Comment by chestnut-tree | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chestnut-tree | Hacker News Reader

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Google and Facebook may not sell personally identifiable information to advertisers, but they track users relentlessly and insatiably. Google, in particular, has it's tracking tentacles in every conceivable corner of the web: whether it's tracking school kids through Google Classroom, or tracking users through the entirety of an OS (ChromeOS), or tracking your behaviour on your Android smartphone - the list is endless. No, I don't think they do sinsiter things with your data but they have amassed (and continue to amass) an absolutely gargantuan volume of date about users.

What Facebook and Google collect about you far exceeds a simple "advertising profile" of your likes. They know more about your online behaviour than you do. I've said this before, but Google omits basic facts in their privacy policy about the data they collect about you. Things like: how long they keep your data, whether the data is anonymised, whether your searches or activity are disassociated from your identity, and who sees your data inside the company. These are not minor or unreasonable questions to ask - they are exactly what you'd expect to find in a privacy policy (especially from a company that arguably tracks users more than anyone else online). Yet, Google does not answer any of these questions. Why do they get a free pass?

I guess it's a question of perspective.

In the past few years I've been working a lot on Bitcoin, so I've become quite familiar with how the banking world works and what they collect and track about you.

If you really think Google and Facebook "track users relentlessly and insatiably" then I suggest you take a deep breath, and then go review what banks do in the name of anti-money laundering. It makes social networks look like quasi anarchist chaos camps. I mean, you can tell Google and Facebook your name is literally anything - they aren't going to check. They barely even care beyond trying to nudge you away from picking pinkponies_78, so the search function works. Google isn't going to suddenly suspend your email account and demand you provide documentary proof of where your business is getting its income.

WRT this: Google omits basic facts in their privacy policy about the data they collect about you

I don't think they do:

http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

Just go read that page and it covers a huge number of topics including things like "who sees your data inside the company". I'm sure you would want even more info, but these sites represent a trade off - earlier privacy policies were dinged (by governments, lol) for being too large and complex.

Yes, I've read their privacy policy. Where does it tell you how long they retain your data? Or whether your data is disassociated from your identity? This is important when you consider how personal your online activity can be. Who sees your data at Google? All the privacy policy states is "We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information"

While Google automates scanning of your emails in GMail, they don't tell you if that is the case with the other personal and private data they hold about you. Yet your activity across the web is arguably just as personal and private as your emails. That is why anonymising or disassociating your data from your identity is a legitimate concern, as are questions about whether your online activity is anonymous when viewed internally by Google.

Let me put it another way, if I ask you to give me your name, gender, date-of-birth and mobile phone number (as Google does), then proceed to record the searches you undertake as well as sites you visit and videos you watch, would you not expect me to tell you how long I keep that information for? Or whether it's anonymised before internal staff pore through it? Or whether it's aggregated in a way that isn't personally identifiable?

Good comment. The contrast between banks and Goo/FB in data collected is significant indeed. But then also the ability/inventiveness of Goo/Fb of what can be done with the data is far more powerful than of the banks'.

facebook has actually been extremely aggressive about enforcing real name policies in the last year especially; my extended facebook circle includes many transgender folks who have been complaining loudly about being forced to revert their profiles to previously used names, and facebook does indeed require documentary proof of identity if it is challenged

Whenever i see someone online going "wow, Google Now did XYZ!" i cringe and wonder how much data Google must have on us to be able to pull such things off.

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