Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

947 points by twhb 4 years ago | 430 comments

I received an email from Google yesterday that communicated, with much obfuscation, the following key points:

- The “Web & App Activity” setting for Google Workspace users will be ignored by Gmail, Drive, Docs, Calendar, Chat, Meet, Keep, and several other services.

- Tracking for these services will be controlled by a new user setting, “Google Workspace Search History”, which will default to on regardless of the user’s Web & App Activity setting.

- The ability of Google Workspace organizations to turn off “Web & App Activity” for all users will be removed.

- These changes will take effect on 2022-03-29.

Full email text: https://pastebin.com/raw/5ayJTDDp

More info from Google: https://support.google.com/a/answer/11194328

riverguardian 4 years ago |

Hello hello, PM for the feature checking in here. amf12's reply is quite on-point. Web and App Activity is designed to store search activity across all Google services, and we're splitting Workspace data out since it's governed by strict data handling guarantees, with the hope that more people will feel comfortable getting the benefits of better search in Workspace without having to opt-into search history being tracked for all Google services.

Search history can be immensely useful for our users, since a lot of them re-run prior searches or want search experiences built on top of prior ones. Today, for the Workspace paid offering admins who choose to disable the somewhat confusingly named Web and App Activity admin console control, users in the domain have no ability to get relevant and historical search suggestions in Drive or Gmail that can help them save time.

basisword 4 years ago | |

Your reason for splitting this into two separate settings is understandable.

>> ...with the hope that more people will feel comfortable getting the benefits of better search in Workspace without having to opt-into search history being tracked for all Google services.

This is unacceptable. People have already opted out or been opted out by their admin. If they want to opt back in now that the setting is more granular, they can, but this choice should not be made for them.

Let's be honest, the real reason for making this opt-out again is that you hope lots of people won't notice and you can start collecting their data. Please reconsider.

eganist 4 years ago | | |

> Let's be honest, the real reason for making this opt-out again is that you hope lots of people won't notice and you can start collecting their data. Please reconsider.

I'm keen on seeing if there's any legal code or case law that addresses opting someone back in who's already opted out.

And I'm hoping there's personal culpability for the change, too. Not just corporate fines. But this is probably just wishful thinking on my part.

flerovium 4 years ago | | |

"Please reconsider" is the wrong tone. One might as well ask an abuser to "please reconsider" abuse. Closer to the point might be, "Your actions are unethical, illegal, and I will gladly join the class action that results from this."

wintermutestwin 4 years ago | | |

>Please reconsider.

Isn't the point of Google's current valuation that they are stealing as much data as they can to feed their nascent AI in the hopes of spawning the best masses manipulator? Why would they reconsider their overarching business model?

dandellion 4 years ago | | |

Linkedin does the same thing with email subscriptions every six months. I wish it was made illegal and companies got fined for pulling this crap.

titzer 4 years ago | |

I encourage you, unreservedly, and without any personal malice, to fight the reality distortion field that causes people to make decisions like the above.

Users do not want this. Engineers, PMs, and executives want this. Google's 23% YoY revenue growth wants this. To Google, users who don't subject to dystopian tracking, who don't consent to Google knowing everything about them, who just want to go about their own lives while not being studied like a lab rat, or pestered to let an all-powerful force in the sky wring their lives of all digital value, are a round-off error. Google has shifted from its default modes of putting the user first, offering them services and information at their request, of being uninteresting in who or why is asking...that it has become one of the leading forces eroding user privacy, agency, and trust.

Inside of Google, the reality distortion field is intense. It doesn't feel intense, it feels rational and right. Google sees itself as an infinitely benevolent force for good in this world that occasionally makes mistakes. It literally cannot fathom what an abusive, creepy, and unfeeling machine it's become. It sees itself as being made of very moral people. It cannot understand that its enormous size, its market position, and its list of priorities have created a configuration of people that can do nothing but eat the world, and at this point it is doing so, despite what those people have in their heads.

dessant 4 years ago | | |

It's fascinating to see Google and Facebook employees defending the undefensible here almost daily, using all the upbeat expressions they can muster out to obfuscate the fact that they are not accepting no from people when it comes to data collection.

One would hope that there will be an effort to shame these engineers for their role in normalizing mass surveillance, and for their shallow attempts to play down the damage they cause to society.

A year ago I've seen a Google engineer boasting here about his occasional donations to charities, while he works on ads and regularily defends his employer in public, dismissing some of the illegal activities that are taking place at Google.

