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Comment by kyrra | Hacker News Reader

(I'm a Googler, opinions are my own).

I'd say it's a lot more complicated than that.

If you are paying Google, you are definitely a customer. This would be anything from GSuite/cloud, Fi, Play store, Express, and many others. Google isn't just Ads, there are a lot of products and lot of teams that have different priorities and concerns.

Product teams here that you don't pay still care about their users. It's good to remember that there are still engineers behind these products. Many of them have similar opinions to those expressed on HN. When an unpopular decision is made, people are vocal with their concerns.

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I absolutely believe that engineers and product teams do care about their users.

That said, I also completely believe that Executives at Google are driven by what drives the majority of Google's revenue, i.e. the people that pay them the most money, their customers, advertisers.

Engineers can have the best of intentions but what Google or any company, especially a publicly listed company beholden to their shareholders, ultimately ends up doing is what ultimately benefits their shareholders as decreed by their leadership.

I'm not saying you should trust any corporation to ultimately have your best interests at heart. I'm saying you should trust what is on their balance sheets to determine what values they will hold and protect when they decide their lobbying budgets in Washington, Brussels, etc. for the year. After that, you can vote with your wallet, time, attention, or whatever asset it is you hold that a given corporation covets.

So can you say with certainty that if I pay for GSuite that Google won't mine my hosted data/metadata or other information any more or less than someone that doesn't? Does Google only track my purchases in the Play Store to keep track of what I have in fact purchased as a good storefront would, and not to store it in a larger profile they've constructed of me or just sell the info on to a broker? I pay for YouTube Red, so does Google not use any information from my YouTube profile for advertising purposes on its other properties?

I can say with certainty that Google does not treat paying G Suite customer data the same as consumers'. It is not mined, it is not targeted, and it is not used in any way for advertising purposes.

I can say this as a former G Suite buyer who signed the contract & ToS, a current googler working with G Suite and Cloud resellers, and as someone who has been a part of Google's internal GDPR readiness programs.

I cannot address the rest of your questions authoritatively, but I don't particularly care about those, either, comparatively.

I can say with certainty that I see ads delivered by Google targeted to my search and browsing history while signed in to Google with my GSuite login.

you’ll note that in their statement at https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white... they explicitly refer to no advertising in the G Suite Core Services. those are defined here http://gsuite.google.com/terms/user_features.html. not listed in the G Suite Core Services is regular Google Search. so what they’re saying is is that none of the data you put in any G Suite Core Service like Gmail, Drive, Groups, Keep, Sites etc will ever be used to target you with ads.

however, anything they can get from your browsing habits via google.com search and other ways of tracking you via data you may expose from non-G Suite Core Services, are fair game.

i have been a personal and corporate admin of G Suite nee Google Apps for 5 years. i believe the policy is adhered to by Google through my own anecdotal use as user and engineer over many domains and companies. and i believe who claim they can prove Google is scanning paid G Suite account data and using it to target are not realising that non-cloudsearch ie regular google.com searches and everything connected to your G Suite profile based on those searches is what is getting you targeted.

not the use of G Suite.

This was a relatively recent (last couple yars) change, I’m guessing in part driven by pressure from their new enterprise sales push, due to the more vigilant regulated enterprises in US and enterprises in EU simply unable to purchase services due to Google’s data access and use being so pervasive it violated regulations.

It is not clear to me from papers up through, say, 2016, whether you’ve achieved a guaranteed (compliant by technical architecture rather than by policy) level of access and data separation. Direct conversations had also made it clear it was not yet achieved.

You mentioned GDPR which indeed should require you to have to do the right thing soon, but it allows policy vs. technical controls. Bad actors don’t care about your policy, and good actors make inadvertent errors.

I’d like to know if/how the tech under the hood has changed o support the last couple years’ contract changes and upcoming EU compliance.

If anyone can point me to more recent papers or talks that evidence how it’s now impossible for, say, even a motivated bad actor in support or bad actor in SRE teams to violate data policy, I’d appreciate it.

Even if you can only talk to me off he record, I’d appreciate it.

If you are under contract & NDA with us, you can get more detailed information. I'm not willing to speak more, even off the record.

Prior job, we were.

You guys were honest, not ready for our level. About right amount of time’s passed, helpful to learn progress? I’m at new job, still interested.

At this bank I don’t have paper with you, we’d have to do that. Mail in Profile.

