
Man sues over Google’s “Location History” fiasco, case could affect millions - plasticchris
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/did-google-violate-users-privacy-when-it-secretly-kept-location-data/
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badrabbit
Things that may or may not be true:

1) Google and other bigtech are essentially private sector branches of the
U.S. intelligence community.

2) Google,Facebook and other not-so-famous companies are interested in not
just behavioral analytics but also in behavior control and modification.

3) Google and Facebook can do a lot worse and get away with it,so long as they
do it slowly. It's not thay they want world domination or just making more
money,they're more concerned abour control. Making things more predictable,not
leaving important decisions and situations to chance and free will. Of course
some individuals have political ambitions (Eric Schmidt's new america
initiative for example).

4) Whoever controls them,controls the country and western civilization. Even
the greatest men will find that kind of power too difficult to wield without
selfish and malicious intent.

It's history stuck in a for loop,rulers vs the ruled.

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8bitsrule
Great analogy ... and that loop's been iterating for 5000 years ...

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badrabbit
It has,we pretend it's something new when it isn't and refuse to learn from
history.

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sverige
Wow, for once I could be a class member in a lawsuit that I'd actually like to
succeed. The only problem I foresee is measuring damages, but it's California,
so it might be possible to get them up to a billion. It'll take at least that
for Google to give a shit.

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Animats
Bypassing article and "skimresources" monetization (crypto coin mining?) leads
to the actual court filing.[1] He's suing in California.

[1] [http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4777351-gov-
uscourts-...](http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4777351-gov-uscourts-
cand-330787-1-0.html)

~~~
mrgriffin
Skimresources is probably an affiliate link thing (although they also try to
sell your data to power targeted advertising), see:
[https://skimlinks.com/](https://skimlinks.com/)

Source: I used to work there.

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mirimir
> Until the Associated Press story on August 13, Google's policy simply
> stated: "You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location
> History off, the places you go are no longer stored."

Hey, that's because it's in "activity history" ;)

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NeedMoreTea
Dang, can we lose the ?amp=1 from the URL please?

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arenaninja
This is one of several reasons why I stopped buying android phones

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sidyom
I believe this also affects iPhone users that utilize Google services like
Maps and searching via Chrome.

~~~
arenaninja
I don't have any google applications installed on the iPhone. I use the native
mail application connected to gmail for looking at my mail, and the browser
has google as the default search engine. That's about it

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srcmap
Love to be one of the juries in this case!

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jeremyjh
It won't go to a jury, but if it did I guarantee no one with a HN account will
be on it.

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ams6110
Yeah I've only been called for jury duty once, but I noticed that any
potential juror who seemed to have particular expertise or background in the
subject matter of the case was dismissed with a peremptory challenge.

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kerng
Non AMP version here: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/did-google-
viola...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/did-google-violate-
users-privacy-when-it-secretly-kept-location-data/)

Please dont post amp links.

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nprz
What is AMP? Why is it bad?

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stonogo
AMP is a Google CDN where they restrict the variety of web technologies
publishers may use. In return, Google gets more tracking data.

Some people don't like Google, so they don't want to load pages from AMP
servers.

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danso
What additional data does Google get through AMP that they don't get through
Google Analytics?

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zavi
Nothing, OP is ignorant. Google does AMP to make webpages faster cause they
make money from people clicking on links.

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kerng
Google lock in, like Microsoft's MSN idea in 1995... Google wants you to never
leave their servers, so they can track much more and much easier. Just bad for
a free and open web.