I'd understand working for your own selfish reasons on something harmful to other people out of necessity, but I doubt most Google and Facebook engineers are only designing and writing the code that intrudes on our personal lives because they just could not find an engineering job at a less scummy company.

jcranberry 4 years ago | | |

If there's one feature that I would assert almost everyone wants which requires tracking some data, its search history recommendation.

zht 4 years ago | |

I feel sort of bad for this comment.

The reason is because the reason given is perfectly sound. “We have to split this out because of perfect reasonable reasons like laws, data retention policies, etc etc”.

And everything afterwards is pure unadulterated propaganda.

I don’t know if the commenter knows how patronizing they sound. “We did this for you because even though you’ve previously explicitly opted out, we think we know better than you and we’re doing you a favor to enhance your experience”.

Imagine going into a restaurant and saying “I really don’t enjoy a medium rare steak please make it medium well” and having the chef say “ok fine but medium rare steak is the best way to enjoy it so I made it medium rare despite what you previously explicitly told me enjoy”

I really wouldn’t expect this sort of borderline gaslighting from a company like Google. I really can’t tell how many PMs and engineers on this team either a) whole heartedly believe in this or b) have convinced themselves this is a user friendly change or c) knows that something feels off but their paycheck depends on it so let’s not fight too much about it, d) feels some reservations and have voiced up but have bills to pay so didnt rock the boat

vertis 4 years ago | | |

There was this thing in Melbourne cafes for a while (and maybe still, I'm not in Melbourne any more), where you would walk in and order your usual from other cafes "a large Flat White" and the barista would go "We only make coffee in one size".

At which point I would walk out and go to another cafe. The same experience, "I want coffee in a certain way", "we know better than you and will only serve you coffee how we like to make coffee"

neatze 4 years ago | | |

> “We did this for you because even though you’ve previously explicitly opted out, we think we know better than you and we’re doing you a favor to enhance your experience”

This is issue industry wide not just in google, and it is not only privacy settings, but applies to general GUI of some applications and operating systems.

tekknik 4 years ago | | |

> ok fine but medium rare steak is the best way to enjoy it so I made it medium rare despite what you previously explicitly told me enjoy

Well considering it’s a felony to cook or consume some steaks above medium rare I may do the same.

Kidding of course :P

belter 4 years ago | | |

Google is pulling a "Soup Nazi" on you... "The Soup Nazi": https://youtu.be/euLQOQNVzgY

cik 4 years ago | |

Active, soon to be former user here. Constantly moving things around, to at the very least temporarily hoover data from users is wrong.

The changes going on recently mean, that I'm finally eliminating my use of the G. I've dropped paid services. I'm dropping (paid) GSuite/Workspace/whatever it's now called for my family, and for a couple of businesses. I've embraced other search engines again - and they're surprisingly good enough, finally. I've suggested others do the same - and I can only assume that slowly, this will pick up.

Google has finally embraced being an evil data sponge - whether people want to hear it or not. Many of us have used your services, frequently pay for them - but want control over their use, and our data.

Stop changing the game along the way, stop making us the product.

danuker 4 years ago | | |

> I've embraced other search engines again - and they're surprisingly good enough, finally.

Or perhaps Google is crap enough. I no longer find anything useful when the search term overlaps with something for sale.

Even Wikipedia search is better in that case, and I skip directly to it.

Lewton 4 years ago | | |

I had my first DDG beats google moment yesterday

I searched for ‘low more guitar sound’ and top result was an awesome YouTube video recreating the guitar sound of Low - More (song with amazing guitar tone)

Went to my other computer that defaults to google, searched the same thing

Pages of irrelevant crap, searched for ‘low more %nameofyoutubechanbel’

Nothing

Searched for exact title of YouTube video

Nothing

Had to manually go to the YouTube channel and find the video myself

Ensorceled 4 years ago | | |

> I'm dropping (paid) GSuite/Workspace/whatever it's now called for my family, and for a couple of businesses.

What are you switching to? I'm in the same situation of a couple of family groups and a couple of small businesses on GSuite and looking for alternatives.

3np 4 years ago | | |

Same. This is the last straw that has led us to unanimously decide to transition all our clients paid accounts from G. Some stakeholders were already on the fence but this is what tipped the scales for everyone. Doing the same for my family (we have also been using a Workspace for our emails, photos, and calendars).

