
Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking - technocracy
https://twitter.com/jonathanmayer/status/1044300922149588993
======
polkadotted
I'm not sure why people are surprised. Google has been downright evil for
quite a while now. They do this in all their products, down to the point of
intentionally crippling them.

For instance, since Android 5, the standard contact app doesn't allow you to
_modify_ a contact which is not synced with an account. Why even _do_ this?
The list of tracking settings that can be turned permanently on, but only
_temporarily_ off is ever growing. At some point, you just give up because
it's such a silly waste of time. Google knows this very well.

Almost all the google websites, except google search, work badly on anything
except chrome. I mean, google groups is rotten already on chrome, but just try
it on firefox for the full experience.

Maps (the website) used to be a game-changer in the past. It was insanely
fast. Nowdays I hate it. The UI is just horrid. On Firefox it just misbehaves
constantly. I only use it for streetview, and still I'm appalled at how badly
it has evolved.

They are pushing still impressive libraries and tools. But there's not a
single of their products I still like to _use_.

~~~
degenerate
The new Gmail, Adwords, and Analytics run horribly slow in FF, so I have a
separate Chromium portable installation simply for those pages. It's so
annoying that Google only cares how their own products run in Chrome.

~~~
clubm8
> The new Gmail, Adwords, and Analytics run horribly slow in FF, so I have a
> separate Chromium portable installation simply for those pages. It's so
> annoying that Google only cares how their own products run in Chrome.

Reminds me of when Microsoft used to optimize it's products for Windows and
other OSs were an afterthought...

~~~
jhasse
That's still the case.

~~~
reitanqild
That might be but I'm using dotnet core and vscode on Linux now and except
autocomplete being weaker than I'm used to in Java and config files being a
mess, -both of which are true on Windows as well, I haven't found a single
thing to complain about.

And while I have stopped trusting MS (again) after their recent browser
failure it seems they are very much trying to sell software and services on
all platforms.

------
maxwellito
But the funny part is Google keep your saved addresses. It only block the
access.

If you have your home and/or work address set in Gmaps, and you disable all
tracking in myactivity.google.com. The address will disappear and GMaps will
invite you to reactive App and Web tracking. If you do it, your saved
addresses will reappear. This is slightly dodgy.

~~~
verytrivial
> This is slightly dodgy.

It is punitive. They are (and are within their rights to) withholding value
because you aren't giving them what they want, which is mineable activity
information.

I notice that there are always cartoons of happy users getting additional
useful features from their services when tracking is enbled, but never cute
cartoons of the other actors extracting value based upon advertising etc.
Truth In Condescending Explain-o-Toons, now! etc.

~~~
maxwellito
I completely understand, it's in their right, absolutely.

However, once you disable the tracking, the UI no longer show the address and
even say "Set location" under Home address and Work address. This let you
think that Google doesn't have this information, which is false. This makes me
feel like Google got info about me and I can't use it. I find this part dodgy.
Once you disable a setting it should be clearer that data is not deleted.

~~~
pythonaut_16
Sounds more like a UI bug/oversight than intentional deception.

Google Maps UI has a feature to display your set home address, once you turn
off tracking or whatever it no longer has access to that home address in its
UI so the default state is to ask you to set one.

If that's the case then the real problem would be that the address data is
siloed off somewhere in your Google account under maps and isn't accessible to
be changed/cleared from your general account settings.

------
maxxxxx
In a way stuff like this and the recent news that they don't delete their own
cookies from Chrome when deleting all cookies could be good news. It seems to
become clearer and clearer that Google is getting desperate to squeeze more
and more data out of people in order to sell that data. Hope they will lose
their good guy image because now they are just another big greedy company like
all others. Nothing wrong with that though. It's just good for people to
realize that.

~~~
hylianwarrior
Why on earth would you think Google would sell its most valuable asset? Google
does not sell user data, it builds on it. The more data they get, the better
and better their AI will develop.

