[HN Gopher] Google settles account settings lawsuit less than on...
___________________________________________________________________
Google settles account settings lawsuit less than one week after
being filed [pdf]
Author : 1vuio0pswjnm7
Score : 157 points
Date : 2023-09-20 10:38 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (oag.ca.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (oag.ca.gov)
| degenerate wrote:
| If you want to disable Google location history (AND/OR) limit
| data collection to 3 months, you can do that here:
|
| https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols?settings=loca...
| lucb1e wrote:
| Warning: not just pdf, but forced download. Have fun cleaning up
| your downloads folder...
|
| Now that I've got this garbage on my pc anyway, might as well
| copy the some headings so you can at least know what it's about:
|
| > I. GOOGLE DECEIVED USERS INTO ENABLING THE L OCATION H ISTORY
| SETTING
|
| > II. G OOGLE MISLED USERS INTO BELIEVING THEY HAD CONTROL OVER G
| OOGLE ' S COLLECTION AND USE OF THEIR LOCATION DATA
|
| > III. GOOGLE DECEIVED USERS ABOUT THEIR ABILITY TO OPT OUT OF
| GEOTARGETED ADS
|
| (Caps lock theirs; spacing theirs; using capital i as roman
| numeral lookalike (instead of unicode) theirs; I imagine this is
| also fun for screen readers.)
| Etheryte wrote:
| > Warning: not just pdf, but forced download. Have fun cleaning
| up your downloads folder...
|
| Not if you configure your browser correctly? Why would you
| allow random sites to save files without even prompting you for
| it?
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Because it's the regrettable default these days and 90% of
| people probably don't know how to change it. Convenience
| beats security, again.
| [deleted]
| lucb1e wrote:
| Because I don't want the file dialog asking me to manually
| choose save it or cancel the download...
|
| Chrome iirc popularised automatic downloading for all file
| types but I'm using Firefox.
|
| What browser do you use that has a "force inline viewing of
| downloads rather than downloading them" option? I'd like that
|
| Edit: wait, this server doesn't actually send the content-
| disposition:attachment header. Why doesn't Firefox download
| this to /tmp/mozilla_${USER}0 and open the default viewer as
| it does for other files that aren't downloads?!
| kyralis wrote:
| You have a bad browser/PDF viewer. The "spacing" issues are a
| result of using small caps as a title style, which is hardly
| unusual - especially in legal documents.
|
| This is both visually accurate and not a forced download for me
| using Safari.
| lucb1e wrote:
| I blame the document format. No "bad" browser/viewer would
| put random spaces in in the middle of a word when using HTML,
| OpenDocument, LaTeX, or I imagine anything but the OCR-like
| processing that you have to do when trying to interpret a PDF
| file. If they wanted it to be accessible, they could have
| chosen a different format, or to make it compatible with the
| most popular freely available reader. Not sure what
| specifically they want me to use?
| [deleted]
| bradrn wrote:
| > using capital i as roman numeral lookalike (instead of
| unicode) theirs
|
| At least that much is correct. Quoth the Unicode Standard:
|
| > For most purposes, it is preferable to compose the Roman
| numerals from sequences of the appropriate Latin letters.
|
| [from https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/ch15.pdf]
|
| Note that Unicode has a lot of characters like this --
| compatibility forms which are present to allow lossless
| conversion to/from other character sets, but shouldn't be used
| in any new text.
| gundmc wrote:
| Honestly I had no idea there were Unicode characters for
| Roman numerals separate from the letters they are composed
| of.
| whatamidoingyo wrote:
| Same. You learn something new every day, eh?
| lucb1e wrote:
| > separate from the letters they are composed of
|
| I didn't actually realise they're letters. To me it's
| distinct symbols just like 0 is a distinct ascii symbol
| from O.
|
| Now that you mention it, I realise that I knew that five is
| V and M is a thousand or something, but the symbol for
| one/1, is that actually defined as a capital i and not just
| a line of some form? Since surely the digit for one came
| before the latin script
| janc_ wrote:
| Latin (and ancient Greek) didn't have dedicated symbols
| for numbers, but at sone point the Romans started using a
| shorthand system based on existing alphabetic symbols,
| which we now call "Roman numerals".
|
| It's quite possible the "I"s started out as just a line
| to mark one item before the shorthand was developed, but
| certainly over time it became identified to capital "I".