It's not OK.

drpixie 4 years ago | |

I call bulls*t here. Facebook has a long history of change-the-name-of-the-setting-and-the-new-flag-defaults-to-ON as a method of changing users' settings back to what facebook would prefer. Excuses aside, it looks like the same thing from google.

prox 4 years ago | | |

I have to agree. You don’t turn on stuff for people who turned it off. The default should be off, no matter where you are moving the new setting, which is fine all by itself, if informing the user. Golden rule is that the user is in control.

ramblerman 4 years ago | |

Look we all know how the world works so please, spare the BS.

By all means do your job, and hit your metrics. But this is just a dark pattern, which comes up with some new product boundaries so you can default these settings back to on.

There's a certain arrogance to coming into HN of all places and offering a sales explanation that it's actually in our benefit.

dang 4 years ago | | |

Please don't cross into personal attack. You don't need it to make your substantive points, and it poisons the ecosystem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

grog454 4 years ago | | |

It's unfortunate that this post is being downvoted and considered a "personal attack" (debatable) as it seems to be one of if not the only comment suggesting the most likely explanation: a Google employee trying to maximize engagement / usage metrics for their feature without really thinking through the broader implications. This seems much more likely to me than a grand conspiracy to sneakily collect more peoples' data.

twhb 4 years ago | |

Your comments and the email both are written like nobody really wants tracking off, at least not if they know what’s good for them. Is that what you believe?

riverguardian 4 years ago | | |

I think "tracking" is a bit misleading here. It's product (search) usage activity. None of the Workspace data you provide is ever used outside of Workspace, nor is it used for any other purpose than for the benefit of you and your users (we can't create machine learning models from your data to improve the experience for other customers, for example, without your prior consent), and that data is never used for ads.

1vuio0pswjnm7 4 years ago | | |

Haha. This is so common with Big Tech. "Are you sure you want to turn off sending us more free user data?" Gosh, why would anyone want to do that.

Somewhere between paternalism and conniving. For those working at Big Tech it seems there can be no such thing as a conflict of interest between the company and a user (ad target).

Google workers spend their time devising ways to collect more user data. If some users spend their time devising ways to minimise the data they are sharing, how can the company's interests and the user's interests be aligned. They cannot. Google workers can try to convince users that there no harm in sharing more data with Google, even claiming it will benefit them to do so. They are basically downplaying the user's interests. There is no negotiation. Google will never contemplate the notion of collecting less data.

oefrha 4 years ago | | |

If you’re worried about “tracking”, you probably should have moved off Google Workspace before this change. “I’ll hand all my emails and files to you in plain text, but hey, why are you storing my access patterns (and telling me about it)?” is such a weird concern.

londons_explore 4 years ago | | |

The data actually backs this up... Autocomplete of searches for example is used for the vast majority of searches, and users who have it turned off complain they can't locate documents they've just saved (because they don't remember the location they saved them, and it doesn't list recently saved documents in the search dropdown).

Fiahil 4 years ago | |

I think you're getting a lot of shit from everyone who have an axe to grind against Google. They're not necessarily wrong, but I also think your mistake is not only to sneakily re-enable a previous off setting set by users, but rather your definition of "immensely useful".

Yes, we do re-run prior searches, but they're not "immensely useful" because you have no feedback if we found what we were looking for or not. Using basic trigger detection like clicks, timings or back button is not enough, as I could have been sent into a rabbit hole that wasn't what I was looking for.

So, before you work on search history collection, you should probably focus on getting these search result relevant. Today, they're mostly garbage.

I also believe that your mission is not incompatible with everyone's feeling about data collection. Maybe a _simple_ approach would benefit both ?

snowwrestler 4 years ago | | |

How can search results within your Google Workspace be “mostly garbage?” Unless maybe your work emails and corporate documents are mostly garbage?

charcircuit 4 years ago | | |

>sneakily re-enable a previous off setting set by users

How is sending everyone an email about it being "sneaky"?

nottorp 4 years ago | |

In summary, no one trusts your employer any more no matter what they say.

> Search history can be immensely useful for our users

See the various comments spread across all HN articles stating that Google Search has become useless.

robertlagrant 4 years ago | | |

Is that true for Google Workspace search?

yjftsjthsd-h 4 years ago | |

That's actually mostly reasonable, but then why default on instead of either keeping the closest existing setting or asking?

riverguardian 4 years ago | | |

Great question. The premise here is that search is an integral part of the product experience of using Google Workspace. We don't offer controls that separate each piece of functionality within Workspace products. The reason there _is_ one governing both Workspace and non-Workspace data (the current Web and App Activity setting) is mostly historical in nature, and the fact that there are two existing controls (one for the admin, one for the user) means the vast majority of users don't even have the chance to try the feature out to figure out if it's useful for them. Hence the default on. But as noted in the email we'll be very transparent to users telling them that the setting is on, and it's also why this email went out 60 days prior to the change, as advance notice.