Looking back, when they announced they were going to become an AI-first
company these sort of drastic data-grabs and privacy issues should have been
apparent. But hindsight is 20/20...

~~~
pluma
%s/sell/monetise/g

You know what they meant. Google is milking users for all data they can derive
from their activity and creating value from that. It's not so much the use of
the data that's the problem as the lengths they go to to create that data.

I recall someone from one of the major tech companies talking about how their
users "emit data", implying the data just happens and their role is purely
passive with the users practically handing them that data. That's a perverse
way of looking at it when you contrast it with e.g. the GDPR's premise that
data belongs to the user and companies need (withdrawable) consent to collect
and process it.

In the US tech companies don't collect user data, users "emit" it -- even if
the only reason the data is "emitted" is because the tech is actively spying
on its users' every move.

~~~
tracker1
That in and of itself is the sole reason Google doesn't bug me as much as some
other networks (Facebook comes to mind).

They provide a lot of value, but in the end, I think a lot of their products
will eventually use market and mindshare.

------
huy-nguyen
I want to be able to quickly input my home address into google map but don’t
want to turn on google search history so I had to resort to an imperfect
solution: use the “text replacement” feature to expand a unique short phrase
like “hmad” to the full home address when typed into the google maps search
bar.

~~~
GycDH6mb
I use "&&" as the shortcut for for my address, "@@" for my email, and "##" for
my phone

For my work address, email, and phone, I just append "w"

------
techntoke
This! They used to allow you to, but now I don't save my home address and
can't use a lot of Google features because they want you to enable activity
tracking. WTF... why do I need all my activity to be tracked to use basic
features?

~~~
avh02
My favorite part has been them pretending they no longer store your address,
but when search results on the web places a pin they somehow manage to suggest
it's an "x minute drive" from home... Which is it Google? Do you have the
address saved or not? You forget where my address is only when it's
inconvenient and coercive?

~~~
Buge
Are you sharing your location? Maybe nothing is stored, but your current
location is used for searches you make.

~~~
lovich
I've had the same results when I've explicitly not shared location.

I will also use Google maps to find the route to some restaurant, turn off the
GPS because I don't like being tracked and it's no too far, then head to the
restaurant within 10-60 minutes of when I checked the GPS. If I have wifi on I
will invariably get asked to rate the restaurant within 5 minutes of arriving
there, regardless of how much time has passed since I checked the route.

I currently use a Pixel phone, but based on the experiences I've had, I will
be switching to an iPhone in the hope that I get tracked less. After switching
to Firefox and ddg as my daily drivers, I just need to get off of Gmail and I
will be google free

~~~
Buge
Are you turning off GPS or all location? Because location can still be enabled
when GPS is off. There's location via wifi and via bluetooth.

~~~
lovich
The location option in the android quick menu. I was unaware there was any
other way to even turn off the GPS. I assumed it was wifi since it seems to
not happen when the wifi is turned off.

It would have at least been corporate speak to have an option called GPS that
people assumed was location tracking and was not. Having an option called
"Location" that does not stop your phone from tracking your location when
turned off has crossed the line into fraudulent behavior for me

~~~
Buge
Hmm, that seems to completely turn off all location. So I don't know why
google would seemingly still know your location.

~~~
lovich
All they need to do is see what wifi connections I can reach on my phone. In
any urban area you can easily reach 50+ wifi connections standing in one spot.
If google knows X wifi connection corresponds to Y range of a physical
location because of someone else left their location and wifi on, then they
can tell that if I can reach 4 or 5 different wifi connections at once then I
must be at a certain address.

It's like browser fingerprinting. It doesn't take very many bits of entropy
before you are identifiable

~~~
Buge
Yeah, I know about using wifi for location. But I think turning the android
location setting off disables that (in addition to disabling gps and bluetooth
location). These pages indicate that:

[https://support.google.com/android/answer/3467281](https://support.google.com/android/answer/3467281)

[https://support.google.com/android/answer/6179507](https://support.google.com/android/answer/6179507)

------
JoshMnem
Why are people surprised when a company that fundamentally doesn't believe in
privacy does these kinds of things?

Edit: quote removed -- see child comments.

~~~
dpq
Why don't you post the rest of the quote as well?