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| Now if only they could get to fixing my account settings.
|
| https://support.google.com/accounts/thread/222903183/u
|
| > This question is locked and replying has been disabled.
|
| Oh, nevermind then.
| joeframbach wrote:
| It likely sensed your hostility in the phrase "what the hell"
| and auto-locked.
| dandare wrote:
| Reminds me of how google moved maps.google.com to google.com/maps
| so that they can ask for location permission in your browser for
| the whole google domain.
| nextaccountic wrote:
| Is there any browser that can allow location just for urls
| under google.com/maps?
|
| Firefox should do this
| vore wrote:
| But your browser tells you when your location is being used?
| It's not like Google can secretly use your location without
| your browser alerting you to it?
| noarchy wrote:
| >But your browser tells you when your location is being used?
|
| Is that a question? Yes, it does, at least mine does.
|
| >It's not like Google can secretly use your location without
| your browser alerting you to it?
|
| Same thing, ts that actually a question? You shouldn't have
| location permission being used without your consent.
| trissylegs wrote:
| They also did that for chat. When hangouts was replaced with
| "chat" chat moved to mail.google.com. Which means allowing
| notifications for email allows it for chat as well.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Huh? There has been chat in the Gmail web interface since
| before Google defederated from Jabber, although I believe it
| didn't have notifications aside from changing the window
| title, for lack of browser APIs at the time.
| whyenot wrote:
| So I guess they have gone a full 180deg on that "Don't Be Evil"
| thing. For Google employees with a moral compass, that must be
| a little confusing/upsetting.
| rootsudo wrote:
| Wow, that is sneaky. I didn't even notice, the dns record is a
| redirect. Wow.
| n2d4 wrote:
| You can't redirect sites like that with DNS. All of those
| domains resolve to the IP of a load balancer (probably the
| same one minus some anycast routing), which then decides
| whether to show the requested service based on the HTTP Host
| header, not the DNS record. You can quickly verify this by
| looking up mail.google.com via DNS and putting that IP into
| your browser bar, which will redirect to google.com instead
| of opening Gmail.
|
| A CNAME record would just mean they use the same load
| balancer. $ curl -H "Host: mail.google.com"
| 142.251.16.17 ...gmail-specific html $
| curl -H "Host: maps.google.com" 142.251.16.17
| ...gmaps-specific html $ curl -H "Host:
| www.google.com" 142.251.16.17 ...google search-
| specific html
| [deleted]
| stasmo wrote:
| I use http://google.com.au/maps for maps now because of that
| sneaky behavior.
| dunham wrote:
| Interesting that the colors are different for parks and
| water.
| KMag wrote:
| Clever workaround!
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| I use openstreetmap for years now. Because of a never ending
| shit stream of abuse and rule bending and just plain illegal
| activities from Google.
| yborg wrote:
| Also didn't notice this. It's actually kind of impressive how
| they hard they went into breaking the "Don't Be Evil"
| typecasting.
| zaxomi wrote:
| When they sent out the directive to remove "Don't Be Evil"
| someone was too lazy and just removed "Don't", so ever since
| then it's been "Be Evil".
|
| That explains a lot, doesn't it?
| Jensson wrote:
| "Be profitable" is enough to explain everything, no need to
| go further than that. Every large company does similar
| things, because that is where "be profitable" takes you
| until regulations catches up.
| m463 wrote:
| Remember when microsoft first created windows, you would
| launch it by typing: C:\> WIN
|
| (I can't recall, did they have paths then? was it C>
| instead?)
| phero_cnstrcts wrote:
| And YouTube's slogan was "we'll never show ads".
| amelius wrote:
| Really?
| gnu8 wrote:
| Google should move maps to a subdomain so they can request
| location permission for only that app!