That being said, there's an important note that wasn't communicated in the email since it was sent to (paid offering) admins: consumer (non-paid) users who have Web and App Activity disabled will have their Workspace search history setting _also_ disabled as part of the migration. That's because we recognize a user who has turned Web and App Activity off explicitly likely won't feel the need to benefit from Workspace search history either.

sdoering 4 years ago | |

Hi,

thanks for jumping into the room to answer questions.

Personally I am not a fan of this idea. But that is currently not my point.

Sitting in Germany, I have not received this mail (I am a workspace admin for my private stuff and a workspace user for my employer). So maybe we are exempt. Not sure.

But - as a user for a workspace account that is being managed by our parent company in the US, I am wary of this change. In Germany some employees are represented by works councils.

Changes such as these could fall under the works councils' right of co-determination and should/could therefore not be rolled out so easily and promptly across the board for all users. At least not for employees who are represented by works councils.

Have you put into place the possibility for admins to exempt specific user groups from these default on setting?

xg15 4 years ago | |

> or want search experiences built on top of prior ones

Refining a search I just did does not require storing a complete search history.

riverguardian 4 years ago | | |

Oh it certainly doesn't require a complete search history. That's why Workspace search history will have 18-months retention by default (which is aligned with Google's policy in general) that you can change down to 3 months if you so choose (and if your Web and App Activity setting has retention set to 3 months, we'll also automatically carry that forward to Workspace search history). You can always turn the setting off.

But, being able to better help users find recent files or emails does require storing _a_ history, which we can't do if the setting is off.

raxxorrax 4 years ago | |

Why would you not default to off and let users make a conscious decision, especially if they had turned it off previously? Because this sounds like making excuses to be honest and the usefulness is irrelevant if I do not like to share data.

indymike 4 years ago | |

Feedback: a) I would prefer to be able to globally opt out of all tracking. b) If you want to make it easy for me to start with a saved search, then add a saved search feature so I have control of it. c) Google really needs to look at the number of rage inducing features that are being released. I've been hit with two in the past 24 hours: This one and I can't dial a phone number using numbers (i.e. saying the number "one two three") in Google Assistant without putting the contact in my contact book. I can only conclude that Google wants my social graph (do not want Google to have that).

Something is really wrong at Google right now. I feel like my best friend is making a drunken pass at my wife or something.

nerdjon 4 years ago | |

This is completely unacceptable and adds further fuel for me to remove the last few remnants I have of Google in my life.

Wanting to make more fine grained permissions is fine. But if you are going to do so you must respect the wishes of anyone who previously disabled them and set the new one to disabled if the previous one it was part of is.

Or better yet just disable it all by default, but we all know Google will never do this. Adding new permissions and automatically opting people into things they previously disabled is why data harvesting companies like Google have lost all trust.

throwitout22 4 years ago | |

Respect the user.

Respect the opportunity.

Neither are being done here. An email explaining the setting is one thing. Enabling the setting for the users is blatant disrespect. You and your team of PMs are destroying Google's opportunities with our users by forcing changes like this and pushing them over the edge.

richardles 4 years ago | |

I applaud your courage for posting here given the level of animosity in the room.

I think this change is good. It seems to take away the decision from the admin and put it solely in the hand of the user which is great.

More granular user control is also good (although that UI for deciding what gets recorded is getting messy).

Default ON is reasonable imo. Especially given that the data is only used to improve the product. In my experience CTR on autosuggestions is huge, hopefully this will improve workspace experience for quite a few people.

drawfloat 4 years ago | | |

Default ON when it is known a user has previously opted out is not reasonable.

lawn 4 years ago | | |

> I applaud your courage for posting here given the level of animosity in the room.

You don't need courage if you simply don't care, as evident from the responses.

rzz3 4 years ago | |

Default it to whatever the user’s google-wide activity settings are. Let admins disable it for the whole org.

grahamm 4 years ago | |

PM person, any chance of having a word with those who decided to charge the free gsuite plan users? I think I gave you over 10 years of free testing. I know I've had it good for for many years but I run my family email on it and it is now going to cost me lots or be an ass ache moving to an alternative.

roylez 4 years ago | |

It is amazing that you still have positive karma.

matkoniecz 4 years ago | | |

I have not downvoted it as I see it as a nice example of why Google should be receiving fines in billions of euro.

numbsafari 4 years ago | |

Then explain the reasoning and ask for the permission.