> I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone
> to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really
> need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including
> Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for
> example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and
> it is possible that all that information could be made available to the
> authorities.

Kinda changes the whole context from "secrets are for bad people" to "you
shouldn't use Google with anything really secret, because government".

I'm really dismayed that a lot of good people and orgs keep misrepresenting
this quote for many years by cutting it out of the context. This doesn't mean
that Google is automatically your friend, btw.

~~~
ENGNR
The reality is that I don’t want a search engine in my phone.

Maybe it wasn’t the case when he said that quote, but the story here is
they’re trying very hard to blur the line between their services and the
device itself, in some very awkward ways that don’t make a lot of sense except
except beyond their own business needs

~~~
sundarurfriend
> The reality is that I don’t want a search engine in my phone.

For what it's worth, I've disabled the 'Google' app on my Android phone for a
few weeks now, and have experienced no problems. I don't use Google for
search, and I already had Chrome disabled too, so all it did was take up some
memory and battery, now freed up. All I lost was an extra screen on the mobile
"desktop" (which I mostly only accidentally ended up in anyway), and some
(generally useless) notifications about "things I might like".

------
ENGNR
I can’t even ask my phone to set an alarm anymore without giving it my entire
web and app history.

Google is vulnerable here as they’re creating a very real need for basic
alternatives

~~~
Analemma_
They’re creating a need, but that doesn’t mean they’re creating a market
opportunity. Google has taught everyone that all this stuff should be free,
and that’s no accident: it’s a deliberate strategy to suck up all available
oxygen away from potential competitors. Someone (Ben Thompson maybe?)
described Google’s strategy as not just building a moat, but scorching the
earth for hundreds of miles in every direction from their castle. It’s
unbelievably difficult to build a direct competitor to Google unless you’re
starting from a position of huge capitalization (and even that’s no
guarantee... I don’t exactly see techies flocking to Bing after they complain
about Google)

~~~
inapis
This is so fucking true. If anything you can see this in the real marketplace.
Consumers have become so averse to paying for software because they see gmail,
google maps, google keep, docs and photos as available for “free” - meaning
they have to part with something from their life but not the cash, so why the
hell pay for anything else?

~~~
pdkl95
Even worse than undermining expectations about the price of software, since
google's general use apps (gmail, docs, etc.) are Service as a Software
Substitute (SaaSS[1]), Google is also undermining the basic concept of buying
a copy of software. Even as an intangible good, it's easy to understand the
value of owning a copy that you get to keep and use on your own terms. When
the same software is only available as a service, availability issues and
other risks that outside your control make the service less valuable.

Why should someone want to buy software when most of the software they see and
use regularly are unreliable services?

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-
really-s...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-
serve.en.html)

------
vamc19
On my Pixel 2XL, I cannot set temperature to Celsius on my home and lock
screen unless I allow this setting.

~~~
Jmcdd
When I had my Pixel I remember not being able to save reminders or events with
the assisstant unless I enabled Google Now Cards, which shoved advertisements
and bullshit articles onto my home screen

~~~
xvf22
I remember using Google now cards but stopped after they decided they needed
my full history to make them work. I guess I was lucky I missed the
advertisement phase.

------
xarball
The ridiculous part is if you had once had location tracking on before, and
had previously set your Home/Work address - Android Auto will still
occasionally offer you directions to Home/Work _spontaneously_ , despite
Android Auto refusing to let you "Navigate Home/Work" when you attempt to do
so on demand?

------
scalablenotions
Dark patterns seem to be becoming standard UX for Google now. I notice so much
of it all over their products.

~~~
a_imho
There is nothing dark about this, they are doing this in plain sight, there is
very little people (who wants to use Google services*) can do about it. Even
GDPR looks more and more toothless as days go by and nothing happens to
obvious violators and it only covers European users of course.

~~~
okal
Dark patterns aren't dark because they're "hidden". They're dark because
they're misleading, or coercive.

~~~
a_imho
Dark patterns are misleading, like highlighting the opt-in box for GDPR. No
one is tricking users here, there are no options, they are told to suck it up.

