Item — HN Reader

Lame but not unexpected comments from a company living off their users' data - it's quasi by definition that privacy isn't something GOOG is particularly interested in at all as the lack of it is at the very core of their own creepy business model.

Each of us info-tech "professionals" downplaying this reality by falling for GOOG marketing are not merely cattle but sheep. Cool open-source projects count as successful opinion manipulation ("marketing") as well btw (Angular, Kubernetes, etc).

I admit it, I'm a sheep meeeeeehmeeeeeehmeehmeh but it might be about time to finally change that meehmeehmeh.

1 comments

So Google undoubtedly know a lot about you. This knowledge also powers a large number of highly useful features.

e.g.

* Remind me that it's time to leave for my meeting. Taking traffic and preferred method of travel into account.

* Alert me about that breaking news story that I'm really interested in following.

* Tell me what the weather is going to be like when my plane lands.

All of these are things I value and they are only possible if Google knows enough things about me to answer those questions. A phone can't power it you need software running in a datacenter somewhere. People want these features which is why Google is able to make money.

Everytime this topic comes up people rant about how Google is creepy but it's disingenuous because the tradeoff is Incredibly useful features vs user privacy.

It's a perfectly valid position to want governmental protections for one's data to provide some recourse for violations of your privacy while still enabling those same useful features.