See all your purchases, subscriptions and reservations
support.google.com
support.google.com
If this surprises you you’re going to be flabbergasted by how the Trips label works.
Oh yeah also Gmail and Now work together to bring you those reminders to pay your bills.
Where? On every device a user owns?
I would much prefer some basic heuristics executed on-device using my data in a secured processing state. The hueristic-building could be in the cloud, but on datasets other than mine, and let me tweak those dials!
Hell, I'd even pay for this feature.
That means the heuristics/models that get built would be a worse fit for you, as a user, although it sounds like that's a tradeoff that you'd like.
I thought about switching my email to iCloud but I'm afraid Apple's going to change the domain yet again. And gmail is hella reliable.
Google of old might have done something cool with this info and annotated the purchases with something like "14,391 people bought this for an average of $1.08 less" or "you pay $7.44 per month more than the average Comcast customer in your area" etc.
This is very, VERY subjective. Even if Google did something like "you pay $7.44 per month more than the average Comcast customer in your area" there will be very similar posts detailing how 'Google reads your monthly payment data'.
My point was just that Google gets and (probably) analyzes aggregate payment information but the user only gets what they already know. If Google is sucking up all of that data, they could at least give some insights to users too.
Now I'm curious to know if they're using this info to analyze competitor marketshare and/or set prices for competing services.
We already know they do... They'll even milk companies for money, bet against them, etc. It's clearly they should have their company broken up IMO (and I'm typically a libertarian)
And Apple keeps the old domains, so my me.com email works fine. I never use icloud.com.
Fastmail isn't free, but I think the old adage "if you're given a really cool product for free, then the product us you" applies here. If you're ok with that, that's cool. But if you're not, there are some great options out there.
This is not how it works. More like "we see you desperately need something because of your circumstances and we offer you only the premium price". Not explicitly of course.
While this level of ad targeting is not available, based on the gmails they read, they have it on your profile.
Also, you can always buy your own domain name for a few dollars and take it with you anywhere, hosting with reliable email providers.
My ancient @mac.com email address still works (I think it's 16 years old now). So does my girlfriend's @me.com. You're worrying about wrong things.
This information isn't solely surfaceable in Inbox or Gmail UI, go to any Google Search box and type "my purchases" or "my flights" or "my reservations".
It's already in my email, which they host. I don't see why I should not want this feature, where they aggregate helpful information for me.
Some people are going to have a very rough time when reality finally strikes them with all of its might. Perhaps it won't be you, but it will happen.
I use venmo - they have it too.
My credit card companies are private companies. Where's the outrage regarding them?
Google does not reveal my identity to partners; What you're spreading is fake news.
The point here is that it is completely outside of your control. If you want to give all of the control in your life to Google because they have treated you (mostly) well (so far), that's up to you. But as for myself and others, we will refrain because we can think up many reasons why it might not be a smart choice in the long run.
If Google complying with the law is something someone feels at-risk for, then I understand not choosing to use them. But that's really a lesson that goes for any centralized service.
I suggest avoiding this phrase if you are trying to have a serious debate. It's overused to the point of obnoxiousness, and doesn't even apply here. (The person you replied to posed a question. Questions are not "news", nor can be described as "fake".)
> when reality finally strikes them with all of its might.
That said, I see someone changed the title of the post. Now discussion here will be about two completely different subjects.
Just wait until we have one many times worse than this. Data breaches of the future will cause more than just a few suicides. Some may eventually cause war.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Madison_data_breach#Imp....
The difference is that those data brokers are just terrible at actually delivering products and value from the data they are getting. At least Google can make their "free" services better as a result.
However, it's very likely that they're also selling adverts based on that data, and possibly selling the data itself. Do you really want your health insurance provider to be able to buy a list of restaurant bookings you've made? Or how about the airline you're about to book with knowing what you paid a competitor last time so they don't need to discount their prices for you to buy?
Would you be happy paying more for things because you use Gmail?
I am not afraid of that example happening because that is not how Google operates.
Google makes money by connecting ads to search queries. An advertiser makes an ad, says "make it appear for the term 'xbox'", and it shows up on Google for searches of Xbox.
The advertiser has absolutely no idea who I am, and google never "sold my data".
Who would even by such data in any volume meaningful enough for Google to consider it as a source of revenue compared to ads, especially given the privacy concerns?
I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Google's own terms even explicitly prevent them from revealing my identity in such a way.
To be Frank, I have a suspicion that HN has been bamboozled by a continuous Apple smear campaign. When Android started becoming more of a threat, and they pretty obviously couldn't take on things like Maps, they defaulted to an argument that they sort of have by default, by virtue of the fact that they sell hardware, not software: Privacy.
And they're not even that good at it. Remember the mac root mistake not too long ago? Google actually has to maintain strict data privacy to survive. Apple, not so much. It's an easy argument for them to promote, and people are lapping it up.
Google had a "data extraction team" (I forget what it was actually called), before it was even cool. It was a team internally years ago that was like, "people have a right to view, export, and remove their own data, so we're going to build that into Google products." And they were allowed to do that. Like, years ago. A long time before this recent wave of skepticism started. I always appreciated that. You heard stories of that kind of thing from Google, then. Hardly ever competitors.
The vast majority of ads you see are not on search result pages. They’re on arbitrary non-google related pages, so to make that work google has basically moved to a “track everything this person does online so we can build and sell a profile of them”.
Your argument about data privacy is a nonsense - what matters is data security - Their business depends on them being able to read the information they have accumulated and then indirectly selling it. That is fundamentally opposed to data privacy - which would mean only you could read that information.