| turtles3 wrote:
| Unironically this? It might violate gdpr to get consent for
| the purposes of maps but then use it in more contexts. I
| guess they might include all purposes when the user is asked,
| and at that point it boils down to whether the user is being
| asked consent for overly broad purposes or whether it is
| legitimate to bundle all the Google apps together.
|
| It's internet explorer all over again.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Is that actually known as the reason for certain, or is that
| reason being assumed?
|
| Because I've seen that presented as a hypothesis but never any
| actual evidence. I recall another hypothesis had something to
| do with better Maps integration on Search pages.
|
| I'm sure there are lots of potential internal technical reasons
| for such a switch. Location permissions is just one
| possibility.
| mike_d wrote:
| Things that are searches (like maps) moved onto the search
| domain (www), other stuff like docs and ads stayed on
| property specific subdomains. Anything not a core google
| service (experiments and projects built by outside vendors)
| moved to withgoogle.com.
| gerdesj wrote:
| I dimly recall it being noticed at the time but I suspect it
| was really a convenient side effect ie a contributory factor
| and not the primary reason.
|
| I think "branding" is far more likely. google.com is the
| brand and a single entry point landing on search which then
| points you at what you "need". Note how you search and can
| click on the buttons underneath the bar to move into images,
| maps etc. Maps is just another specialized form of search.
| mcast wrote:
| I'm almost certain the main reason for switching was to bring
| more cohesiveness between Google apps and/or legacy
| infrastructure reasons.
| quitit wrote:
| Similarly Google (and Facebook) moved to a combined privacy
| policy - it effectively grants permission for all services to
| collect all types of data, including data you wouldn't expect
| each service to be collecting. All while using examples that
| mislead the user into thinking such data collection is limited.
|
| For example, if one reads the Privacy clause regarding
| collection of financial/transactional information they might
| assume that this is due to Google Pay, what they'd be missing
| is that even services such as Gmail, Maps and Photos are also
| collecting financial data. As mentioned, where examples exist
| in the policy, they always paint a more obvious, narrower
| collection of data.
|
| According to Google's own admissions on the App Store, their
| services such as Maps, Photos and Gmail each individually
| collect location, financial history, purchases, contacts, user
| content such as photos, videos, audio (and any others), search
| history, amongst other personal data. The majority of this data
| has no bearing on the apps functionality whatsoever and
| comparable services don't collect -any- of this information.
| choppaface wrote:
| This was a primary goal of Google Plus: empower cookie /
| fingerprint joining. Even if Plus were to fail they'd still
| be able to harvest gmail and youtube for everything else.
| jkubicek wrote:
| > even services such as Gmail, Maps and Photos are also
| collecting financial data.
|
| Do you know how this would work? How would Google Maps
| collect financial data on me?
| tyzoid wrote:
| Ever searched for hotels by filtering on price via maps?
| [deleted]
| jonas21 wrote:
| Maps and Photos let you enter your credit card info to buy
| stuff in the app (you can order food in Maps and prints in
| Photos).
|
| This is not unusual. Every app that offers food delivery or
| prints also lists "financial data" on their App Store
| privacy label.
|
| As far as I can tell, the Gmail app does not collect
| financial data (it's not listed in the App Store privacy
| label).
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| The gmail app collects purchase receipts that come to
| your email account. (or at least it used too).
| m463 wrote:
| Even just your zip code is a huge financial predictor.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| Is that privacy policy also present in the EU? This screams
| GDPR violation.
| willio58 wrote:
| Wow, so plainly evil it's crazy.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Why does the HN headline link to the lawsuit complaint and not
| settlement information, since the headline is about the
| settlement?
|
| https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| aa_is_op wrote:
| Because it was a slap on the wrist. Pretty sure big tech
| companies have their own people in power positions in the states
| they operate from. Especially California. You don't build a
| trillion-dollar empire and leave it to chance.
| diogenes4 wrote:
| > Pretty sure big tech companies have their own people in power
| positions in the states they operate from.
