Google has just released a new tool to manage your privacy and information. Here’s some of the things the new My Account tool can do:
- Take the Privacy Checkup and Security Checkup, our simple, step-by-step guides through your most important privacy and security settings.
- Manage the information that can be used from Search, Maps, YouTube and other products to enhance your experience on Google. For example, you can turn on and off settings such as Web and App Activity, which gets you more relevant, faster search results, or Location History, which enables Google Maps and Now to give you tips for a faster commute back home.
- Use the Ads Settings tool to control ads based on your interests and the searches you’ve done.
- Control which apps and sites are connected to your account.
Google has always been at the forefront of providing its user insight into and control over the information it has on you, and this tool fits right into that. It’d be great if the other tech giants – who collect the same information on you but act secretive and deceptive about it – were to follow in its footsteps.
Good thing this stuff isn’t tied to Android updates, though, or we wouldn’t be able to use it until 2034.
Anywho, in the same blogpost, the company also introduced a site where it answers questions regarding your information and privacy. In it, the company dispels a persistent myth – namely, that the company sells your information.
No. We do not sell your personal information.
We do use certain information, such as the searches you have done and your location, to make the ads we show more relevant and useful. Ads are what enable us to make our services like Search, Gmail, and Maps free for everyone. We do not share information with advertisers in a way that personally identifies you, unless you gave us permission. With our Ads Settings tool, you can control ads based on your interests and the searches you have done.
When you think about it, it makes zero sense for Google to “sell” or otherwise reveal your personal information to third parties. The information Google has on you is the goose that lays the golden eggs. It’s the very reason Google can earn so much money through advertising – it knows more about you than other advertisers do, and is better at inferring patterns and connecting the dots to show you more relevant ads.
In the end, though, the question is one of trust. Do your trust Google with your data? Do you trust Apple with that same data? Microsoft? Facebook? Personally, I have zero trust in any of these companies, and thus, anything that I do not want other people to know will not find its way onto my computers or devices. I have a very simple test for this: if I wouldn’t yell something loudly in a crowded restaurant or mall or something, it’s not going to be input in a computer or device.
As for ‘regular’ information that I have no issues with if companies know it, I personally definitely “trust” Google more than Apple or Microsoft, if only because Google is under a lot more scrutiny than others. Apple is incredibly secretive and deceptive about the information it collects on you, and provides far less insight into and control over it than Google does. Microsoft, meanwhile, has a proven history of questionable behaviour that’s well-documented – new Microsoft or no. Let’s not even talk about Facebook.
In the end, all these companies have virtually the same privacy policies, and you give them the same rights to your stuff if you upload it to them. I choose to use the one under the closest and most scrutiny and which gives me the most insight into and control over my data. Your choice might be different, but don’t delude yourself into thinking your data is safe at Google, Microsoft, Apple, or Facebook.
When it comes to privacy on the web, just assume everybody can see every bit you send – just like how everyone can hear you when you talk loudly in a crowded place. Do not trust any company, no matter how nice the PR sites look or how vicious its blogger attack dogs are.
Interesting.
Of course, 98.6% of the population gives a rats ass about privacy.
“Control which apps and sites are connected to your account.”
If only that were true. I’d love for the search site http://www.google.com to be disconnected from my gmail account, but it seems impossible…
I just don’t use the gmail account for anything except what apps I’ve bought. Never have trusted any of the big companies for such things.
Can’t you? I’m not sure how it works on Android these days, but I had the Gmail app handle my mail and did Google searches in Chrome while not being signed in back when I rocked a Nexus device. Checking my Google account settings showed none of my web search history, as far as I can recall.
Of course, Google probably used their IP triangulation voodoo to tie those searches into my profile anyway.
> We do not sell your personal information.
> We do not share information with advertisers in a way that personally identifies you, unless you gave us permission.
Did I give permission when I clicked through a ToS? If so, then they do “share information with advertisers in a way that personally identifies” me.
Which means that they *are* selling my personal information.
I don’t really care about random people knowing things in a situation where they can’t actually identify me ( like a crowded restaurant or mall). I do care about information that can be stored and used against me for things like loan applications, job interviews. If I yelled out ” I got drunk at work” at a restaurant, there is no way a future boss will learn of that. If I post a picture of it on facebook open to the public and searchable via google, well then its game over.
So you already know not to do that. What do you need the test for?
I always found it odd that companies will look at your facebook page at all. They should be looking at something like linkedin, where it has skill sets, etc.
I also find it annoying that everywhere you go online, “you should sign in with facebook!” I don’t want things tied to my facebook account, go away….
Some Facebook profiles are public searchable and come up in results.
Linked in is kind of a joke, IMHO. No validation of much that’s put up there. Its like a resume, with less credibility. Not sure why anyone puts stuff up there. Networking in tech circles is best done else where.