------
Too
On Android there's also the constant nagging to turn on GPS every time you
open the app just to check the opening hours of some business. Super
frustrating.

~~~
jasonvorhe
A maps app wanting to show the current location upon startup - isn't that to
be expected?

~~~
icebraining
No. Most times I use a maps app it doesn't need my location. Let it ask only
when I explicitly ask for directions from my location, or when I click on the
"center on my location" button.

------
knorker
Yeah, I've noticed this. They even taunt you, saying "hey, don't you want to
add Home address?" \- "Sure, _click_ " \- "So full tracking it is, then?"

------
calebh
Looks like Apple needs to run another 1984 ad during the Superbowl.

~~~
snaky
Super Bowl now streaming live on Sina Weibo, so it might be problematic.

~~~
balladeer
Is the US football (not soccer) that popular in China or lots of Americans use
Sina Weibo?

~~~
snaky
Neither. NFL just want to push it so much.

> The stakes are high for the league's bid to tap the enormous potential of
> China's 1.4 billion people. NFL is pushing tie-ups with more than a dozen
> platforms on regular television and online to help reach viewers, even at
> rush hour, Richard Young, managing director for NFL China, told Reuters in
> recent interviews.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/r-super-bowl-goes-social-
as-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/r-super-bowl-goes-social-as-nfl-seeks-
china-touchdown-2017-2)

------
danShumway
This has been the case for multiple years.

I'm NOT saying, "people shouldn't be surprised." By all means, be very
outraged and surprised about it, maybe something will change. What I am saying
is the fact that so many people are surprised on HN of all places means that
very few people here have ever turned off Web & App Activity tracking, even
just as a temporary experiment to see what would happen.

That makes me sad. Do it some time, you have no idea how many things on your
phone will break. Google does not want you turning off that permission; there
are a large number of other Google apps that exhibit behaviors just as
outrageous as this.

 _Please_ go do some some first-hand research. You can turn off Web & App
Activity temporarily. You can leave it off for even just a week, just to get a
feel for what happens.

[https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols](https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols)

~~~
danShumway
My personal favorite restriction: turn off Web & App Activity and then try to
use a voice command to call/text another person. You can't use voice commands
with contacts if you have the permission turned off.

I always forget that when I'm trying to do hands-free commands while driving.
I have to pull over and manually click on the contact. I can't just use voice
commands and put the phone on speaker.

It's outright vindictive, to the point of being legitimately dangerous. You
can still add contacts, and their names still show up everywhere on the phone.
You just don't get to hands-free dial any of them, because... somehow Google
needs access to my search history to do that? It's one of the most
straightforward examples of higher-ups in Google prioritizing user tracking
over user safety.

------
baumgarn
Been annoyed about this for a long time. Google still knows about my home
address as I have that label set in my Google Maps settings, it just won't let
me use it unless I allow them to track all my search history. Wtf. Evil design
pattern for sure.

------
r_singh
I wonder what would happen if the world somehow managed to boycott Google,
Facebook and Amazon as a protest against privacy issues and anti-competitive
practices by these cos.

We already have the alternatives ready, network effects so strong smh

------
clubm8
I am a privacy conscious person, I've been using the Here We Go app on iOS for
directions:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/here-wego-city-
navigation/id...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/here-wego-city-
navigation/id955837609)

It has very cool feature - offline maps. By downloading your state/country's
maps, you don't have to query a server for every little mapping request.

Between this app and saved podcasts, I'm able to switch off my mobile large
chunks of the day.

~~~
dwighttk
How do they make money? Their site seems to point to selling some kind of
information to companies:

[https://www.here.com/en/industries/media/advertising](https://www.here.com/en/industries/media/advertising)

------
ridiculous_fish
Chronicling the sign-in pressure:

[https://twitter.com/ridiculous_fish/status/10389160047204311...](https://twitter.com/ridiculous_fish/status/1038916004720431105)

------
cyborgx7
This is not GDPR compliant.

~~~
iknowstuff
Huh, good point!

------
makecheck
I set up a Shortcuts (formerly Workflow) to auto-map to my home address in
Directions view, which is far more convenient anyway.