|
| Not really necessary when service providers have such massive
| ability to dictate the contract you sign to use the service.
| benburleson wrote:
| I wish Google could have decided to stick with their "Don't be
| evil." ethos.
|
| Instead, I find myself continually extracting their products from
| my life.
| [deleted]
| marymkearney wrote:
| This complaint is one of the clearest, most concise pieces of
| legal drafting I've ever seen. It's only 7 pages! The small
| inline graphics in the pleading are innovative and effective.
| Great lawyering, kudos to the AG's office. This is likely a big
| reason behind the quick settlement.
| amelius wrote:
| Hmm, did they use an LLM to make it this concise?
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont...
| Garvi wrote:
| Google has the power to shut down my business if I express the
| wrong opinions on social media sites like HN.
| TrendyCPU wrote:
| The power Google has over small, local businesses is
| ridiculous.
|
| I work for a small local business. We've been struggling to get
| rid of the "lead generation" spam from the Google Maps
| listings. This is costing us on the order of thousands to tens-
| of-thousands a month in work. (That's significant for our
| business, on the ~10-15% of monthly revenue.)
|
| I dug into these listings. I discovered the company behind
| them, a marketing firm in Hawaii. I uncovered a network of 80+
| listings across the US they operate. I even discovered their
| recruiting websites where they pay people to create the
| listings for them and go on to pay people for 5-star reviews.
|
| I provided all of this information to Google via their
| "business redressal form." Nothing. It's been months. I keep
| reporting the listings. Nothing.
|
| We're losing work. Other local contractors are losing work. And
| Google twiddles its thumbs.
|
| What good is it for Google to have a policy if they're not
| going to uphold it when their inaction is harming others?
| froggertoaster wrote:
| Do you have links handy to other articles about this issue?
| I've never heard of it and I'm curious.
| TrendyCPU wrote:
| The most famous case is locksmiths.[0] Google recently went
| after another company using the "rank and rent" scheme.[1]
|
| The company which is causing us issues is also using the
| "rank and rent" scheme. They're running listings for
| everything from pool resurfacing to concrete driveways to
| tree services.
|
| The company recruits people via Craigslist with an offer to
| pay them $50-100 to setup a Google Business Profile and
| receive the post card with a code for verification. They
| also offer $20 for a 5-star review.[2]
|
| I am thinking about going to the FTC and the media at this
| point. I've also discovered that there's a small community
| but poorly connected that goes after this type of spam.
|
| 0. https://searchengineland.com/googles-locksmith-spam-
| problem-...
|
| 1. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-lawsuit-rank-
| and-...
|
| 2. https://archive.ph/SWNEU
| pixl97 wrote:
| >I provided all of this information to Google via their
| "business redressal form." Nothing. It's been months. I keep
| reporting the listings. Nothing.
|
| You don't go to Google if you want a Google problem fixed.
| You go to social media and yell about it.
| savingsPossible wrote:
| I am a bit out of the loop. I did not understand
|
| > We've been struggling to get rid of the "lead generation"
| spam from the Google Maps listings
| Spivak wrote:
| I'm surprised at that level of loss you haven't just end-run
| around Google and the lead-gen firm and gotten together with
| your peers to blackball them. Those lead-gen companies can't
| actually deliver real service, they still need someone local
| to your community to pick up the lead and do the work.
|
| I doubt it would take very long before they realized they
| can't fill any contracts and give up. And plus wouldn't it
| sound super cool to say you started a guild?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| subroutine wrote:
| But saying " _Google has the power to shut down my business if
| I express the wrong opinions on social media sites like HN_ "
| is something they're totally fine with?
| dylan604 wrote:
| "Oops, I thought it was my throwaway account."
| mrguyorama wrote:
| No, Google has the power to shut down your business _for
| literally no reason!_
|
| How we square this circle without removing the 1st amendment
| right of free association isn't clear though. Maybe a cutoff of
| "if you have more than 50 employees" or something.
| [deleted]
| oblio wrote:
| Ah, don't get me started about these dark patterns.