In theory, Linkedin should have plenty of validation. There is your skills list, where people can endorse you for the skills they know you are good with. And there are the recommendations, where people who have worked with you can say a few words.
In practice, people who know you just randomly endorse you for some skills, hoping this may help you in some way. Or worse, just click endorse to make an annoying window go away (Linkedin has such annoying windows). For the recommendations, it usually goes like “give me one and I will give you one”, just like in real life.
Yeah, I’ve only seen the real life version. Where the office idiots all claim that they are all rock start experts in doing stuff. When in reality they couldn’t write an algorithm to solve a second grade math problem.
They aren’t looking at facebook to determine your skills, they are looking at facebook to determine if you have any self respect…
Why would they limit their searches to Linkedin? They want to learn the truth about you, not just see a carefully constructed image.
Exactly. If you don’t want to see it in tomorrow morning’s headlines, don’t post it on the Internet. EVER!! There is no privacy on the Internet. Never has been, and probably never will be. This is simple enough that even muggles can understand it. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule (such as if you boot off a Tails USB key and use TOR with the right privacy settings, but the average layperson is never going to do that.)
Edited 2015-06-01 18:57 UTC
Well, yes. I do. But I don’t have a real world analogy to compare it to. I think that might help other less tech minded people think it through it better.
Trust me, everyone I know thinks I’m kind of insane for the things I do to prevent some rather tame information from being easily discovered. its still discoverable by humans looking for information, but its not easily done by computers at this point. I’m sure at some point it will be possible by them as well, and all of my hard work will be in vain. But I still try.
Recently I said farewell to my Windows 8 phone and bought a cheap chinese android phone.
I haven’t installed Google Play service yet and after 3 weeks I might decide never to do it, it is surprisingly functional with side loading and FDroid repository.
What I wonder is: does anyone know what Google Play service collects? Why is it so large and why is it always on? Why can’t it be a program that only runs when you install something? I don’t trust it.
I couldn’t find a link either what it exactly collects.
Google Play Services actually have a multitude of functions.
One is providing extra checks to work around security bugs on old versions of Android, e.g. CVE-2013-4787 “Master Key”.
Another is services for in-app purchases, cloud storage, location, game achievements etc.
For some of these functions, you can find free replacements in F-Droid, like Nlp Backends for geolocation services.
Do you know if it phones home to Google which applications you use? Or what your contacts are (assuming you don’t sync with Google). Or what apps are downloaded via sideloading or Amazon? Or what is in your Dropbox folder?
That’s what I hate about Google’s ‘Privacy’ notice. It only says that no personal data is shared, but it doesn’t tell the user what it actually collects.
What information does is Apple deceptive about collecting?
What information does it collect in secrecy?
We don’t know. Unlike Google, Apple provides little to no insight into the data it collects, and it provides little to no means of taking your data away from Apple, deleting data points, or similar things (all things Google makes possible). Apple, of course, has a privacy policy identical to that of the other tech giants (including Google), but as far as I know, they do not allow you to actually see and manage the data it collects.
For instance, I can go to here:
https://history.google.com/history/audio
And manage every voice search I’ve done on my Android device. Delete them, listen to them, etc. Can yo do this for iOS? And this is just one example.
Edited 2015-06-01 23:55 UTC
The question should be. Why are they collecting these things in the first place!?
An arsehole steals something from you and you reckon it’s ok because he’s got a depot where you can go to get some things back? Unbelievable!
Because that’s how server-side voice recognition works for Google, Apple, Microsoft, and others. Without it, voice recognition would be A LOT slower and far less accurate.
Of course, it’s entirely optional. At least on Android, you can turn it off completely (not sure about iOS and WP without looking it up).
Exactly – there is no evidence so anything can be tossed out speculatively. That is the definition of shoddy journalism.
The more central the collection and monetisation of data about user activity is to the business model of a company the more that company will be driven to collect and store individual user data. The collection and monetisation of user activity data is utterly marginal to Apple’s business model. It is central to Google’s business model.
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/4540094?hl=en
[i]Note: There isn’t a private browsing mode if you’re using the Google app on your Android or iOS device.[i]
In other words, all your searches are recorded, you have no option to privacy.
The recommended ‘privacy’ approach on browsers is ‘private browsing’.
Super creepy. Apple doesn’t store your voice searches in a way that would tie them to you personally. http://www.wired.com/2013/04/siri-two-years/
That to me is much better than searches being tied to my personal profile and it’s up to me to manually delete them all the time.
If you look at this a bit cynical you’d argue that sure, that’s what Apple *says*.
You could also argue that it’s a sly move by Google that implies that everyone does it but at least they’re telling you about it.