There isn’t much point in creating lists of important places within the app
because Google can’t seem to figure out how to show these to you in fewer than
5 taps/screens. It’s crazy when the 3rd party solution can provide more direct
access in an app than the app itself.

~~~
Angostura
That's quite a clever solution.

------
dgzl
I think I'm going to become an Apple user.

------
alpb
FWIW this is not new. This has been the case for the past couple of years at
least.

------
dabernathy89
You also can't use Google Home to control iot devices (in my case just a wifi
plug) without having that setting enabled. I know most folks concerned about
this tracking wouldn't have a Google Home anyway, but it was annoying to me
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

------
esaym
I won't give them my home address any way. If I want directions to "my house",
I google an address on a block down the street.

~~~
ux-app
they still know where you live. Your phone stops moving for 8 hours in the
same spot every night. That's where you live. Unless you also leave your phone
in a neighbor's letter box in which case you fooled 'em good.

~~~
grogenaut
Sure, they know but they're putting usability behind "accept us tracking
everything" for anyone who has "opted out of tracking" several years ago.
Basically they're turning off more and more usability so that they can get you
to accept their tracking agreement.

They do this with btle as well, you have to turn on location services because
they can't bother to randomize bluetooth tags (like apple) and want this
setting on all the time.

------
inetknght
I'm pretty sure it's been like this for a while though. I distinctly remember
going through that when I was moving recently.

------
anonytrary
This is not very least-privilege of them. I would measure a company's trust
based on the error:

    
    
      |whatTheyAskFor - whatTheyNeed|/whatTheyNeed. 
    

This number should be << 1\. Being error-prone doesn't make you look very
good. Stop asking for more than you need, it shows that you don't really care
about your customers. You look less competent when you require more
permissions than you need to accomplish a task. Don't do that.

------
pmlnr
I stopped updating the 2 remaning Google applications on my phone - apart from
the damned play services, let's not even go there -: maps and translate.

Maps is at 8.4.1[^1]. Before 9, it all worked reasonably, it wasn't giving me
the creepy "Are you at ?" push notification, it all just worked. Yes, it's
most probably still tracking me, but at least it not _that_ annoying as the
new ones.

Translate is at 3.0.12[^2]. v4 was the "let's use AI". What happened in
reality: offline translation, english to chinese, v3, 2014: people more or
less understood after looking at it long enough. v4, 2016: blank stares at the
text, then they gave us Baidu translate. Comparing the 3 things - v3, v4,
baidu - v3 and baidu had some resemblance, , v4 was something completely
unrelated.

I've seen software "evolving" for 25+ years now, and I'm pretty certain each
and every piece of it has a pinnacle, when functionality meets (learnable)
usability. After that it's first too many functions, than dumped down
interface with not enough functions, then "AI" and non-functioning
functionality. There's nearly never a OK, let's take a step back, which is so
desperately needed.

As a result, I decided to stop updating some of my software, because it won't
get any better for a very long while.

[^1]: [https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-
inc/maps/maps-8-4-1-5-r...](https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-
inc/maps/maps-8-4-1-5-release/) [^2]: [https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-
inc/translate/translate...](https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-
inc/translate/translate-3-0-12-3-release/)

------
raffael-vogler
What is your Google Maps alternative of choice for Android?

I wish OsmAnd ([https://osmand.net/](https://osmand.net/)) would be more
interactive on the map and complete regarding addresses. For example if I want
to know which bus or subway to take to get from A to B in Hamburg I always
have to resort to Maps.

~~~
laurent123456
I like Maps.me [https://maps.me/](https://maps.me/) because it works offline
and I can easily add markers to it, which are saved to a simple XML file on
the phone (so it means even the app disappear, I can move them to another
app). I also like that I can correct or add new places via my
openstreetmap.com account.

It's based on OpenStreetMap and is reasonably accurate. The main disadvantage
is that search is not that great but you get use to it once you know what it
works and doesn't work with.

------
tell_g
I realized all this when google made my android phone practically useless [
back in the day when play store was markets ], those days google maps worked
like a charm on edge connection, only showed as much info needed and there was
no such thing as google play services.