|
| Google Maps, the native Android phone app, behaves like a crappy
| website in navigation mode.
|
| Google really wants to push the assistant, there isn't a way to
| completely disable it in Android, disable all shortcuts,
| basically make it go away.
|
| So, in Google Maps, there's a Assistant bar at the bottom. That
| only pops up when you're in navigation mode, and "conveniently",
| slides up when you switch apps.
|
| So if you're in another app and decide to exit navigation using
| the X at the bottom left of Google Maps... the Assistant button
| slides up and you accidentally press it.
| buro9 wrote:
| > there isn't a way to completely disable it in Android
|
| This is not true, as there is... just disable the Google app.
|
| You will need to replace the launcher with the Nova launcher in
| the process, and will likely replace the search box with
| Firefox search. But the Google app and Assistant will be
| totally disabled and unavailable anywhere in the Android
| experience. If you find a link to it, it will ask to enable
| which you can decline.
|
| I found this out by Google having placed me in some experiment
| earlier this year where my Pixel 6 Pro went from 24h battery
| life down to about 3h battery life. The battery was being
| drained by the Google app exclusively, and so without any fix
| or published workaround I set about disabling the Google app.
|
| Overall this has been a huge improvement, my battery under near
| identical usage is now closer to 36h... and the Assistant not
| being present I have since viewed as a bonus (at the time I
| thought it a negative). I believe the issue is probably now
| fixed, but why would I go back when this is a better experience
| with more battery, disabling the Google app was like upgrading
| my phone.
| blackoil wrote:
| This is what Competition law is primarily about if I
| want/have to use App X, App Y should not be forced upon me.
| It was the problem in Windows/IE or Android/PlayStore ...
|
| Google, Apple, MSFT are abusing "monopoly" in one area to
| extend their reach in other areas.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Can you build on that ? In particular, did you lose voice to
| text writing as a result ? This is my biggest fear.
| tempodox wrote:
| "just"
| valvar wrote:
| Yes, it's very simple. Just open the app info (by long
| holding the app icon and pressing the little "i"), then
| select "disable" and confirm the dialogue. Or did you mean
| something else?
| oblio wrote:
| There are 10 comments above mentioning various gotchas.
| snide wrote:
| Highly recommend the above. Moving to a launcher, defaulting
| to Firefox (yay adblocker), and replacing the default search
| with Kagi creates a near distraction free experience on
| Android.
|
| Unfortunately the Reddit / X changes this year should remind
| us these sort of 3rd-party workarounds will only exist for so
| long.
|
| I know it's a dream, but I'm looking forward to simple Linux
| phones. Moving to GNOME / arch on my Desktop lets me do what
| I want to do and somehow, magically plays any game from Steam
| without a hitch.
| panki27 wrote:
| While you're at it, why not install a custom ROM without
| Google Services (and use MicroG for notifications and stuff).
| barrkel wrote:
| Generally this comes with the downside of being unable to
| use banking apps.
| kwanbix wrote:
| Wasn't Nova Launcher acquired by a very shady company?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32150092
| FireInsight wrote:
| Lawnchair is a great alternative: https://lawnchair.app/
|
| I personally also love Kvaesitso, which is a search-based
| launcher kind of like KISS launcher but with a cleaner
| aesthetic: https://kvaesitso.mm20.de/
|
| KISS Launcher has the better smartly ordered search,
| though: https://kisslauncher.com/
| gausswho wrote:
| Lawnchair on F-Droid says it's no longer maintained?
| windexh8er wrote:
| What's really odd is they support no app stores. Not
| GPlay or FDroid. So they expect users to continually
| download APK and update? Seems like a great pattern to
| keep their user base small - but maybe that's what
| they're after.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Most of these apps are in the Izzyondroid fdroid repo.
| It's there by default in Droid-ify which is much better
| than the official fdroid client anyway.
|
| https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/app.lawnchair
| kwanbix wrote:
| What do you mean? Lawnchair is on the playstore. The only
| thing is that it tells me it was built for an older
| version of android, so I cannot install it.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Wait, Google lets you view it but just not download?