Dude, that’s pragmatic, not cynical.
My drug dealer just told me the same thing. He’s got a new drug to stop me taking drugs.
I just can’t believe all these nice gestures the slime balls of this world are ready to give out for free these days!
Seriously folks. Just log in to our new confirmation site so we can marry any details we may be missing on you to an actual you. There’s a zucker born every day.
I find this just hilarious. Facebook’s business model is identical to Google’s. They provide a free service in exchange for collecting your data and selling advertising. And yet Google has been successful in fooling people that they are somehow good.
Follow the money. That’s the only important thing you need to know when it comes to public companies.
American companies exist only to make money. How they make that money is their DNA.
Apple sells physical products with a nice profit margin. They also get 30% of all app and media sales through their popular stores. This makes up the bulk of their revenue.
Google has very few physical products to sell you, and most of the ones they have they give away in exchange for you granting them access to your personal data. This is because their primary source of income is targeted advertising sales using user demographics, browsing habits and personal content of emails, messages, and queries. Very similar to Facebook, and very profitable.
Apple has said continually that they do no profit from 3rd parties based on data from your profile, history, or habits. They release most the details about how/where/when they keep or delete your data. As long as you are happy with an Apple product and buy another one, they don’t need that revenue.
Also, if Apple was just like Google/Facebook/Microsoft people would know and treat them differently. If Apple “sold” us iPhones for $40 we’d know it was because they profit from our data, not our purchase.
Keep thinking an advertising company is the same as a computer company selling products, it won’t make it so.
Both companies have your data.
Who do you trust* – the one that details everything it collects from you, gives you complete, unfettered access to that data, allows you to delete that data, and extract it from them in order to move to a competitor – or the one that somewhat details all it collects, but gives you zero access to that data, does not give you any access to that data and does not allow you to delete or extract it? And remember, both of them are governed by the same privacy policy, and one of them even randomly took its users’ photos and used them for giant billboard ads, without asking them first (and it wasn’t Google!).
Of course, you are free to trust the secretive company you know nothing about, but I prefer to trust* the one that is open about how, why, and when it uses your data, and gives me access to and control over it.
* trust is far too strong a word here, as detailed in the original post. No smart person would ever give any technology company any serious data.
Edited 2015-06-02 14:10 UTC
I think I answered it clearly – I have more trust in the company that is not attempting to profit from my data.
I don’t care how much Google discloses, until they find another primary revenue source they will always farm users data and habits for profit.
You can believe Apple is lying to you and investigate. Go for it. I’d love more information on what they do with my data, and if/when they profit from knowing my personal demographics and selling that to a 3rd party. Perhaps they do this in iAd? I’ve never seen iAd “spying” on me, knowing what I’ve purchased, where I go online, etc. but perhaps Apple is just more subtle about it?
But you also need to know that a company telling you all the various ways they are profiting off your data is still worse than a company not doing it in the first place.
Many of these companies hide behind “trade secrets” here, with Google claiming their algorithms are their value. Their algorithms mean nothing and have no value if you don’t use their services.
That’s just like, your opinion, man.
If a company can offer me top-notch, free services and products, while I give data to them of my own volition and only data that I personally choose to give, than I prefer that over a company that charges outrageous margins while keeping 200 billion in foreign bank accounts. If Apple truly cared about you, the customer, it would put that 200 billion to work by lowering margins so you wouldn’t have to spend as much.
Which is fine – its their prerogative and I buy Apple products too – but to argue that one is better than the other is just outright insane.
To compare a company that makes physical products that are continually ranked as high quality to an advertising middle-man who uses technology to sell customers to advertisers is insane.
Just because they offer similar products in the marketplace doesn’t make them the same. Follow the money, Thom. It’s what drives these companies, and only what drives them.
Apple figured out a way to make products people like that they can profit 30% or so, and have basically been doing the same thing for 4 decades.
Google/Facebook has never figured that out b/c they don’t need to. Far more of their time has gone into hiding their motivations and confusing the user.
Ever try to adjust your Google+ account, put it on another email? Every fall into he continual loop of Google tech support? They are nothing like Apple, even though they like to pretend they are.
You know this is the case for virtually every company in the world, right?
Edited 2015-06-03 02:21 UTC
Not totally, not from my perspective. I’ve encountered several quasi-governmental organizations across he globe that have no equivalent in american business.
A general/small business/service business seems to work very similarly in the various countries I’ve developed for, but once you get into large enterprises or social concerns not all are for profit even if they are.
The US also has it’s non-profits and it’s major government subcontractors that seemingly burn money like they have an endless supply.
But overall, yes, I’m aware that most companies on the planet share that goal. Which is why if you are dealing with a for-profit company that is giving you everything for apparently free, you should know how/where they profit.
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