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Comment by ardy42 | Hacker News Reader

> Google in recent years has felt like the Lyft to Facebook's Uber. It does a lot of the same evil things, but uses just enough restraint and decorum to let Facebook remain the one in the hot-seat. It avoids scrutiny by simply being less icky.

Many of Google's services have a great deal more basic utility than anything Facebook provides. I think that also provides additional cover for them.

When Facebook pushes for more data collection, it almost always looks way more self-serving than when Google does.

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Google also tends to be much more up-front about data collection, and seems to have better practices regarding keeping it from third parties.

That still doesn't make it good, but it helps. Whereas Facebook literally created a shell-company to mislead both users and Apple (who was trying to act in the users' best interest).

What is the shell company?

"uTest" - see the original article: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/

Stop spreading fake news. The app was literally called Facebook Research - I know you want to believe that there was a lot of hiding going on but it is really not the case.

Go visit https://play.google.com/store/search?q=facebook&c=apps&hl=fr . Are you able to tell which apps are supported by facebook and which are not ? For example, "onavo protect" is about 80th in the list, who in their right mind would think "yup, this one totally owned by facebook".

I wouldn't ever think that anything called "Facebook XXX" is a facebook app, even more so if it's clearly sold by a shell company. It was hiding, even though it was ironically in plain sight.

I know you want to believe the worst about Facebook. But it doesn't change the fact that the app was literally called Facebook Research and when you downloaded it had Facebook logos all over it - to make it clear that the app was from Facebook. Dive deeper, get data and then make arguments vs. having your feelings take the better of you.

My argument was and still is : there are hundred of apps named "Facebook XXX", having facebook logos all over them.

For any sane person, the only way to know the "official" ones are to check the developer account, in this case, it was not Facebook.

Hence, for any sane person, the only reasonable assumption was that it was not a Facebook sponsored one.

Also, re: "Many of Google's services have a great deal more basic utility than anything Facebook provides"

I would so gladly pay money for a version of Google's services which was 1) client-side encrypted, 2) not mined whatsoever by Google - even the metadata, and 3) ad-free. They really do make useful, high-quality software, but I refuse to give them my life's data. I switched to using Apple for everything cloud-related, and while Apple Maps isn't as bad as people think, and Safari, Notes, and Calendar get the job done, they're also not as good as Google's equivalents.

Gsuite.

The thing about Gsuite is that they're paid versions of ad-based apps. I'm skeptical that Google doesn't still "mine the hell" out of the activity in them, at most it just suppresses the ad display in certain places. To do otherwise would have Google 1) spending money on privacy features that would 2) reduce tracking-based revenue. Market-logic says they'd decide to continue to track their paid users.

This is just baseless accusations, but ok.

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