Opting in what was previously explicitly opted out without asking for an affirmative should be illegal.

I plan on complaining to the FTC.

bryanrasmussen 4 years ago | |

Will this be different for European users because of GDPR (default on that is, the splitting sounds like it would be a GDPR win), if not what are the arguments for it being GDPR compliant?

What happens to data of searches of users that were in a Workspace and no longer are, by being fired or by no longer paying for the service themselves? What happens if they move to a new organization?

robertlagrant 4 years ago | | |

Presumably just like all your corporate Slack or Teams chat history, or your emails, the things you did on company time remain the property of the company you're employed by.

seba_dos1 4 years ago | |

I'm kinda amazed that you thought this reply will somehow help instead of making it worse. Google having no respect to user choices is hardly surprising, but putting it so directly into words by feature's PM managed to raise my eyebrows a bit.

tut-urut-utut 4 years ago | |

Hallo dear PM.

I’m glad that you confirmed that you don’t care about your paying users anymore. Of course you will change their settings since you know better they want to be tracked even if they say they don’t.

I was under impression that, being a paid customer, I would not be a product and you would not try to scam me into being a data source for you. Looks like I was wrong and this move is the last straw that will kick me out of Google as soon as I’m done with transition. You lost my money and my goodwill. I will never ever use any Google service, nor will companies where I work or consult.

Looking forward to a Google free world.

amf12 4 years ago |

Note: this seems to be about their paid "Workspaces" offering. I have a private paid domain email on Google Workspaces. I received their email and checked out their FAQs to see how it would affect me in terms of privacy.

Workspaces data is inherently said to be private under contract and not used for advertising or other Google purposes. Here are relevant snippets from their new FAQ:

- "Google never uses your data in Google Workspace core services for advertising."

- "Google Workspace search history includes search activity in Google Workspace services such as Gmail and Drive and is subject to the data protections that Google Workspace provides for users’ data."

Seems to me that other non-core services are not covered by it, which may be the reason for this split?

aagha 4 years ago | |

> - The ability of Google Workspace organizations to turn off “Web & App Activity” for all users will be removed.

This is specifically being done purely for evil purposes though, right?

reustle 4 years ago |

What is going on inside Google? Far worse search results recently, verbal ads during Maps navigation directions, and stuff like this. Do they see some writing on the wall (eu pressure?) and they’re squeezing as much as they can while it’s an option?

avsteele 4 years ago |

What crazy to me is how hard to parse the email was. I could hardly make heads or tails of it, and I'm no dummy. It almost seemed intentional, and now it makes sense.

Even manually setting this feature once you understand it I can't do either!

So first you might land here:

https://support.google.com/a/answer/11194328#zippy=%2Chow-do...

Then the instructions say:

> You can enable or disable Google Workspace search history:

> * Go to the My Activity page.

> * Click Other Google activity and then Google Workspace search history.

> * Click On or Off.

But this is wrong! When you follow the link the "Google workspace search history" is hidden in a hamburger menu in the top left. You have to click that to open the menu, THEN you can click on "Other Google Activity". But on THAT page there is no setting called "Google Workspace Search History". Just the old "Web & App Activity"

So what, I have to set a reminder for after 3/29/22 to come back to this screen? Madness!

_zllx 4 years ago |

Use LineageOS+microG and (at the very least) Aurora Store on your phone. Use Firefox containers to sequester all Google services away from your other activity. Of course, use uBlock Origin. Achieve near total peace of mind when faced with things like this.

Soon, I want to unsubscribe from all YouTube channels and move them over to RSS. I'll use a third-party YouTube client to watch videos queued from my feeds. Then, gradually replace the YouTube feeds with equivalent PeerTube/other feeds, since some creators I follow are doing that. I am thinking Brave Search might be a good replacement for Google as well. After this, I may not even need the Firefox container.

Aurelius3 4 years ago | |

What is the reason firefox containers can't be used in private browsing mode? I really want to use them but also want to clear all stored data after closing a window. So far I've just been using firefox nightly, firefox, and ungoogled chromium to give me a total of three maximum "containers"... Is there a better way to benefit from private browsing modes while allowing for more containers?

Accacin 4 years ago | | |

I use a Firefox addon called "Temporary Containers". Basically unless I tell it overwise, every tab I open (unless it's the same domain) is opened in a new container. When the tab is closed, the container is deleted.

I use the automatic mode, but it's quite configurable in what you can do and works incredibly well.

