...

[1]https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/18/technology/apple-911-locati...

> All these links are year or two old.

Two of them are more than a year old, but the practices described in each are ongoing. The third, which describes Google's tracking of users after they've specifically opted not to be tracked is from nine months ago.

> A big push towards openness and privacy has happened over the last year.

After literally a decade of constructing what is very likely the largest database of personal information in the world. Since the late 2000s, when Google purchased DoubleClick, it has worked to collect information without the informed consent of its users. What fraction of your users know that Google purchases their credit card transaction histories?

What is the "big push"? The only things I can think of were the opt-in auto-deletion of a subset of data announced over the last week or two. All the user has to do is pay attention to the tech press, then remember to activate the feature when it launches at an unspecified future date!

What is this "openness"? Working on a censored search engine for China without informing their own head of security?

> ...people will still opt into the surveillance society willingly: because the utility it brings them outweighs other considerations.

Sure, they absolutely do. There can be significant utility gains from large collections of information. But much of the utility could be gained from information collected in a anonymity-protecting matter. In order to have traffic information, for example, Google doesn't need to continuously track your location history.

> Ask people if they want to be tracked at all times, and they'll say "no". Ask people if they want to be able to locate their phone when they lose it, and their answer might be different.

And neither of these require surveillance. The phone could be located either by returning its location on command, or by uploading encrypted location data which only the user has the key to. Whatsapp, for example, shows that end-to-end encryption can be seamlessly integrated.

> Ask them if they'd want be able to cal 911 and ask to come and help them even if they aren't sure where they are, and you'll get a different distribution of answers again. > > In the latter case, lack of "surveillance" is seen as a "tragic shortfall" [0], and adding it is a "feature"[1].

Once again, this does not require ubiquitous surveillance, and it is misleading, at best, to imply that it does. Do you really not see the difference between location data provided to assist emergency response from a 911 caller and continuous location monitoring so that Google can serve more profitable ads?

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