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Comment by wonderyak | Hacker News Reader

Its amazing to me that the second announcement after the acquision is all about how Google won't be privvy to your data.

Seems to me that Google has completely lost control of the narrative.

A few years ago people would be talking about how great this kind of integration would be in their lives, now its just Google+ jokes.

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I guess you shouldnt consider HN comments and Google+ jokes to be representative of general population or even elusive "techies" audience. Even more, HN is so different in comparison with HN a few years ago.

However, I agree with you about Google losing the control of the narrative.

Google+ has been the butt of jokes on the Daily Show since launch. If that's not "general population," then what is?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-30-2013/jon-st...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-18-2012/moneygal...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-31-2012/indeci...

1.5 to 2 million viewers, 56% male, 45% college-educated, 37% making over $75k, almost completely aged 18-49.

While I agree that this isn't the "general population," it seems to me that this is an incredibly important demographic to Google.

The only population that matters: people with money, who are willing to throw it at shiny things without thinking too hard.

Privacy related comments and jokes are what I've seen everywhere about it.

Google has definitely lost control of their image.

I disagree. People upset with something will always be loudest. That doesn't mean the majority of people agree with the vocal portion of the community.

Most people I know, including older persons, are annoyed by Google+. So, it's not just an HN thing. Google lost its image.

I've had three older folks just this week ask me how to permanently delete their Google+ profiles. One even insisted on deleting it even though he'd never actually gone past the initial sign-in page.

A look at these two videos should dispel that notion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTq8TrA3hb4

You shouldn't limit the audience to HN. A few years ago we probably wouldn't be as concerned about privacy as we are now.

Hmmm, interesting. What I observed instead was a sad paucity of useful thinking being expressed on HN.

No cruel yet detailed dissections of the deal, no examination of the technological possibilities, or posts where people speculated on which competitors in which markets will be impacted.

Mostly statements along the lines of "I'm sorry but I am imagining the whole article without reading it", but without even the level of self awareness that this is something to be "sorry" about.

I'm not sure. Google is anti-Amazon. Amazon treats its customers great and everybody else, including employees, like shit. With Google it is the opposite: the one relationship you want to be in with Google is employee-employer. And I don't know if they would protest this characterization...

> the second announcement after the acquision is all about how Google won't be privvy to your data.

For approximately as long as it takes for the AdWords team to figure out how to mine it, and then they're absolutely privy to it because that's what Google does, is harvest and aggregate your personal data in order to sell it to advertisers and the NSA

Google and most other tech companies never sell your personal data to advertisers. Google provides advertisers an opportunity to pay to engage Google users and get a piece of their attention on Google platforms. The actual user data as in personally identifiable user data never leaves the company servers.

That's sort of irrelevant, the creepy part is that the behavioural prediction models exist at all, and are controlled by an entity whose only responsibility or duty is to generate profit

It's not 'sort of irrelevant'. The entire thesis of many arguments against Google, and specifically the comment you made above, was that they distribute your personal information to advertisers and other corporate entities. That's just not true.

Frankly, if they did that, they wouldn't make very much money. They can demand money from advertisers because they have an information advantage over everyone else. That information advantage gives them an incentive to protect your personal information. After all, if they leaked the information a competitor could use it to formulate competitive advertising profiles, which would drive down earnings.

Edit: I wanted to add a few more thoughts since I let it spin around in my mind a bit. I think if you followed the line of argument regarding Google's profit motive as a corporation, you could reach the conclusion that their users' privacy(that is, the distribution of their private information) is a prerogative of theirs to protect. Their viability as a corporation depends on their profiles being the most accurate, and on being under their sole ownership. As such, they are driven to protect them.

I would conjecture that the profit motive for their need to protect their information has led to their relatively robust consumer protection ratings by groups like the EFF[0].

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0: https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013

So long as we live in an economy based on selling things, people are going to try to sell you things. They're going to do it as effectively as they can.

Advertisers have been thinking about demographics since there's been advertising. Advertisers' needs have dictated the TV shows that do and don't see the light of day for half a century. Behavior prediction models have been around for decades, now they're just better.

Are you implying that we should impose bans on technological and scientific progress?

Or that this progress should only be limited to state owned institutions?

Something can be creepy and yet have no remedy that isn't worse.

I definitely see why this is potentially creepy to some, but I think that we should also be objective and look at the track record of those companies in question.

Googles business model isn't based on doing something malicious like selling your private data to mexican drug lords, neither does Apple, Microsoft or Facebook.

The real threat is some kind of data loss (where Google has a pretty good track record) and secret wiretapping warrants issued by secret courts based on secret laws. (but even there it's not in Googles interest and they are forced by the state to comply)

I wasn't making any broader point; I just didn't like the way you engaged with the grandparent here. We need to stop reinforcing the pattern that "I don't like X => we have to do Y to try and stop X". You could just as well have engaged more constructively, asking whether they thought there was any Y that might be worth looking at.

Unless they transmit that data in the clear between their servers.

> is harvest and aggregate your personal data in order to sell it to advertisers and the NSA

Not sure if serious or a parody of a hater

>that's what Google does, is harvest and aggregate your personal data in order to sell it to advertisers and the NSA

I can't hear you over the crinkling of your massive tinfoil hat

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