If you're in the EU, you can now decide how much data to share with Google | Hacker News Reader

If you're in the EU, you can now decide how much data to share with Google

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53 pointsfariszr29 comments

I checked https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/14202892?sjid=152... and I don't have a "linked Google services" section, what gives?

I'm from the EU.

Same here. I'm assuming it's still rolling out? that's the charitable interpretation in any case.

Seems it will only come into affect on March 6th, 2024.

I checked some days ago and -for me- by default all the sharing services were disabled. Looks like it’s a opt-in feature (I hope).

I heard about Google. Do folks still use it?

>"People don't want search, they want answers." —Aravind Srinivas (Perplexity.AI)

And this is the problem.

Google is trying to be an answer engine.

No, I do want search!

It’s very rare that I just want an answer. If I do I can usually ask the Google assistant.

But Google has indeed worked hard to become an answering engine at which point it can and is getting disrupted by a whole host of alternatives such as ChatGPT, voice commands, etc.

I use both platforms, and each for specific reasons.

The more "solid"/objective the information I'm seeking, the more likely I am to "google it."

Thanks for your perspective.

Housing market - absolute catastrophe

Taxation - 40% of monthly payslip goes... somewhere

Inflation - cumulative 20% in Eurozone for the last 4 years

War - anytime now

Meantime EU - "let's talk about fine grained privacy settings and preferences"

OK Google, write me a satirical Hacker News comment to define "Whataboutism".

There nothing satirical or funny about it.

Hopefully the EU is wotking on more than 1 issue at a time.

In the long run Google probably does not care that much. They’ve been busy moving the tracking into the browser itself with the Protected Audience API.

Technically they don’t track you personally and nobody has a database of your preferences. The browser does and just runs auctions to serve you ads.

This kind of tech renders the DMA, GDPR and cookie banners moot, while keeping the money printing machine that is Google Ad business running.

>nobody has a database of your preferences

They absolutely do. They're merely not necessarily labelled as your preferences.

> Technically they don’t track you personally and nobody has a database of your preferences. The browser does and just runs auctions to serve you ads.

The law does not care about technicallities. GDPR, for example, doesn't specify a medium in which the personal data must be collected.

That’s the thing. No tracking occurs. And no personal data is collected or sent anywhere. It stays in your browser. In a way it’s like your browser history. The browser knows your interests and runs auctions for advertisers. And as per GDPR you can review it, correct it and opt out at any time. It’s basically the same horrible adware thing but without tracking and fully compliant with all EU laws.

At some point Google will turn off 3rd party cookies (a decade after Safari) and adtech will have no choice but to adopt their stuff. By end of 2024 if all goes according to plan.

Sounds great, where's the catch? And how is this going to affect non-Chrome browsers that won't support these new advertising APIs?

"Ads 2.0 aren't supported in Firefox, please use Chrome to view them" would be one hell of a selling point :)

Once websites don’t get monetized on Firefox, they will do their best to push people to Chrome themselves. This website “Best Viewed in Chrome”.

I guess you'll still get ads, they just won't be personalized. Just like how windows does it when you opt out of tracking.

> At some point Google will turn off 3rd party cookies (a decade after Safari) and adtech will have no choice but to adopt their stuff. By end of 2024 if all goes according to plan.

Sounds like an antitrust crackdown waiting to happen (both on the adtech side and the browser side)

Huh, I guess I live in the EU now…

The qualifier is "if".

Google will punish you hard if you don't share information with it. Soon you will realize that it will constantly bother you because it cannot trust you (because it does not have your information). Say if you let it track you all the time, and if you happen to forget your password, you may still be able to get the access to your email account back. I disabled all tracking, and I have not been able to access my 10+ year old email account. If I knew this, I would be happy to ask Google to track me 24/7.

Having to use a password manager seems like a small price to pay for privacy.

Google wants your passwords too.

Forget about that account and don't use any Google account ever again. You'll be fine.

Yes, that was stupid that I was using Gmail as my primary for such a long time. Now I switched to iCloud, much better, with very useful services, you can talk to a person when bad things happen. Google does not have any customer service for their services. The only Google service I am using now is Google Maps and YouTube. Probably I will switch to Apple Maps soon.

That's exactly why I switched email providers. I want a reliable login, password and 2FA scheme where if I have all 3, I'm in. Google doesn't have that.

I would choose a service where there is a human can you talk to when you need help. Customer support, user centric system. I have my phone number registered as 2FA, apparently it is not enough.

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