Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

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  >For me this is a bridge too far: I don't care to tell google about every single extension/application (extensplication?) I'm using.

Oh for pete's sake...

Is there anything to this " I suppose next they'll see what email providers I use and whom I correspond with with mutt or whom I chat with on other services with finch etc.. Why expand google's data-gathering "attack surface"?

Or is it further chicken-little, slippery slope conjecture with no basis in reality? Keep in mind that you're connecting to their web store to download this, even sans login. That means they have your IP, and a metric ton of identifying information about you via your browser fingerprint (ala Panopticlick). Complaining about signing in just seems rather silly. Oh noes! They know that you downloaded an extension!

You'll have to forgive me for being blunt. This particular absurd line of thought is starting to seriously become an annoyance - even the chans have latched onto it. Correcting people who have the wrong idea is getting old.

That means they have your IP, and a metric ton of identifying information about you via your browser fingerprint (ala Panopticlick)

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. ;-)

Well frankly I think my "they might read my chat in finch" is a stretch, but no, I don't think that assuming google's goal is to stretch their tentacular roots as deeply as possible into the fertile, loamy soil of my private information is "slippery slope conjecture with no basis in reality." To the contrary, as you probably know, gathering personal information on users is the primary purpose of all of google's unpaid products and the heart of their business model. Would you dispute this fact?

So they are a targeted-ad company whose value is to a great extent commensurate with the amount of information they have on users (another uncontroversial statement, I hope). More info = more value, and you think it's "conjecture" to speculate that they might push further and further into your experience on their platform?

This is the crux of it for me: I've been installing desktop applications and browser extensions for years, and I've never needed to tell an advertiser and the biggest tracker / data snooper on the 'net what my email address. Now all the sudden I do, and there's no (clear) method to opt out, and I'm OK with this because why? I'm willing to trade my data for services when the services are valuable (I use gmail & facebook), but this looks like "give us more info, just cuz" with no value prop. Sure you can sync but I don't want to and there's no reason you should be forced to sign in; that is 100% about data gathering (otherwise there'd be a "forgo sync" option).

IP address and browser fingerprint is not the same as "link everything explicitly to my google account," by the way.

> You'll have to forgive me for being blunt.

"You'll have to forgive me for being rude, obnoxious, conclusion-jumping."

Fixed that for ya.

You're welcome.

Rude? I wasn't aware that pointing out something has no basis in reality is rude.

Obnoxious? Don't post misinformation and you won't be challenged.

Conclusion jumping? What conclusion did I jump to?

And as far as making "Fixed" posts go.. doctor, heal thyself ;)

It got Slashdot-y real quick up in here.

Have you noticed that this keeps happening on different forums? It seems to be an effect of a population threshold being reached and (possibly) the time the forum has existed (separate from the population size - how comfortable the members are and, therefore, how loose they are with their words).

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