I had used that phone, and then google started pushing play services, play
store into my phone.

the market app would not download any app without being transformed into the
play store app which would require google play services.

These took space on my phone, and the phone did not have space to even save
sms.

Installing, side loading apks and all is fine but you don't and can't tell
your parents in a 3rd world country.

It became horrible one day when I wanted to just run android market on my
phone and google forced to download play store, play services, and market
transformed into play store and it took more than 100 MiB data. I was trying
to show my parents as to how to download something from market, etc. whatsapp
was becoming popular in my town. It was horrible because 100Mib of data costs
money and screen flashed twice.

Then I had to give up. I had not got much money at that time.

Now, what I do.

I make an obscure email account [not gmail] on yahoo or ms or any tuta and
make a google account using that email [ not gmail ] and you can keep changing
the google' account email.

Google tracks your location, but it also correlates your location against your
emails [ it never stopped reading emails ], don't use gmail at all.

You cannot avoid tracking of location, but you can avoid cross check of
tracking info with your gmail content.

The gmail which is use actually is never synced to any device [ have deleted
all the my activity permissions ] and I have turned up forwarding from gmail
to a certain address which I open using firefox klar once a day.

Summary :

DO NOT USE THE SAME GOOGLE ACCOUNT FOR GMAIL AND ALL OTHER GOOGLE SERVICES.

------
LinuxBender
From my experience, multiple companies have caught on and are doing this.

\- NVidia: Block their telemetry, and their driver installer will block, even
if you downloaded that massive driver package.

\- Microsoft: Block their telemetry and some aspects of XBox One will break,
including the Windows-10 streaming of the XBox. I found this to not be
consistently true, so I am not sure what is going on behind the scene.

\- Occulus Rift: You can't even block this telemetry. It's in the same app
flow as the headset. If you block the telemetry to Facebook, the headset won't
even work.

I predict that more and more companies will move critical services to the same
DNS name or IP that their telemetry are using.

------
archi42
They've been doing that quite a while now. Funnily, they still let me use my
workplace, (sometimes) but never my home address.

Just more incentive to move away from Google (which is sad, because the
services are great; I'd even pay for them!)

------
danmg
Why would you want to let them know where you live or work in the first place?

~~~
sbtrct
For me, it was so that when I'm somewhere I don't know, I can type 'home' into
the maps search box and get directions.

I turned off Google's activity tracking on iOS a couple of months ago, and
only realised that Google Maps wasn't storing my home location when I used it
for directions while stuck in traffic and it sent me to a nearby nursing home
instead of my house.

I ended up turning activity tracking back on, because Apple maps still isn't
fit for purpose where I live (Ireland). I often need directions down small
rural roads, and four times out of five Apple Maps won't recognise the
destination address, or will send me to a nearby but incorrect location.

~~~
chrisper
Have you tried HERE?

------
cyphunk
I thought this was already the case for years. If you use android and have a
google account setup, which is essential to downloading apps, it already
tracks the user in the map app.

------
throwaway6789
Another one is if you remove body sensor permission for Google play services.
Once you do that, Maps will keep on showing an error notification every few
minutes.

------
gaia
I've switched to the Vivaldi browser after all these privacy undermining
"features" Google has been rolling out.

But I am happy Android now allows setting your own DNS - you are no longer
restricted to Google DNS. I am waiting for X-Privacy to be made available for
Android 9.

Apple products are not an option for me. It's Linux, Windows and Android in my
world.

------
amaccuish
I made a similar remark here [0] about how disabling search history means
Google Maps can't even save locally your search history on Google Maps.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17779757](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17779757)

------
nazgul17
I noticed this a few weeks back, when I disabled all tracking. The easy
solution on Android was to have two shortcuts, one to home and one to work.
That's ignoring the fact that I am still using Android and probably I am still
being tracked some way.

------
h2onock
Anyone would think that Google want to track you wouldn't they. Oh wait...

------
jraph
On Osmand, saving one's home address, or any place for that matter, is easily
done by clicking on the star button. One can categorize places if they want
to.

