Google: (very intrasparently tracks your location history, even when settings are off)
HN: Yeah, nah, it's chill dude. Can't be that bad.
Google is geeky, they bid sums like $3.14 bil in auctions, how cool is that. And they have awesomely nerdy and human April 1 jokes. They are with us man. You are being paranoid.
Android data collection which has been happening for close to a decade is orders of magnitude more intrusive than what Microsoft does with basic telemetry.
Yet most people see MS as bad and embrace Google for being "ethical". A classic case of "guess what".
Most android users just don’t realize how invasive the entire OS is and there is little they can do about it. It sucks thah Apple is the only tech company that gives a shit about privacy seriously. We definitely need more pro-privacy choice.
Like a record of every website you've gone to that uses JS served fast and free from Google, fonts served fast and free from Google, on-site search by Google (complete with a logo most likely served direct from Google), etc.
And that ignores the most obvious: Google Analytics, where in addition to telling webmasters # of distinct visitors to the site, for each of those visitors they can track "Visited site X" for their own internal use.
IDK if it's just me, but I've seen an above-average number of news stories in the last year about how Google is not a consumer-friendly, trustworthy company now. The general public is, I guess, becoming more and more aware of this perspective.
We've certainly heard a lot about Facebook's privacy breaches and other problems. As a tech company, Google's reputation is probably hurt by that too.
It seems to me that Google has probably entered a new public relations era. And it's pretty hard to go back to the old days where consumers believed in "Don't Be Evil."
The point of the article is that Google is storing your location outside of the Location Timeline, and labeling it in ways that don't plainly indicate that's what's going on.
I think it would help me sleep easier with my Windows installs, though I don't know if any of them are logged into Microsoft accounts anymore.
What did Microsoft give me? Locked down ecosystem, a subpar OS, expensive office products, and a paid-for vendor specific development ecosystem that is frequently becoming just a copier of the emergent industry trends, and a feigned attempt to embrace open source (capture market share) with cringeworthy bumperstickers displaying "Microsoft Hearts Open Source"
Didn't Google deny something like this very recently saying it was an "error" (Facebook's favorite excuse, too), though?
But with phones after destruction of privacy-minded Nokia there was basically no alternative, and they executed marketing flawlessly, having both geeks and normies desiring their phones, stuffed with tracking.
Lately, there have been a vocal group defending corporate interests, globalism, monitoring/spying and censorship all over social media. Not sure why and where they came from but it's interesting how suddenly they appeared on the scene.
Respectfully, fuck off.
As for the Windows 10 telemetry, during a Windows 10 install these are all of the things that are turned on by default.
Personalization
1. Personalize your speech, inkling input and typing by sending contacts and calendar details, along with other associated input data to Microsoft.
2. Send typing and input data to Microsoft to improve the recognition and suggestion platform.
3. Let apps use your advertising ID for experience across apps.
4. Let Skype (if installed) help you connect with friends in your address book and verify your mobile number. SMS and data charges may apply.
Location
1. Turn on Find My Device and let Windows and apps request your location, including location history and send Microsoft and trusted partners location data to improve location services.
Connectivity and error reporting
1. Automatically connect to suggested open hotspots. Not all networks are secure.
2. Automatically connect to networks shared by your contacts.
3. Automatically connect to hotspots temporarily to see if paid Wi-Fi services are available.
4. Send full error and diagnostic information to Microsoft.
Browser, protection, and update
1. User SmartScreen online services to help protect against malicious content and downloads in sites loaded by Windows browsers and Store apps.
2. User page prediction to improve reading, speed up browsing, and make your overall experience better in Windows browsers. Your browsing data will be sent to Microsoft.
3. Get updates from and send update to others PCs on the Internet to speed up app and Windows update downloads.
Wait, are you talking about Microsoft or Google here? :p
Most of your listed points don't relate to telemetry or are common practice with other OS vendors. I don't see why this warrants such an overreaction, when others get a pass.
Android is a toy OS. Very few does anything serious on it. A desktop OS on the other hand has access to the very most sensitive information you ever come across. If you can't trust your desktop OS everything is game over.
Windows 10 telemetry is the most convincing reason to jump ship that has ever existed in my opinion.
That said, android is of course also very bad. Problem is that there is no decent alternative to iOS and android. It is quite frustrating.
Aside from the fact that Google also owns a search engine you might've heard of (so it's not like they only make phone operating systems), I think this type of thinking is quite old-fashioned.
