Hacker News Reader

Comment by __michaelg | Hacker News Reader

This is a fantastic example of motivated reasoning. This "change" (which apparently isn't even new) can have so many different reasons, some of which are less harmful and some of which are probably worse (privacy-wise) than the one mentioned here. There is no indication that re/mis-using permissions is specifically what they wanted to do here, there is also no example of them doing it right now. Don't get me wrong, there is also no evidence that this isn't the real reason and that they wouldn't do that in the future. But the blog post basically list a single symptom and jumps right to the one conclusion that fits what the author expects.

View on HN

1. The change does exist (although it apparently has been live for quite some time in some regions at least)

2. The change does have the effect of Google gaining more permissions (and subsequently more data) than previously

3. The author assumes that (2) is the (main) reason why (1) was done in the first place

Regardless of whether (3) is correct or completely wrong - and regardless of whether the author truly believes (3), or only uses it as a rhetorical trick to increase the controversy (and therefore the reach) of their post - both (1) and (2) remain fact.

And (2) is the actual problem here - regardless of whether it was done intentionally by Google or not.

Upvoted, this looks more correct than what I wrote.

As for (3) - there's no proof either way, as you already said.

But collecting more of that data which their marketing business makes it's profits from, is likely to have a positive effect on their bottom line.

And since the change already has been live for a while in some regions, it seems likely that Google is well aware of how much impact this change has on their revenue.

You decide for yourself if money is or isn't the reason why a big corporation like Google would do something like that.

I think your original comment was spot on. The reply above didn't really add anything imo.

> The change does have the effect of Google gaining more permissions (and subsequently more data)

There's a huge logic gap here. Obtaining more permissions doesn't at all imply obtaining more data when it's caused by an incidental change. Maybe the permissions aren't being used outside of the Maps context, or maybe it doesn't matter because the data was already be known.

It’s true that we can’t really know whether Google is exploiting these expanded permissions to collect more data unless we have some insider information.

However, it’s generally very easy to predict what a company is going to do by observing their business model and incentive structure. In Google’s case, collecting as much data as possible is a major part of their business, so without more information, there’s no good reason to assume they won’t do it.

> It’s true that we can’t really know whether Google is exploiting these expanded permissions to collect more data unless we have some insider information.

You could track usage and see what pages on google.com are accessing these APIs.

I doubt that it's a lot. Google already has fairly good geo-localization based on IP, GPS-level accuracy isn't necessary for ads. They could've already connected your data from maps.google.com to www.google.com, because both are using consent.google.com and you're getting a .google.com unique cookie.

This is mostly just outrage because people don't understand how things work.

Google search asks for geolocation. So the permission absolutely is being used.

> 1. The change does exist (although it apparently has been live for quite some time in some regions at least)

Pretty sure I’ve been experiencing this change for many years at this point.

It may not be the only reason, but you’re being too generous if you don’t think this was at least one of the reasons they did it.

Other than some abstract “branding” campaign, I cannot really see many other reasons why they would be doing this.

And as someone who worked in adtech in the past, it was very well known that Google used their domain as their tracking cookie domain as it’s nearly impossible for adblockers to just block without crippling other functionality. So they even have a history of using precisely these types of techniques.

> but you’re being too generous if you don’t think this was at least one of the reasons they did it

If you consider it absolutely unthinkable that it was not one of the reasons, it's you who is being too generous. Unconsidered side effects occur plentiful and all the time.

This is cute, but 100% no. In this case, those involved in the decision were aware of the privacy implications. Whether this was discussed openly, or whether the change was made 'pass-the-buck' style, it doesn't really matter. The association of privacy settings with domains is a well-established basic function in the browser.

> If you consider it absolutely unthinkable that it was not one of the reasons, it's you who is being too generous.

The person you are replying to didn't use the word "unthinkable" or even imply it.

I think you are being either incredibly naive or disingenuous if you believe an adtech giant like google doesn't factor changes to data gathering into every single decision they make.

My default mode is to trust everyone until they break my trust. Now that I am old, I have realized that trusting everyone by default is not a good idea, especially big tech.

In cases like this, I think it is better to assume malice, even if we are proved wrong later. This is not our fault, this is big tech screwing with us repeatedly for years, with no shame or conscience

The way I see it, people deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their motivations but corporations don't.

Exactly. If you trust people you will often be rewarded by friendship and future help. If you trust cooportations they just exploit that to maximize shareholder profit with no value to me.

Perhaps you mean persons deserve the benefit of the doubt? People seems to be the root problem.

I expect there is no difference between an individual and a corporation operated by a sole individual. If one is trustworthy, they will remain equally trustworthy if they happen to have a stock certificate in hand. The corporation isn't able to act autonomously. It acts with equivalency to the person it is represented by.

Large corporations, involving people, is where communication breaks down, which leads to unintended consequences that wouldn't necessarily be realized if an individual was acting alone. When you have people there are bound to be competing interests created in the confusion and it is not always a straightforward answer who is best to honour. Even where intentions are pure humans are bound to make mistakes in their choosing.