It's way better than private mode IMO.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4 years ago | |

> all YouTube channels and move them over to RSS

I did this recently and it's wonderful. RSS-Bridge, locally hosted feeding into my locally hosted FreshRSS.

If you use a plugin like privacy redirect, you don't need to remember to use an alternate front end

james-redwood 4 years ago | | |

As well as point them to a self hosted Invidious instance.

slater 4 years ago |

That reads as "too many users were disabling our creepy shit, so we're re-enabling it!"

josephg 4 years ago | |

YouTube recently did the same with autoplay. I hate autoplay with a passion, and watching the setting suddenly turn itself on again made me incoherently angry.

hydrogtehd 4 years ago | | |

Auto play is the worst.

I also hate the turning on chimes

Not auto-muting when restarted/woken up

Blue led

Bright electronics.

It seems that everything is designed to scream at the user.

grishka 4 years ago | | |

Storing user preferences reliably feels like one of the hardest problems in computer science. Especially if doing so would interfere with the metrics you're trying to grow so relentlessly.

pndy 4 years ago | | |

There are extensions around to control this behavior and you can switch to invidious or freetube in worst case

Lamad123 4 years ago | | |

I had that last week.. I thought I turned on by mistake as they made too close to navigation bar and other buttons..

thrtythreeforty 4 years ago | |

Google Maps did the same thing in its latest update. There's an undismissable modal that asks you to "enable Google location service to continue" which I very explicitly have off. They make it feel like a technical requirement; if you tap "no thanks" it cancels your nav.

Meanwhile the whole thing is obviously a charade because voice guidance and the GPS enabled map are happily running behind the modal!

kevin_thibedeau 4 years ago | | |

They also play a game where they refuse to center on your location without tracking enabled even though the GPS is working fine and the pip is on the map.

scim-knox-twox 4 years ago | | |

I tried Chromecast, but Google Home (app to configure Chromecast) required location. Without enabling it, I couldn't complete (or better: start) configuration…

4ec0755f5522 4 years ago |

I don't understand the confusion. Doubleclick ate Google from the inside. How can you possibly expect them to do anything else? Anything that favors your privacy, ever? They are in the business of consuming your data for profit. That is google's industry: consuming you.

They are absolutely running with the motto "be evil". You think some checkbox in a "privacy settings" window is going to stop it?

0xy 4 years ago | |

DoubleClick's ad domains are hard coded into Google Chrome [1], so that additional telemetry is sent to their ad servers on every request. You cannot disable it. It's never disclosed to users.

When you use Chrome, you're literally using the DoubleClick Browser.

Privacy and ethical concerns aside, this is a clear antitrust violation. Google's ad competitors are at an automatic disadvantage.

The FTC has gone after Intel for releasing a compiler that deliberately disadvantaged competitors, but Google doing much more egregious evil stuff to ad competitors isn't touched. I guess it pays to have the House of Reps Speaker Pelosi own copious amounts of profitable call options in Google. [2] It's profitable to look the other way, isn't it?

[1] https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/e51dcb0c148...

[2] https://nypost.com/2021/12/30/nancy-pelosi-buys-call-options...

tremon 4 years ago | | |

your [1] link references a comment in the code, not actual working code. Can you do better or should we classify your entire post as fake news?

ComradePhil 4 years ago | |

I don't mind them consuming my "data" (i.e. knowing me better) for profit... for Google, that usually means they show you ads related to your search and relevant to you based on what it knows about you above all the results. Why do you think that's "evil"?

There are things that bother me. For example, blacklisting certain websites because people who have control over them tell them to, or removing certain things from auto-complete because of someone having control over them. But again, that doesnn't make THEM evil. It's the people who have gained control over them, mostly by threatening them of regulations (via disinformation in mass media) and most likely Epteinesque blackmailing of their executives.

ajuc 4 years ago |

This is illegal, Google will pay another millions of euro of fines in EU. You cannot just work around privacy settings by renaming the options.

The sad thing is that they probably already included the fines in the budget cause the benefits are bigger :(

account42 4 years ago | |

> The sad thing is that they probably already included the fines in the budget cause the benefits are bigger :(

This is why we need exponentially increasing fines for repeat offenders and perhaps even harsher things like prison sentences for CEOs or the company itself (i.e. a temporary complete ban).

holografix 4 years ago |

Hang on, are people frothing angrily because Google is telling users of Workspace that what they search _within workspace_ apps is retained for 18 months to make their search more useful?