Clarification on G Suite received and acknowledged! I am not someone who has signed the contract & ToS, and was prior to now, wary of doing so because it was attached to the Google name. I do thank you for taking the time to acknowledge and explain how Google treats G Suite internally.

It is not mined, it is not targeted, and it is not used in any way for advertising purposes.

(For the curious, this has been repeatedly disproven.)

This seems to say otherwise (?)

https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white...

Does it have exceptions somewhere / am I not reading close enough?

would you mind sharing further information?

Pretty sure GSuite data is basically separate from everything else, you'd have to look at the ToS for the details, but it's kept separate to keep corporate customers happy.

This leads to issues for anyone who has tried to use a Google account setup through GSuite for consumer apps where they basically don't work at all.

> ... [Corporate data is] kept separate to keep corporate customers happy.

Can you imagine the stupid amounts of lawsuits that could be generated if Google were in the habit of scanning business documents and reselling information about them to third parties? I know they have a ToS, but the aggregate legal departments of all their GSuite customers are preeeetty big.

The problem is, I've talked to the engineers who are proud of building this ad blocker despite it's obvious antitrust problems, and engineers who are proud of building AMP for email. Where is their moral compass when these are things they think are okay?

I want to believe the software engineers are good people, but how do I square that with the things they are not just making, but enthusiastically supporting?

When and where do you start ascribing morality to software engineering and deciding who are "good people" within that domain? Like any business, there are those of us that agree with their choices, and those of us that disagree with their choices. I can't fault them for taking pride in their work, even if I vehemently disagree with the result of it.

I can't fault them for taking pride in their work, even if I vehemently disagree with the result of it.

Then yes, you can. Your argument, applied broadly, has you applauding the pride of IBM engineers who developed systems to assist the Nazis in identifying people to slaughter. The idea that engineering exists apart from moral principle is absurd.

Quirks exception?

They have been most likely brainwashed by company culture. I had an argument with a friend working in ad tech abot blocking ads.

From Alphabet's 2017 Q4 10-k SEC filing, Item 1A "Risk Factors":

> We generate substantially all of our revenues from advertising, and reduced spending by advertisers or a loss of partners could harm our advertising business.

> We generated over 86% of total revenues from advertising in 2017. Many of our advertisers, companies that distribute our products and services, digital publishers, and content partners can terminate their contracts with us at any time. Those partners may not continue to do business with us if we do not create more value (such as increased numbers of users or customers, new sales leads, increased brand awareness, or more effective monetization) than their available alternatives. If we do not provide superior value or deliver advertisements efficiently and competitively, we could see a decrease in revenue and other adverse impacts to our business. In addition, expenditures by advertisers tend to be cyclical, reflecting overall economic conditions and budgeting and buying patterns. Adverse macroeconomic conditions can also have a material negative impact on user activity and the demand for advertising and cause our advertisers to reduce the amounts they spend on advertising, which could adversely affect our revenues and advertising business.

> New and existing technologies could block ads online, which would harm our business.

> Technologies have been developed that enable users to block the display of ads altogether and some providers of online services have integrated technologies that could potentially impair the core functionality of third-party digital advertising. Most of our Google revenues are derived from fees paid to us in connection with the display of ads online. As a result, such technologies and tools could adversely affect our operating results.

Anyone who has even the faintest notion that Alphabet (as a profit-driven corporation) cares about the users of its applications should, after reading this, have all those notions dispelled.

>>It's good to remember that there are still engineers behind these products.

Doesn't say much. Engineers are even behind ransomware products. You guys may need new justifications to feel good.

A) you're wrong. Google is still almost completely ads as far as profit is concerned. Still almost 97% of all profit Google takes. Google is ads, whether you like to think that or not.

B) Why should any of us care if there are human engineers doing human things behind any of this? Are you trying to throw a pity party here? "People are vocal about their concerns." That sounds like whole lot of, well, concerned people. Good for you. The occupy Wall Street clowns were also very concerned. And a minor irritation for a lot of people who were not the 1% but were just trying to get to work.

I honestly put about 0% of interest into people who say they are concerned about anything. If it's really that important to you, get off your ass and do something about it. Otherwise I really don't care. And here's the sad truth for you: no one cares about what people are concerned about. Not a single person. No one at Google, and no one anywhere else. No one. No one cares who is vocal about their concerns. Not us, and not the management at Google.