This is stored offline on the device.

------
kerng
The big question for Google: What revenue stream lies beyond ads? What else
could you make money off to inspire again? Rather then just selling out your
users on a daily basis.

~~~
zavi
Their cloud business doubles every year. Play & hardware are also considerable
now: [https://qz.com/1334369/alphabet-q2-2018-earnings-google-
is-m...](https://qz.com/1334369/alphabet-q2-2018-earnings-google-is-more-than-
just-advertising-now/)

~~~
kerng
Their cloud business is tiny compared to Amazon and Microsoft. They are a
little late to that party. Play store is interesting and not much competition
at all.

------
nerbert
Google has gone rogue...

------
murukesh_s
Looks like google has hit a gold mine with some algorithm to better sell ads
or is under pressure from competitors (Facebook) to gather more data than they
have currently.

Their lack of presence in social media will hurt them in the long term. In
Facebook you upload pictures, you like stuff, you spend more time on someone's
profile, you hover more on an ad even if you don't click all these while you
are logged in. Google doesn't have that graph unless they link gmail with
search. No one logs into Google search and give their identity, but we do
pretty much the same in Facebook.

~~~
amf12
>you upload pictures, you like stuff, you spend more time on someone's profile
>Google doesn't have that graph

Google has that information from the contacts of all Android phones, Google
Photos, etc. Granted they don't probably have the information from iPhones,
but then a lot of people don't have or use their FB account too.

> No one logs into Google search and give their identity

No one here. Most of the non-tech people (and some tech people) do log into
Chrome and Google account, which means they are logged into Search too.

~~~
murukesh_s
> Google has that information from the contacts of all Android phones

Not really. Manufacturers like Xiaomi (and I believe Samsung) use their own
cloud to sync stuff.

> "Most of the non-tech people (and some tech people) do log into Chrome and
> Google account"

That is the recent change right? Like said, google seems desperate to get into
that information graph.

------
TheArcane
Sincere question about activity controls: What stops Google from collecting my
web and app activity anyway even if I explicitly turn it off on my dashboard?

------
joeblau
I've seen a lot of outrage at Google's practices over the previous 2 weeks.
Has Google actually reversed course on any of their decisions?

------
adiusmus
But google are great. This is a feature of their online service. They need all
your information in order to sell it so others can search and find it.

Or something.

~~~
jasonvorhe
If your argument starts with "sell your information"-like FUD, it's difficult
to take anything you say serious.

------
Alex3917
I wonder how many people have died in car accidents while trying to type their
home address because of this while driving.

~~~
trophycase
Not even joking, I rear ended someone while trying to dismiss the "USE OUR
APP" popup that comes when you navigate via maps.google.com instead of the
phone app.

~~~
pavanred
I have been using OsmAnd~ [0] lately and have been pretty happy with it as an
alternative. Uses open street maps, works offline, pretty good and
configurable app.

[0]
[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/)

~~~
brewdad
The big issue preventing me from using something like OsmAnd is my need for
real-time traffic. Generally, I can figure out where a place is with only the
address since the N-S streets in my city are numbered and the first digits of
an address on a cross-street corresponds to the numbered Avenues. Traffic,
OTOH, can easily vary by 30 minutes on a 15 mile trip day to day even without
any crashes along the route.

Is there an open, or at least more private, app that can give me accurate
traffic data?

~~~
mbudde
Maps.me, which also uses OpenStreetMap data, can show live traffic info. Not
sure where they get the data from or whether it's accurate.

------
Too
Disable auto translation of reviews in Google maps is also another anti-
feature that for no reason requires sign in.

------
bnastic
First politician to seriously stand behind breaking up big web/data-collecting
giants gets my vote.

------
SubiculumCode
Pretty much. Companies are good until they star leveraging their market
position. Either you give us everything, or you can't do basic things.

A work around was to create a G Maps link on my phone with directions to an
address (e.g., home).

But honestly, I took the plunge and carry around a feature phone now. Haven't
missed the smartphone much.

------
Angostura
Its why I've never logged into Google Maps on my iPhone and I never will.

------
growt
This has been like this for years. I always thought it was kind of scammy

------
thisgoodlife
Wait... What? You don't mind telling Google where your home is, but you mind
it tracking your online activity? Shouldn't home address be more sensitive?

