
Keeping your private information private - tantalor
https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/keeping-private-information-private/
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code4tee
"Privacy is at the heart of everything we do"

Really?

A more accurate statement is probably:

"Privacy is at the heart of everything we do. Unless we think we can make
money off your data. Then it’s a feature providing great targeted user
experiences not a privacy issue. You know, how we block the ‘bad’ trackers in
our products, just not our own. We make money off your data with our trackers
so it would be silly of us to block those. But other than that sure, yeah,
privacy is important. Our marketing people tell me I should keep saying that.”

But you know, details.

~~~
pszndr
Privacy as in, "we'll keep your data only with us and not share it with anyone
else"

Which they don't do, don't need to do, and will not do. Since they serve ads
themselves, it would work against their own business if the data spread to
somewhere else

~~~
Kednicma
And this tradeoff is implicit in every attempt to move away from Google. For
example, watching Youtube means that Google knows which videos I watch;
watching Peertube means that some folks in the swarm know which videos I
watch. Google is trying to establish a reputation as less likely to extort or
ruin you than various advanced persistent threats.

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jedberg
Everyone is ripping on their opening statement, but it's because you've all
missed the implied missing clause:

Privacy [of your data from other humans, except for people in the government]
is at the heart of everything we do.

They have no problem sharing your data with machines though, especially their
own machines.

I actually trust that Google doesn't have humans reading my email or looking
at my location history. But I also know that their machine learning algorithms
most certainly do.

And maybe a government agent here or there without telling me...

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bprasanna
Yes, "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" \- Never expected this line
from Google! Really google, do you want to have that as your opening statement
for a blog post!

If the answer is yes, please make us feel confident about it!

Found it amusing because, the Privacy in Google is not straight forward (means
not promoted by Google, like Apple), the users have to take the responsibility
of their privacy by navigating the Settings maze and turn the knobs to attain
the real Privacy!

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exabrial
> Privacy is at the heart of everything we do

No it's not. Fucking outright lies.

* You can't use the google assistant without turning on location tracking or web history

* You can't use your podcast app without web history

* I can't disable Google scanning of my email for product purchases

* I can't disable Google tracking me across the web without arcane browser extensions

* On-device speech recognition doesn't exist

* On the linked page, where's the option to delete my information immediately rather than 3 months?

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Spivak
Look, I 100% agree with you but there's not much point in trying to fight the
river on this one. Google considers Google a trusted entity with your data.
From their perspective keeping your data private is about keeping it safe from
others.

~~~
xd1936
100%. Privacy to them is not sharing your information outside of themselves.
Honestly, they have a much better track record than many other companies.

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kerng
>>Privacy is at the heart of everything we do

What an opening statement. An ingenuine statement (not to call it a lie) like
this actually prevented me to read further.

Maybe a more genuine statement, like "Privacy is important to our users and
the safety of our society, hence we want to improve" or whatever would have me
read further.

First, you have to admit fault, then you get to offer a solution and I decide
if I use Google or not. And I don't at the moment.

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el_nino
Google's business model is antithetic with "privacy". This is by design and
very much out in the open, they are an advertising company, their revenue is
literally and as publicly as possible coming from _not_ keeping your data
private. Expecting Google to give you privacy is like asking a funeral home to
extend your life. It's just not their business model.

Wow, seconds to minutes after comments highlighted the crass hypocrisy of
Google's "Privacy is at the heart of everything we do" they are all downvoted.

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annoyingnoob
> Control on your terms

Not really, my terms are that Google can take a hike.

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goodcjw2
I sort of (very cynically) like FB's statement: "Sorry, invading your privacy
is just our business model." At least it's honest.

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seemslegit
Sundar Pichai was personally responsible for google's in-depth user tracking
strategy across services, sites and devices even in incognito mode and the
overall spywarization of chrome and android.

He is dishonourable, untrustworthy and any privacy posturing made by him and
google should only serve so as to make their often-involuntary users that much
more wary.

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dang
We moved some comments to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23642432](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23642432)
which was on the front page at the same time.

Most remain here since they're reacting to a specific sentence in this post.

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surround
> As always, we don’t sell your information to anyone

Well, yeah, obviously. Why would they sell your data to competing ad networks?

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infogulch
A thing is what it _does_ , not what it says.

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daenz
You have to establish trust before anyone will believe your claims on privacy.
What is the trustworthiness of Google? Pretty damn low, I'd say.

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close04
Reading about how to hold your data private on Google's blog feels like
learning how to have a healthy romantic relationship from a porn site.

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camdenlock
> Privacy is at the heart of everything we do

Good god...

~~~
Minor49er
They don't expose how much information that they have about everyone, let
alone what kinds of information. In that regard, they're not wrong.

