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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

I know what upthread said, I literally (literally!) quoted it in my post. What you are claiming is (again, using the words from upthread post) categorically wrong. Google does not sell "access to" anyone's data[1]. Period. And if you genuinely believe you do I invite you to cite otherwise.

[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.

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I'm not sure why you're going so hard in the paint to be pedantic but sure, Google doesn't literally sell their exact byte-for-byte data, what they sell is a service that is functionally a few translation layers removed from their actual database. This is pretty much how all advertising SaaS works. When I wrote my comment, I was writing to an audience that I assumed was well aware of this given that most of us work in tech.

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...

I'm "going so hard" on this because you and the rest of the folks here are spinning so hard you're basically lying. You, at least, cite sorces. But your sources are attacks on the product. No one can do this on their own, you need resources and luck and the right combination of stuff. And... maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't. But it probably doesn't, the proof being that no one is getting unmasked/pwned/embarassed by this stuff.

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.

> you are all claiming that Google is literally offering

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.

They are effectively offering a user's data for sale, just obfuscated with their internal translation layers with a modicum of PII stripped. I'm calling you pedantic because you're conflating intent with impact. The impact of Google's advertising platform is hyper-narrow targeting of individuals based on their PII for a price.

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.

What would you claim that Google sells? From what does it extract value? If not its users data, then what?

They clearly don't sell "access to data". Selling "data" means I can pay them and ask a question about something and get an answer. That's what "data" is in common usage. It's information. Google doesn't sell anyone information like that. Period. Again, this is not in question.

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.

Maybe your objection is to the OP, because his point was perfectly clear to me. If you want to mentally substitute "exploit" for "access" because that helps you sleep at night, that's fine.

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)_/¯

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