|
| Android is perfectly capable of running that afaik; I'm
| sure that my current version (11 I think?) is at least
| backwards compatible back till Android 4, if not Android
| 2
|
| You could try Aurora Store, which uses a pool of dummy
| Google accounts to pull apks from their servers. I doubt
| it has belittling restrictions like what you describe,
| and there's also a manual download option which can
| sometimes let you get old versions if the server still
| has them and you know the build number
| rjzzleep wrote:
| I used it and it was better than the Pixel launcher in my
| opinion, but yes it seems like the last update was a year
| ago.
| Geezus_42 wrote:
| I have been using Niagara for years. They have a built-in
| search, but it's better if you also have Sesame.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| Lynx launcher (my personal favorite) is also pretty good.
| I switched to it after Evie launcher development stopped.
| FireInsight wrote:
| Almost every launcher has a built-in search feature. The
| difference with search-based launchers for me is having
| only widgets or even just plain nothing on the home
| screen, launching apps from a small favorites bar or by
| typing the first few letters of the apps name. It's
| honestly faster than looking at many screens full of
| folders of apps ever was.
|
| https://sesame.ninja/ Sesame is cool, but not FOSS, and
| last time I tried it some years back it had some
| limitations for free users or didn't integrate into my
| launcher well or something like that.
| kwanbix wrote:
| Isn't Sesame also bought by the same shady company that
| bought Nova?
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| I'm very happy with OLauncher :) Minimalistic, quasi
| text-based. Swipe up to show all apps and show keyboard
| by default for a fast search, swipe left to open firefox
| and swipe right for signal.
| ahstilde wrote:
| Branch is "very shady"?
| njroute22 wrote:
| Believe it or not, the Blackberry Launcher is solid and a
| great alternative.
| [deleted]
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > just disable the Google app.
|
| Since several months ago, disabling the Google app also
| disables camera functionality in Google Translate (?!..),
| which to an expat is absolutely crippling.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| I had no idea all the expats from before 10 years ago were
| crippled.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| FWIW WordLens came out in 2010
| [deleted]
| tomComb wrote:
| I'm not sure the correct way to approach The problem is, but
| it's more widespread than just the big guys.
|
| Chess.com is annoying me by changing my settings every 1 to 2
| months to put them back to what they want.
|
| This sort of thing is really common
| tmerc wrote:
| If you open setting in maps, you can disable driving mode,
| which gets rid of that bar at the bottom. I then couldn't
| figure out where to turn it back on. There's still an assistant
| button but in a less intrusive location.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Google assistant randomly fires off for me in my heavily de-
| googled 2017 LG phone.
|
| It is so frustrating. I hate that app with passion, yet I can't
| disable it in android.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| I've got no idea whether this still happens in more current
| Android versions or not, but on my phone I also discovered
| the weird phenomenon whereby force-stopping the Google app
| resets the selected assistant app back to Google instead of
| whatever else I might have chosen.
| alberth wrote:
| > _"don 't get me started about these dark patterns"_
|
| Here's another dark pattern for you in a totally different
| context.
|
| So Google use to have all of it various services on a separate
| subdomain (eg maps.google.com).
|
| But they moved to having everything under www.google.com.
|
| You know why, it's because when you allow Google Maps to
| geolocate you (which is totally appropriate for a Maps use
| case) ... now ALL of Google services get geolocation data about
| you from Search, Gmail, etc since they are all hosted in the
| same www root.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Nice benefit is the elimination of tons of CORS requests.
| pc86 wrote:
| No end user has ever been inconvenienced by a CORS request,
| so not sure that's a "benefit" for anyone other than
| Google.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Sorry I find the ability to not allow geo for google.com
| for more than a day annoying as hell and a stupid feature
| where apple is over reaching.
| pc86 wrote:
| What does that have to do with cross-subdomain CORS
| requests?
