Yet here you are with the "WELL AKSHUALLY..." brigade.
Do you work in bigtech?
[1] I do note that you're the one caveating here, by trying to qualify "access" meaning "targeted adverts and content", which needless to say is not actually access to the data. Extensive attempts have been made over the years to try to deanonymize the ad feed (as often as not to get clicks at sites like this) and only a handful of holes have been found. There is no access to the data, period.
Now, can you PLEASE try to restate your complaint in a way that isn't just a lie? Maybe construct it about how the "exploit" data that they hold internally? It can be done. But not like this. This is lying.
For the rest of us, I don't see why it's supposed to be acceptable that Google hoovers up all our data, but a horrible violate when Samsung does the same thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You can use that service to get enough context clues about certain targets to identify someone [0] [1]. Will most advertisers do this? Not five years ago but it's vanishingly easy now to get an LLM to gin up bespoke algorithms that will do it for you. And the door between Google's servers and federal LEOs has no latch and they share plenty of byte-for-byte data with agencies like ICE (which is literally one of my links).
I don't understand the point of being so hyperfixated on word choice since this is just Hacker News and not a court of law. But I suppose everyone makes their choices for a reason even if that reason has more to do with some reactionary and emotional outburst rather than any actual substantive additions to the discussion.
[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.04031
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/google-dv360-banned-audience-seg...
The bottom line being that what you have amounts to a plausible security flaw. Which the market has been treating as such, reasonably effectively.
Yet you are all claiming that Google is literally offering "here's user data for sale at a price". Which they are not and never have. And that's not the same thing, and you know it.
It's one thing to claim a company's product is bad or insecure. It's quite another to lie about them. And fine, that produces a (sigh) "reactionary and emotional outburst". HN used to be so much better about rational discourse. Now it's all about who our enemies are.
OP did not say that, has clarified his intent. At this point I think you are the one willfully misinterpreting the discussion at hand, either so you can "win" at internet pedantry, or perhaps so you can feel better about the evil panopticon you have helped build.
Plus, this service requires that you trust Google to store that data which, for the third time, is not exactly great given their collusion with agencies like ICE (something you've ignored repeatedly now). In the age of NSPM-7, this is absolutely a concern worth agitating about: https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/how-nspm-7-seeks...
Also, this service requires you to trust that Google spends enough money preventing intrusions which, if you've been following infosec news, is no longer even a modicum of a priority for them: https://x.com/loobeny/status/2049942398416122250
You had a strong reaction. Now you're digging a hole, ignoring points that detract from your reactionary thesis, and ignoring the wider context in order to focus on an accusation fully based on your specific interpretation of my writing, not the substance of the content. If you want rational discourse then you should do better than simple sophistry - just because you have some pet peeve that you globally accuse all HN commenters of having doesn't make it more true. Those who claim they have no confirmation bias are the ones who are the most likely to have it.