While at the same time reminding them that that world and the ad world don’t colide?

I’d say most people who searched for their colleague’s presentation wont give two shits if google retains it.

pembrook 4 years ago |

Google is clearly an abusive monopoly and stifling innovation and privacy wherever possible.

HOWEVER, in this instance, I don’t really see the issue. Workspace customers will obviously want to search their document history, etc. and this info will be walled off from other sides of the business.

The melodramatic hysteria in the comments here is interesting though, and underlines just how far Google’s reputation has fallen in the tech community.

There is zero trust for Google here, and this lack of trust can even be a roadblock to making rational product decisions. People are rightly suspicious of power, because it always gets abused.

MrWiffles 4 years ago |

The fact that they're doing this should tell you all you need to know about Google's sense of integrity - or rather, total lack thereof.

What ever happened to "Don't be evil"?

tonfreed 4 years ago | |

They got rid of that tagline with project Dragonfly

uslic001 4 years ago |

So glad I switched to Duck Duck Go two months ago. Another reason to wean myself completely off Google products.

tonfreed 4 years ago | |

I've been on ddg for years now. The only time I have to use Google is when I'm hunting for very specific memes from years ago.

dismalpedigree 4 years ago | | |

DDG for sure. I never use the goog unless I was tricked by a browser update or something similar.

xdennis 4 years ago | | |

I've used it for about 3 years now to avoid Google, but now I even think it's better for many searches.

But it doesn't work so well for foreign languages, images, or foreign language images. Example:

DDG: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=p%C4%83l%C4%83rie+maramure%C8%99ea...

Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=p%C4%83l%C4%83rie+maramure%C...

Gentil 4 years ago |

While I see this is for their Workspace offering. If there is anyone who is discussing about Google search and DuckDuckGo, DDG has been competent enough (subjective) for a long time. And any incompetence of search can be worked around using DDG !bangs for those who are not aware of it - http://duckduckgo.com/bangs.

Bangs essentially lets you search directly on websites like Stack Overflow, Wikipedia, Amazon, Mozilla Developer Network, Arch Wiki and many many websites. Its a really great productivity hack.

indymike 4 years ago |

Dear Google: you are becoming less likable by the second. For a long time you were the champion of user experience and you forced a lot of sleazy products to change or go out of business. Recently, it's like you've systematically discovered every dark pattern your evangelists once scorned. Please, please flip the don't be evil bit back to on. Evil Google is not very likable.

nunez 4 years ago |

> Users who have Google Workspace search history enabled —and perform searches in Google Workspace apps like Gmail and Drive— will see their search history shown as suggestions before or as they type their searches in these products. These apps will show a message letting users know that search history is enabled.

> In addition to the new Google Workspace search history setting, the end user Web & App Activity setting will continue to exist. However, Web & App Activity will control storage of search data from Additional Google services only, and will remain disabled by default for new users.

I’m failing to understand the problem? This just means that users will be able to see their search history for Workspace apps and will continue to NOT see history for consumer apps.

spc476 4 years ago |

I often wish that Google's slogan was "Do Good" instead of "Do No Evil". It's easy to gloss over that "not".

exhaze 4 years ago | |

Oh, it's even more interesting than that!

From Wikipedia [1]:

> Following Google's corporate restructuring under the conglomerate Alphabet Inc. in October 2015, Alphabet took "Do the right thing" as its motto, also forming the opening of its corporate code of conduct.[1][2][3][4][5] The original motto was retained in Google's code of conduct, now a subsidiary of Alphabet. In April 2018, the motto was removed from the code of conduct's preface and retained in its last sentence.[6]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil

bmarquez 4 years ago |

> 2022-03-29

For those with Legacy G Suite plans that are going away on May 1, this is convenient timing for Google to slurp up the user data of those who are about to leave the service.

15characterslon 4 years ago | |

But what alternatives are there? I just need a solution for the usual stuff: mail, contacts, calendar, notes, tasks, files and meetings. Microsoft? Haha, hell no (they never did free anyway). Also using multiple services (e.g. Fastmail for mail and Dropbox for files) is way more expensive.

austinkhale 4 years ago | |

I had been told the Legacy G Suite “unlimited” storage would be grandfathered. That turned out to be not true :(

dbmnt 4 years ago |

I couldn't help but notice there's a second Google privacy fiasco in the top 10 on Hacker News today. The other topic is about Google Maps no longer allowing navigation without the wifi scanning permission on Android:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30167865

Within the last week or so I also noticed that the YouTube homepage -- the content shown at https://www.youtube.com/ when I'm signed in -- has switched to a mostly empty page demanding I turn on YouTube watch history:

https://imgur.com/a/45PxHZm

They literally removed all the content from the YouTube homepage in order to beg for permission to track history...