| alexvitkov wrote:
| that's actually pretty cool in a very fucked up sort of way
| crawsome wrote:
| >Google really wants to push the assistant, there isn't a way
| to completely disable it in Android
|
| This is why I switched to LineageOS. Google, the biggest ad
| company on the planet, is not to be trusted with something so
| personal as a cell phone.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Little protip: if you sign your phone up with Google, it
| doesn't force the assistant on you at all. Don't remember
| having to disable it, you just have to not consent to their
| terms.
|
| Side effect: you can kiss access to the monopoly on apk files
| goodbye unless you want to use third party hacky methods that
| use a pool of random people's accounts to talk to the google
| apk servers...
|
| Using one monopoly to gain market share in another :) The
| pattern is _everywhere_ with google. I keep wondering why the
| competitors like TomTom haven 't gotten them banned from the
| country with antitrust suits. Instead, TomTom just cut their
| losses, threw in the towel for their own map (which has
| surprisingly good worldwide road coverage for a Dutch company
| from the noughties), and is starting to use OpenStreetMap as a
| base layer. I'm not complaining about OSM use, but they were in
| the prime position to force Google to open the data they
| funneled from their original monopoly
| liquidpele wrote:
| Used to love google maps, but I've switched to Apple Maps it's
| been so bad lately. It's taken me in literal circles, decides I
| need to do 2 uturns while sitting at a traffic light, gives
| instructions that are unclear or too late, etc. I noticed Waze
| got worse lately too, I guess they're integrating them more :(
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Huh, you can't disable Assistant anymore? When did that change?
| My phone is old.
| RuggedPineapple wrote:
| I can on a Pixel 7 pro. Did for a while before deciding it
| was useful and wanted it but didn't like it trying to pop up,
| so I went from disabled, to off by default but callable by
| dragging from one of the bottom corners and requiring me to
| press the mic button for it to listen. Kind of the best of
| both worlds, it stays asleep until I need to change whats on
| the chromecast.
| oblio wrote:
| What's the amount?
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| According to the California OAG press release: $93 million,
| plus injunctions which seem to be more about disclosures to
| users and internal oversight than actually allowing users to
| opt out of (or requiring opt-in consent before) tracking
| location. Not the most user-respecting outcome to say the
| least, though it could certainly have been worse.
|
| Disclosure: I worked for Google more than 8 years ago, but not
| in any role related to this news story. I have no relevant
| inside information and I am certainly not speaking for Google
| here.
| gdprrrr wrote:
| So, That's around 0,3% of the 280bn quotes in the PDF. The
| equivalent for Person with an income of 100k would be $3.
| Yes, you reading that right.
| ocimbote wrote:
| 100000 * 0.3/100 = 100000 * 3/1000 = 100 * 3 = 300
|
| 0.3% of 100k is 300.
|
| Unless you meant "an income of 100k cents" but that would
| be quite unusual.
| zoky wrote:
| No, they made an order of magnitude mistake. Fairly
| common, it happens.
|
| However, in this case it has taken it from "ordering
| bacon and avocado on my burger" to "two tickets to my
| local sports team including beers and chili cheese
| fries". So not enough to be exactly punitive, more like a
| mild inconvenience. The point still stands.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Payment could be in the form of a Chromebook!
| tetris11 wrote:
| (100*1e3) * (93*1e6) / (280*1e9) > 33.21
|
| That's about 4 lunches.
| subroutine wrote:
| $33 dollars is the correct amount lol. It's coffee time
| fellas.
| gerash wrote:
| who receives this $93 million ?
| zie wrote:
| The state of CA. CA's elected representatives will spend it
| on whatever suits their fancy.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| Slightly more if we include the future 'campaign
| contributions' that may have been implied.
| vgttvyggm wrote:
| [flagged]
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| hey. been meaning to ask someone at google.
|
| i read long time ago how many apps are NOT using play
| services for location, like OSMAND~ and some other apps but
| what does the user loose if the navigation app doesnt use
| play location services?
|
| i was talking to a cab aggregator last time and i said "oh i
| dont use your app because using it makes me enable google
| location which enables location sharing and i am not keen in
| doing that and i hear, beyond its privacy implications, you
| can avoid it".....
|
| he was like "uh..... so why shouldn't we use it?