I think the question is whether a effective feedback loop exists.

If a local dealer does something bad they quickly receive corresponding response.

A big corp is detached and anonymous. As long as there is no broad boycott there are rare cases where response really reaches them.

If a big corp has a sales force the sales force is responsive to feedback, however the corp then quickly turns anonymous to them and whatever they put in the system doesn't reach the right places ...

Also, by most reasonable metrics, Google broke that trust long time ago anyway.

Even if it's entirely innocuous at present, that's still little better. It would signal modern-day Google engineers lack the nuanced understanding and user-first deliberation of their predecessors.

Given the breadth of services the company provides, a user ought to be able to restrict the permission to the scope of the maps tool.

I think the grand master of user tracking and the developer of the web's most used browser knows exactly what they are doing.

Google is huge. You'd be surprised how something that's common knowledge in one team is completely unknown to other teams.

Hanlons Razor is a fallacy on it's face and I'm so tired of the incompetence excuse for actors who are repeatedly bad.

You're a fallacy on your face.

I admit this made me laugh, and now have adopted it into daily usage. Thanks!

I doubt that a URL change is the solely decision of the maps team.

bro, data is money and those corporates extract as much as they can. don't try to reason that google would not be interested in exactly that. one does not have to find a specific evidence for exactly this scenario in my opinion. this evidence likely might never emerge, while the spying definitely will happen. otherwise you would need to come up with a huge scenario where they actually farm a ton of benefits by doing this change, because a move like that you don't "just do for a better experience".

Cannot agree more. Money is the most important if not the sole driver of decision making in those large organizations.

> But the blog post basically list a single symptom and jumps right to the one conclusion that fits what the author expects.

That conclusion isn't wrong though. Your comment basically claims author is twisting facts but the conclusion remains that giving google.com/maps permission to geotrack does give google.com permission to geotrack.

"Pinky swear I won't enforce that clause" is not reassurance enough.

They've promised nothing, to boot. Google does not deserve the benefit of the doubt here.

The real reason or intention isn't that important, compared to the outcomes of the change. The author correctly evaluated one of those outcomes and the respective implications.

Given Google's track record, I think it is a sensible evaluation of the situation.

When companies like Google are involved, I believe the Hanlon's Razor works in reverse. I.e. never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.

I will accept motivated reasoning when in a friendly setting but big tech is not my friend. Their only and only purpose is to extract as much value (data or money) from me as possible.

Looking at Heartbleed and other famous security we should know that minor mistakes "disguised" as "typos" can have devastating effects.

They know what theyre doing alright.

The change may have happened for any of many reasons. Regardless of which reason was the motivator, it's clear impact is reducing user privacy. When talking about a tracking/advertising company, so it's kinda natural to assume that this was kept in mind.

Recently I have been trying to recover my gmail account. Besides sending verification code to my phone number, it also sent a code to YouTube app, high on the list. I have lost access to my google account, so I cannot open my YouTube. So it sent a verification code to the exact gmail address I am trying to recover. The whole process is unreal. This YouTube verification thing is definitely new, I don't know the motivation behind it, it couldn't even detect if my YouTube App was activate or not (or maybe it knows I wasn't using YouTube, maybe it is encouraging me to log in YouTube or open YouTube. Either way, I am not impressed.

Meta: my answer here is probably also a good example of motivated reasoning because I likely read a bit more into what the author wrote than is factually in the blog post. Oh boy.

> Oh boy.

Do you mind pointing out where you think this applies?

I think my critique is somewhat correct in that you seem to suggest that this change was made to allow for expanding the permissions from one product to all products, which I don't think one can derive from the things we know.

I think I was somewhat wrong in that I may have suggested that you said this was the only reason (which you didn't explicitly) and also in that I dismissed that they factually can use these permissions from other products now, i.e., no matter whether it was intended or not, the permissions set for other products is broader now.

> This is a fantastic example of motivated reasoning.

Did we read the same short article? [not parody]

It's so short, we can copy paste it here and then you can point out where he reasoned that Google did this with intent to track.

> But the blog post basically list a single symptom and jumps right to the one conclusion that fits what the author expects.

OP is simply stating a consequence of this change!

"Congratulations, you now have permission to geo-track me across all of your services."

I think it’s the part where he says “Smart move, Google.”

> [...] though I'm sure they're just beginning to transfer their services to the main google.com domain.

This and the wording across the article imply more than the factual changes. But granted, hooby's comment above is probably more correct than what I wrote.

Are people really surprised when they hand their location off to a domain that any other part of the domain might have access to it? Like, taking away the technical specifics of how location allows actually works, you’ve given the data to the _company_. At the very least, they throw it on an internal service and allow other parts of the company’s infra to grab it.

Didn't know this has a name. It feels that it's the main mode of reasoning in society.

The only conclusion this article made is that google now has the permission to-do so, and this is 100% correct - motivated or not. Although, given you overly defensive response makes me suspect you have more insight than we do..

Reply on news.ycombinator.com