You say apple doesn’t have the same “privacy” requirements, but what you mean is the Apple isn’t dependent on their users data for income. Even then Apple encrypts ever increasing amounts of user data so that even if they are compromised the data isn’t useful to anyone.
If google did care about privacy then when your email came in they would filter spam, encrypt, and then discard the plaintext. That’s the best you can do because email security is laughable by design. They’d still have huge amounts of information, but at the very least they wouldn’t be able to retroactively crawl your mail box.
Connecting ads to profiles over ads to search - okay. That doesn't seem super different. The point is the advertiser doesn't know who I am. That's mostly what I care about.
If google couldn't read my email, they couldn't give me features like when my flight is departing. That's a feature I appreciate.
The point I was trying to make is that people seem to believe that Google reveals your identity and personal details to advertisers for profit, which is false.
This implies that two people who search "xbox" will see the same advert. That is absolutely not the case. Advertisers can target specific groups. Just log in to AdSense and you can easily see the options. They're not a secret.
>Google has been able to track your location using Google Maps for a long time. Since 2014, it has used that information to provide advertisers with information on how often people visit their stores. But store visits aren’t purchases, so, as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607938/google-now-tracks-...
Finding that tidbit out was my own personal bridge too far.
Firefox, DDG, Fastmail, etc are all perfectly good enough and don't make me feel dirty.
Move to Fastmail if that's what your after. You are using a free service, because you are the product. That's not about respect, it's about your (lack) of understanding of the business relationship you entered. If you aren't comfortable with that, you're going to have to pay actual money.
The reality is that irresponsibility and disrespect for users are rampant in the tech world. That’s entirely companies’ doing.
If you use a free service, you basically have assurances that they're not respecting your privacy. The probability of a paid service respecting your privacy is greater than zero, at least.
Also, not all paid services are created equal. You still have to do more due diligence past just throwing money at someone who'll take it.
There's also the option of running your own server, but it seems deliverability is an issue.
https://www.rainloop.net/ is actually much better software in my opinion, and is self-hosted unlike FastMail.
Rainloop satisfies the need for polished, smooth, elegant, yet simple "feeling" interfaces like Gmail finally became.
Handles multiple identities, multiple accounts, and contacts well; but no calendar.
Way better than Zimbra webmail, though that does have Calendars. On my local machine, I still use RainLoop rather than a traditional email client, it's that good.
ProtonMail, also mentioned, doesn't seem far off, but seems to lack the extra polish. It's in the neighborhood of RainLoop though, it would appear.
These days I host my own anyway, and have a blargh@host mail account I use to sign up for things (typically blargh+thewebstie@host so I can track who is selling email addresses)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html
Google doesn't just live in a single client. As a user (by giving up my privacyto Google), I can ask my Google home how my day is while getting ready for work. I can see the status of my flight tomorrow in my Google app (or Google home screen in Android) without a single search - just because it parsed my email with itinerary. Same way, I can see status for my FedEx package right there just because they violeted my privacy and scraped when I purchased something.
Imagine how much friction it'd require to setup such devices if everything was processed on client side or required explicit opt-in before accessing the info.
Of course as a side effect, I get advertisements of standing desk even a month after buying one, but probably the alternative would be to pay for all these AI and assist?
Again, just a user's perspective.
Gmail's basically parsing emails, so I don't think it would be that hard to do client-side if there was a community effort to create and maintain the parsers. That's certainly doable, because ad-block lists have some of the same characteristics and are community maintained.
I just wish there's the option to erase the items there, or even better disable the collection entirely.
It used to link here: https://myaccount.google.com/purchases
The title used to be, "Google reads your Gmail and scrapes your purchases".
It also was #1 on the front page of HN. Now it's gone.
What happened? Conspiracy theories welcome :-)
Any idea why I might not see any purchases here?
YOU GAVE THEM YOUR PERMISSION.
Maybe, in the future, read the TOS and Privacy Policies rather than just pressing accept and acting offended when they do EXACTLY what they said they'd do.
Had you done that, you'd also know exactly who has access to that information and, if you read when they notify you of policy updates, who will have access in the future.
Why is this so hard to understand for people? Gmail is not free, you are paying with the information gleaned from it. If you aren't ok with that, start shelling out money.
ARTHUR DENT: Yes! I went round to find them yesterday afternoon. You’d hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to pull much attention to them have you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.
MISTER PROSSER: The plans were on display.
ARTHUR DENT: Ah! And how many members of the public are in the habit of casually dropping around the local planning office of an evening?
MISTER PROSSER: Er – ah!
ARTHUR DENT: It’s not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in on the off chance that some raving bureaucrat wanted to knock your house down, the plans weren’t immediately obvious to the eye were they?
MISTER PROSSER: That depends where you were looking.
ARTHUR DENT: I eventually had to go down to the cellar!
MISTER PROSSER: That’s the display department.
ARTHUR DENT: With a torch!
MISTER PROSSER: The lights, had… probably gone.
ARTHUR DENT: So had the stairs!
MISTER PROSSER: Well you found the notice didn’t you?
ARTHUR DENT: Yes. It was "on display" in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard!”. Ever thought of going into advertising?
> Why is this so hard to understand for people?
Because an extremely large amount of money is spent on UX and PR conducted by some of our brightest minds, to make it as hard to understand as possible.
Conflating security and privacy to use 2FA to get phone numbers out of people is a great example. HN and tech news sites were/are awash with security experts telling people to protect their personal information by enriching their identifiers for surveillance companies.
I may be a financially illiterate person....fuck Pokerstars and their $500 spin & gos.
I would've never seen this without having a comprehensive look at all my online purchases....I didn't realize how reckless I was with money....damn it