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Comment by SilkRoadie | Hacker News Reader

I moved off of fitbit when the deal was announced. The volume of data google collects on users is terrifying. Glad to see this is getting looked at with more scrutiny.

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Technically it could be possible to just add Fitbit device support to apps like Gadgetbridge (https://gadgetbridge.org/), bypassing the biggest violation of privacy that are the current OEM companion apps, and thus be able to keep using the hardware you paid money for.

I did too, but I haven't actually replaced it yet. I'd go back to Fitbit if the deal got officially killed.

Genuinely curious, what personal consequences do you see for yourself due to Google acquiring Fitbit that would prompt you to avoid their devices? While I can understand the sentiment, this seems unnecessarily paranoid.

In my case, I've spent over five years working on relieving Google of data about me. I'm not about to give them more.

Paranoia claims suggest unfounded concerns but Google's misuse of private information is well known.

OCD trekkie, I don’t doubt that you have worked assiduously to remove your data from Google, but I am genuinely curious what actual harm you are trying to avoid here.

> Google's misuse of private information is well known.

The accusations are certainly well known (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_regarding_G...).

Whether anything here constitutes misuse is a matter of both personal opinion (yours being very well known of course given your thoughts and comments about Google) as well as various laws but that doesn't make any of it a universally accepted truth or standard.

In my case I'm much more worried about security than privacy, and far more willing to trade off the privacy (more targeted ads) for the increased security - Google's infrastructure is way more likely to be properly secured vs. Joe Random wearables startup, or even Garmin, as a recent example...

Sounds like a single point of failure as opposed to distributing the risk across multiple companies.

Yep, totally. I am fine with concentrating my risk on a big company with a huge target on its back (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon) but with enough money (and enough profit to protect) that they can correspondingly afford to compete effectively in the security arms race.

There are economies of scale to security just like with anything else.

Security also depends on your threat model: Who are you worried about accessing your data. (Privacy and security are actually two sides of the same coin.) You do not want hackers accessing your data, because they do bad things with it. I also don't want Google accessing my data, because they do bad things with it. Google uses data to harm competitors (of which I am not, thankfully) and people who speak ill of them[0] (which... yeah) so I should probably be pretty concerned about them knowing much about me.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/31/google-...

The temporary removal of that app (its back now) had nothing to do with retaliation. I have a hard time believing that Google leadership would be that stupid.

See https://www.androidauthority.com/blue-mail-play-store-114347...

Obviously, Google isn't going to admit that it did it out of retaliation, but an app doesn't get dropped for having "similarities to another mail app" after six years, two days after it's known they're speaking to Congress about Google's antitrust abuses. That takes an incredible stretch of the imagination.

This is called an "oops". Mozilla is well aware of how Google "accidentally" harms other companies repeatedly to gain an advantage: https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...

Data breaches are very common. While you, as a consumer, usually can’t make informed decisions about which companies will leak your confidential data, the easiest way to control the damage is to make sure one company doesn’t have too much of your data. This lessens the impact of an inevitable data breach.

It’s just another brick in the wall. Google owns products that have visibility into your: email, search history, home, likeness, location, voice, credit, health, DNA (through Calico), and more.

They might not use it maliciously today, but they could create a pretty good clone given the details of your life they have collected and continue to collect.

> They might not use it maliciously today, but they could create a pretty good clone given the details of your life they have collected and continue to collect.

I want to ask the inverse of this question. What can Google do to make you comfortable with their services while still being primarily an advertising company?

Some ideas I can think of:

1. Delete your data once it is no longer relevant for advertising (I think they already offer an option to delete data after some time)

2. Not sell any data to third party, and make strong claims about this that can be legally challenged.

3. Keep data encrypted so that data breaches or even malicious actors within the company can not access the data.

4. Anonymize user data so that a business who acquired a customer won’t know why a {name, shipping address, product, price, credit card, email} was targeted for this advertisement and was successfully converted to a sale through that advertisement.

5. Not offer suggestions/data/feedback to advertisers on how to exploit vulnerable target audiences (Example: help Casinos target gambling addicts 5% more efficiently by doing X,Y,Z changes)

6. Build a track record of legal challenges and pushback against governments to show that when they claim that data is deleted, it really is deleted.

I am not sure how many of these Google already has done - but if they are doing any/all of this, they aren’t being loud enough about it. If one has to read through 200 pages of terms and conditions to determine what they do, people will just assume the worst and be paranoid.

I would argue that being an advertising company makes it inherently incompatible with privacy and trust. The motivation to encourage users to buy certain products over others means there is constant monetary incentive to abuse consumers. Ironically, Larry Page and Sergey Brin believed that too: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html (Appendix A)

It's a shame you're being downvoted on this point. I absolutely agree with you and think you're absolutely right. Modern digital advertising is absolutely incompatible with privacy and trust.

The entire point of advertising is to emotionally manipulate people into making purchases. Targeted advertising requires gathering and abusing data about people.

Great comment! On one hand, they have so much market power it’s hard for me to ever be “comfortable” with how much data they control. On the other hand, a proactive rollout of GDPR guidelines in the US would be a great start.

I am usually not worried about my personal privacy but the power that aggregated data gives to a company.

If they wanted, they could create or destroy businesses based on the data they have. Let's say they want to create a competitor to a small pop-corn stand. They could see the profiles of all people who go to that existing stand and make it look like something they wanted (eg. based on their YouTube history). They could check the paths they take daily, or the route they take to that stand and put their own in a better spot (eg. based on location history). They could only open the stand or promote it when people are really craving, for example after work or after a gym workout (eg. from the Fitbit data).

You get the point, the idea is that once you have all those insights into a mass of people, you can easily control them into buying your product or doing what you want them to do, while they think it's their idea to do that.

In general, people are very easy to influence. If I just mention the words "FIFA 20 on PS4", you are very likely to have all those thoughts about gaming and maybe actually want to start playing FIFA, even though before you had absolutely no intent to do so.

Did you move to something or just stopped tracking?

I like the idea of tracking stuff for myself, but it doesn't seem possible without evil cloud at the moment. Maybe with apple watch?

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