~~~
jpalomaki
For many of us home address is not very sensitive information. What we do
online can be.

It’s not just what Google knows about you. If your account is compromised,
attacker may be able to download all historicsl information and share it with
everybody.

~~~
jasonvorhe
Why not use client-side encryption for all that?

------
Havoc
Google is on a roll lately...

~~~
tumetab1
or hacker news is :)

Besides Chrome 69, issues like this are not new, we are just taking a moment
of "wait a minute, Google is bad? they also did X, Y, Z in the past"

------
dredmorbius
The banality of Google.

------
amelius
Any good un-Googling tips for someone stuck with an Android phone, Moto G4?

~~~
pmlnr
It's harder than it looks.

In theory, there's microg, in reality, if you do a complete un-googling, most
push notifications won't come through.

If you do want to try it:

\- factory reset the phone to get rid of any google accounts

\- root the phone

\- get "System app remover (ROOT)"[^1]

\- remove all google applications, except google play services and framework

\- reboot

\- remove remaining google applications

\- reboot

\- get xposed[^2] and fakegapps[^3] and hope it works

\- get microG[^4], maybe through nanodroid[^5]

\- pray for it to work

I managed to get this running once, not ever again on a marshmallow based
devices, and even when it did, push notification were a lottery, they may or
may not work.

[^1]:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jumobile.m...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jumobile.manager.systemapp&hl=en_US)
[^2]: [http://repo.xposed.info/](http://repo.xposed.info/) [^3]:
[http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.thermatk.android.xf.fakeg...](http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.thermatk.android.xf.fakegapps)
[^4]: [https://microg.org/](https://microg.org/) [^5]:
[https://nanolx.org/nanolx/nanodroid](https://nanolx.org/nanolx/nanodroid)

~~~
amelius
Thanks, but I was more thinking along the lines of installing a new OS (Linux)
and running Android apps (e.g. for banking) in a sandbox. Is that possible?

~~~
pmlnr
Not at this point in time, as far as I'm aware.

I've been trying to do this on my linux, so far, I failed; all the android
emulators are extremely slow.

~~~
amelius
Okay, thanks. I might buy an Apple phone then.

------
jeromebaek
Time to give Bing a chance.

------
digitaLandscape
There was a lot of uproar about this internally but nothing changed. They told
us that this was the only "practical" option.

The company has rotted.

~~~
lvs
From the outside, it seems to have reached a tipping point in the past year
that is now getting quite dramatic. A whole string of heavy-handed, anti-user,
and privacy-hostile decisions. What just happened to the culture that would
allow all this evil behavior? Or did we misunderstand it all along?

~~~
computerfriend
> Or did we misunderstand it all along?

I think yes. Google has been considered "evil" by the tinfoil hat crowd for
quite some time, and once again it has become apparent to the mainstream that
they were right.

~~~
singularity2001
Google died when Smith said you have no privacy now[0]. Well I have no Google
now. Fallback almost never used.

[0] can't find actual quote, did I dream?

Quoth: “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less
know what you’re thinking about”

~~~
icebraining
You didn't dream:
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/04/google_ericisms/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/04/google_ericisms/)

------
Arcadcomp
Ah, the 'good' old Google. I'd say choose a different service, but not that
there is a viable choice.

------
eip
Just the tip bro.

------
yuhong
In the meantime, there is still a lack of interest in my essay on this.

~~~
ggm
And the link to your essay is ... where?

~~~
yuhong
[http://yuhongbao.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-doubleclick-
moz...](http://yuhongbao.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-doubleclick-mozilla-
overview_92.html)

~~~
ggm
You wrote an interesting blogpost, but I think its a stretch to say this
relates. Your essay is about click tracking and ads, and social media
tracking.

The prime issue under discussion here is that google demands you turn on
location tracking to use a feature, not that they do any kind of clicktrails.