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| As I said, I last worked at Google more than 8 years ago,
| and I didn't have a role relevant to this news story.
|
| Therefore I don't have any more insight to add in response
| to your question than the general public, with one
| exception:
|
| I'll note that Google is generally at least more
| technically able to honor the privacy promises it makes
| than a lot of small startups, such as robustly deleting
| data it claims to delete and giving you a lot of controls
| to request deletion of various categories of data.
|
| Many startups do just enough lip service toward these
| compliance obligations to avoid negative financial,
| regulatory, or reputation consequences but don't actually
| uphold their end of whatever they're supposed to do
| (especially in places like the EU where strong privacy laws
| exist). Google goes well beyond that.
|
| Clearly Google is far from perfect in privacy matters. I
| wish Google made stronger privacy promises and didn't do
| dark patterns or deceptive explanations like what this
| settlement is punishing. But it's easy to forget how much
| of the industry is worse than Google in these regards and
| how little of it is better, just because Google is so big
| and so prominent.
| [deleted]
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| In the event title gets changed, here is the original title:
|
| Google Settles Account Settings Lawsuit Less Than One Week After
| Being Filed [pdf] (ca.gov)
| pierat wrote:
| Another nasty pattern is with Google Translate.
|
| You want text translations from 1 lang to next? Cool. It works.
|
| You want an image text-> translated text? You MUST install and
| have Google app installed. No real reason other than to re-enable
| more spyware and garbage.
| Kokouane wrote:
| I always wondered whether there was a purpose for that. It
| probably is just spyware.
|
| Also the Google app is required for many other apps, like to
| use Google Podcasts.
| gniv wrote:
| This is probably just them shipping the internal org. The
| Google app must have some functionality that all the others
| need.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Has this perhaps changed recently? Tried navigating to
| translate.google.com on both Android and iOS and the image
| translation features appear without issue.
| gniv wrote:
| I think GP was talking about the Translate _app_ needing the
| Google _app_. Translation can be done without a network
| connection.
| hot_gril wrote:
| This truly sounds like a technical limitation and not some
| scheme to get more spyware onto the phone. Like in theory
| the Translate app could do it without the Google app, but
| that would've taken extra changes that they didn't consider
| worthwhile.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _No real reason other than to re-enable more spyware and
| garbage._
|
| Why would the Google app have _more_ spyware than the Translate
| app?
|
| That doesn't make any sense. If Google wants to spy on you
| they'll put it in _all_ their apps...
|
| Regardless of what you think of Google, the reason a feature
| lives in one app and not another is not to increase spying...
|
| The same functionality spread across two apps doesn't spy more
| than one.
| diogenes4 wrote:
| > Why would the Google app have more spyware than the
| Translate app?
|
| It's a different app on top of the first app? I don't
| understand the question.
|
| > Regardless of what you think of Google, the reason a
| feature lives in one app and not another is not to increase
| spying...
|
| That's why google has apps at all.... They're a spyware
| company. That--and depriving users of honest transactions--is
| much of their business model. Especially post transition to
| Alphabet.
| crazygringo wrote:
| >> Why would the Google app have more spyware than the
| Translate app?
|
| > It's a different app on top of the first app? I don't
| understand the question.
|
| It's irrelevant if it's a different app or a different tab
| in the same app as far as "spyware" would be concerned.
|
| 2 apps by the same company doesn't increase data collection
| compared to 1 app, if they're installed on the same phone.
| It's not like Google gets twice as much location data...
| the number of apps is entirely irrelevant.
| diogenes4 wrote:
| > It's irrelevant if it's a different app or a different
| tab in the same app as far as "spyware" would be
| concerned.
|
| It's only irrelevant in the technical sense of "could we
| collect this data if we had another app". It's not
| irrelevant in terms of hedging against uninstalling.
| dharmab wrote:
| Google is a large corporation. Anyone who's worked at a
| company that large can assert that the left hand and right
| hand don't always talk, and in fact may be antagonistic.
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