I walked away from the highest paying job of my career 6 months ago because I thought they were making bad decisions that damaged people's lives. I was vocal about the bad decisions before I quit. I was ignored. And that's all fine. I lived off savings for a while, and then I ran out and had to do odd jobs and even some manual labor to float me until I landed a new gig a couple weeks ago.

You can do that too. You don't have to do what I did and walk out of a meeting and not go back, but you can do this. If you really think that bad decisions are being made, the only meaningful way of making your voice heard is to not work there anymore.

Until people start doing that, literally no one cares about what you think or if you're concerned or voicing your opinions. The only things that matter are the product decisions your leadership team makes.

I suspect you are a sincere and caring person who doesn't like every choice that Google makes. That's wonderful. So do something meaningful about it. Stop making those things happen.

> If you are paying Google, you are definitely a customer.

You're a customer for a different product/service than the one under discussion. What does that change about the one that's under discussion? Nothing. They're different relationships that imply no in relation to each other.

It means that this statement: "Apple wants their customers to feel like someone has their back" might be applied to Google, too, to a more limited degree.

If you're Google's customer, why is it impossible to get customer support?

You're not Google's customer. You're just a product that they convinced to give them money in addition to what they get by leveraging your personal information to sell ads.

I was not aware being a customer is defined by availability of support.

You're a customer of X if you pay for goods/services from X. As customers, we're just not nearly as valuable as a big advertiser.

You're wrong, and you're conflating two unlike things.

1) If you are a consumer user taking advantage of free things, information about you has value to the provider. In this case, it has value to Google as an adtech company. But it's also true that Google historically has been very happy to provide free services to users for altruistic purposes, and continues to do so. This can lead to their early demise, but c'est la vie. How things are prioritized for development, much less scheduled for launch or deprecated at Google, are some of the most misunderstood processes/lore in tech.

2) If you are paying Google for product access, that is completely different and a) your data is not mined for advertising nor are ads displayed to you, and b) you have access to paid support.

What product does Google provide for altruistic purposes? Just because they haven’t figured out how to monetize something doesn’t mean it was made for altruistic purposes.

Maybe Project Zero. But it does provide security benefits to the whole world, including Google. It also provides good PR, but that generally be the case for any altruistic product.

Project shield?

Absl?

> You're wrong, and you're conflating two unlike things.

The problem is that you can be both of those things at the same time, it takes time and an understanding of legalese to untangle when you're a customer vs. when you're a product, and Google makes basically all of its money from surveillance. If you have multiple PREF cookies (product), will Google use G Suite (customer) info to merge those profiles?

If you are paying Google, you are definitely a customer.

In the exact same way that someone who pays Comcast for internet & television service is a customer, and continues to receive commercials, to have their behavior tracked and sold, and to have their privacy rights lobbied against.

>If you are paying Google, you are definitely a customer

The question is not if you're a customer, but if you're a customer that matters. By "matter", I mean respected and cared for as a singular entity.

When I worked for Oracle, I was told only 150-to-200 customers formed the lion's share of Oracle's revenue. Think three letter agencies, foreign governments, national banks, and the like.

The other tens-of-thousands of customers contributed to a smaller share of the pie and so they only mattered in aggregate.

Without crunching the numbers, I'd say that Google probably operates on the same, if hidebound, business logic.

I suspect that its slightly different. Remember that Google uses a second-price auction for AdWords. The interesting thing about second price auctions is that you need auction density to be high to ensure that revenue is made, which means that Google have an incentive to get all of their customers trying to spend more, even if they are small they can still push up the prices for the advertisers with loads of money.

Additionally, if I were Google I would care a lot more about the millions of small advertisers as they represent a much safer way to make billions of dollars (less support required and you are less beholden to a small number of agencies/advertisers who would tend to be difficult to deal with).

Fwiw, I believe you personally, but that doesn't change the top down funding, attention, direction, etc that actually shapes up your ability to treat us like customers. I see Googlers try and share the same message you do. We aren't questioning your intentions, but you can only work with what you're given.

For example, I believe the AMP team, at a low level, thinks they are doing a good thing. Their leadership, however, is pulling the strings. Kinda wish the team was more aware of how they are being manipulated.

Also, if you need an example closer to home, I'm interested in Google AppMaker. But, nobody will engage me unless I move from the $5/user/month plan to the $10/user/month plan first. That's definitely NOT how other vendors treat me. Literally, they won't answer questions unless I double my spend first. My reply was basically "fuck off".

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