People put most of their lives into their phones these days. They carry them everywhere, document their lives through photos, call and text their friends wherever they are, read the news, direct them to their destination, play games, etc. To pretend that most people's primary computing device is a "toy OS" is to pretend as though we are still in 2004. That's not the world we live in anymore.
I don't personally own a smartphone anymore (precisely because of these sorts of privacy invasions), but I sure as hell wouldn't pretend that the majority of people don't use smartphones as their primary computing device. I agree that Windows is also absolutely immoral, but we shouldn't be debating which is worse here -- they're both reprehensible.
Phones are most people's only computing device. Many who have never used a traditional computer own and use smartphones.
So for instance smartphone ownership rates in India is 18%. [1] By contrast this article [2] overviews some data in a survey from Dell India which gives various hints on PC usage. Overall 51% of families have somebody that is PC literate, 79% in East India stated they used a PC at cyber cafes, and so on. It's safe to say that your hypothesis is not really supported in India.
China has a vastly higher smartphone usage, but they also have a vastly higher PC usage with dirt cheap and constantly filled cyber cafes on seemingly every corner of every street. The only information I could find on PC usage was here [3] but that study is hopelessly outdated. As it mentions, "according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC) (2010), the average number of home computers per 100 urban households in China increased steadily from 5.91 in 1999 to 65.74 in 2009, or at an average of 27.24 percent per year." The absurdly rapid growth rate makes it difficult to say anything other than that PC usage is certainly not rare in China. Your hypothesis is going to be, at best, questionable there and exclusively dependent upon the rural population.
[1] - http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/16/china-outpac...
[2] - https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/06/12/what-indian-pc-user...
[3] - http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3767/31...
Here's my personal experience
I live in Africa. In my middle-class household, there are 10 adults - 4 Laptops, 14 smart phones and 9 TVs.
In the few African countries I have lived, cyber cafe business/usage is rapidly declining because of a combination of cheaper smartphones and cheaper mobile data.
A brand new dirt cheap smartphone costs approximately 1-2 months of minimum wage salary. It'll work 8 - 48 hours before needing a recharge. A small power bank can triple the hours.
A brand new Core i3 laptop on the other hand costs at least 6 months salary. Battery life 4 - 6 hours. And needs a modem to get online.
For what it's worth the smartphones are also very popular and start around $20, computers around $50. But they're certainly complimenting each other rather than cannibalizing. Why do you think the same might not be true in Africa?
I can't even get a used laptop for $50 in my place.
>Why do you think the same might not be true in Africa?
I can't speak for the whole of Africa. However I know two personally (Nigeria and Ghana). And a few others by acquaintances - togo, Benin...
First reason: Earning power, salaries have remained relatively static for at least 10 years but the local currencies have depreciated at least 4 times within the same period.
Second reason: Production. Computers and smartphones are produced in China and India. All components needed for these devices are available within the continent. Thus, the price would be dirt cheap there.
To put the first point in context. I'm using a 5 year old HP Envy without touch screen. I bought it for N130,000 then. The equivalent of the same laptop should cost less right? Nope. It costs N250,000+ right now.
Same thing in Ghana. 8 years ago, 1 cedi = 1usd. Now 1 cedi = 4.85 cedi. Salary for a government secondary school teacher was 800 cedi then. It's 800 cedi now.
>But they're certainly complimenting each other rather than cannibalizing. Maybe in Asia. People who grow up using Macs find it difficult to use Windows right?
It's easy for people who grew up with PCs to use smart phones. But the reverse isn't the case. I know many people who grew up with phones but now have laptops - it's easy to spot them - they use abbreviations excessively on chat.
All they use their laptops for are movies and the occasional Microsoft word. Everything else - even gaming is done on their phones or tablets.
I hope this partly answers your question.
And yet it still is a toy OS, compared to what it could be if it was designed with productivity and empowering end users in mind, as opposed to being a shallow consumption and communications platform.
That's orthogonal to the tracking angle, though. GP is wrong in assuming that just because desktop Windows is not a toy OS, it's automatically exposed to more sensitive data. It's not, because - as you noted - most people use smartphones as their primary computation device (for what little it can do). There's also another angle here - desktop PCs may contain most of your work data, but people don't really care about securing that. Privacy of their personal messages and photos, which are mostly accessed via smartphones these days, is of more importance to them.
Thats why more and more people use it exclusively for everything, including online banking.