It's kind of hard to believe these moves are a coincidence. There seems to be a shift across multiple products, specifically Maps, YouTube, and Google Workspace.

JaimeThompson 4 years ago |

People seem to forget that even if you pay Google you aren't their actual user, you are just a bundle of data to be sold for ad revenue. Paying, it seems, just makes you more valuable because now Google knows you pay for services and that signal is worth more for ad targeting.

KSPAtlas 4 years ago |

Google sometimes makes good stuff (Go programming language) other times things like this.

schwanky 4 years ago |

It's not just Google, all the American companies are doing it.

I've noticed for years how my privacy settings on Android, as well as macOs and Windows 10, occasionally revert to the most privacy-invading choice.

melpomenestits 4 years ago |

the more devices services and programs i use, the more time i seem to spend, justifiably, monitoring, fiddling, and concealing. it's like living with people who try to watch you on the bathroom.

its disgusting and vile and exhausting and creepy. nothing about this even remotely approaches 'okay', and we need to stop. I've heard more than a few kids under 25 or so who don't remember when technology was just fun say things like 'uncle ted was right', and given their experience, i can't really fault them.

swayson 4 years ago |

Yet, we all use their services, willingly or not. Need a class action and rigorous approach this problem. Else, this reinforcing loop will just continue

alphabettsy 4 years ago |

The description seems to suggest this is just changing how it works, but does this also remove the ability to disable web tracking in the process?

scim-knox-twox 4 years ago |

It's a good year for me :)

I've already moved mails away from Google, files from Drive etc.

So Google account I have mainly for phone (I want BB10 back!) and YT :/

Graffur 4 years ago |

What are the barriers to entry for the new google/search engine? Is it storage/index space and crawlers being blocked?

scim-knox-twox 4 years ago | |

Resources. The Internet is huge, it takes a lot of hardware and energy to index as many pages as possible.

Razengan 4 years ago |

Google is becoming even more infuriatingly scummy. Literally a minute ago I saw this post about YouTube throttling the number of views on videos by new channels:

https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/sim12o/well_...

lm2 4 years ago |

I stopped to use google services years ago. google is a bigger rat than nsa

Little_Fish 4 years ago |

Good luck clashing with the EU GDPR requirements. Bad for Google's pocket and their reputation. That said - this thread isn't doing their reputation much good anyway...!

cram0202 4 years ago |

You can't expect privacy from a company named "Go ogle". It is in the DNA.

lupire 4 years ago |

Gmail already stores your Gmail. What's the danger in storing your email searches?

magicjosh 4 years ago |

tldr; Automatically switching user privacy settings from "off" back to "on" is unacceptable. Tracking company Google does it anyway, says you're misunderstanding.

2Gkashmiri 4 years ago |

how many people here do NOT have a google account? lets do a roll call.

wakeupcall 4 years ago | |

If you're using android, is it actually possible not to?

I'm not using any google product except android at this point. I need to use a few apps that require the BS of safetynet, and when this happens you're pretty screwed. I remember some years ago I was still able to setup an android phone without a google account, but it was so _intentionally_ broken there was no point.

People suggest Apple, but apple is just as bad if not worse in my eyes. I'm a dev, and I do not eat their kool-aid.

The "turning on activity tracking" of the post is nothing new to me. I have no means to prove this, but I'm quite privacy conscious and I went through every single setting in the google account and android during setup. The settings reset by themselves to tracking a couple of times per year. I do the same treatment to my family members, and I see the same end result (although in that case I cannot know if they were just coerced to tap "allow this thing" somewhere).

The end result is that I stopped trusting google quite a long time ago.

Regarding search, you can switch to pretty much any other search engine right now. DDG, bing.. it doesn't really matter much. They all got better, but the real kicker is that google got a lot worse to the point that I no longer see their engine useful for search queries. I've read some people here say "google still has better verbatim search".. HA, that's so far from the truth it's almost laughable. The only way I can get my terms in the results so far is with kagi and searx with additional filters.

I can say the same for most of their offerings. The technical excellence is still there, but it's being intentionally corrupted to the point that doesn't matter anymore.

2Gkashmiri 4 years ago | | |

wait... i am using an android and i skipped google login. i use aurora store/fdroid for apps, newpipe.

why can't you sent up android without google? i am running android 11 btw,