Goodbye Google...

So I first thought maybe this was tooooooo off topic and maybe even too political for this forum but what the hell here goes.

I decided recently to move away from Google. A little bit of backstory, (if you even care, but you are reading this so) I am a long time Apple user, and a long time user of Google services like Gmail and Google Maps. I felt I had to break out of the walled garden of iOS recently and gave a Nexus (5x) phone a shot. I was initially pretty damn impressed with what my $349 got me when iPhones are running over $700 now with tax. I also was totally charmed by so many features of Android 6.0. Then it got creepy.
I didn't realize "Ok Google" was running in the background for days listening to me ready to answer back. Then I hit "Assistant" on my photos tab only to have 100 pictures of my son sent to the cloud, where I no longer own them. Google knew everything about those pictures right away and made terribly cute little collages.
Being a person who highly values my privacy I started relentlessly researching Google and what I drummed up was extremely unnerving to me. I won't get into it, I don't wanna push any of my flawed, biased, and incomplete perspectives here. Just to say, if you are a person who values your privacy you may want to look into this. Google appears to be so very generous with all their 'free' services and storage and inexpensive hardware but there is a HUGE (not so) hidden cost and it is all of your information, all the time.
Maybe that doesn't matter to you, and maybe it's our inevitable future, and maybe it's really the only way we can have such excellent AI, but for me it was simply too uncomfortable.
Cheers
Matteo

You live in NYC and you're concerned about privacy????? I understand your point and do share your concern that your highly personal things and information can so easily be taken without your consent. This is one of the reasons I never use my smart phone to access any of my financial sources because I just don't know how secure everything really is. Besides if I did lose my phone thieves would have a starting point on where to look to steal what ever they want. All we can do is take precautions on what we're doing and hope for the best.

If you have a problem with Google, don't start researching what your own intelligence agencies are getting up to with your privacy.

I keep most stuff like that turned off. My wife has more of an issue with her iPhone and iPad doing things than I do with my Samsung phone.

I hear you loud and clear. I am also user of Google stuff since a while (and have to admit that I like the usability, functionality and minimal ads) and I am also getting concerned about the privacy issues. There are reasonably safe solutions out there (like protonmail), but I am frankly hesitating to switch just to find out that in a year they fold because of some "pressure from outside" (BTW, protonmail was attacked recently and it was one of the largest cyber attacks in Swiss ever). Moving all my emails and contacts is going to be a big time PITA as well as letting people know that I have "moved".

And not to forget - Google is just one out of many tech giants doing the same thing. Facebook recently suggetsted a contact to me (a person I actually knew from my "offline life") - the problem being that there was no apparent way for FB to propse that person to be my contact - I did not share my contact list with FB. So it did feel very strange.

Don't know that Microsoft is any better but I will say their phone OS is better than Apple's, they just don't have the apps - which doesn't bother me.

Their new CEO seems to be doing a good job and is certainly better than Steve Ballmer which isn't saying much, I guess

Have the same experience...Facebook keeps suggesting friends to me including people I have gone to grammar school with and whom I have never even met or talked to ever since.

Aphex said:

If you have a problem with Google, don't start researching what your own intelligence agencies are getting up to with your privacy.

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Your government (UK) has Tempora, something the US gov. would kill to have.

I share the concern. That being said, Google is only one of many in this issue and moving away from their services will not prevent entities from data-mining your info.

Bill13 said:

Don't know that Microsoft is any better but I will say their phone OS is better than Apple's, they just don't have the apps - which doesn't bother me.

Click to expand...

Not sure about the phones but there are telemetry protocols (retro-fitted via updates for the first two) in Windows 7, 8 and 10.

It's not as if somebody (a human) created those collections. I fully understand the privacy concerns involved and Google is certainly no angel in this regard (PRISM cooperation etc) however, that being said such a "collection" of photos is fairly easy to create in an automated programmatic method which involves no human intervention (I believe the thematic element of the collections are determined by facial/object recognition technology).

People need to understand apple/Google/microsoft they are no better than each other when it comes to this stuff. It is why they offer things for "free".

As said above, i am more worried with the info governments secretly collect.

no chit. My wife got her letter from OPM last week about her info being part of the last big breech, and yesterday she was called by a debt collector about a PayPal account opened in her name in April that had $1,400 in bad debt... I'm more worried about my own gov't compiling all my info in one place and then letting hostile gov'ts steal it.

It's funny, but when a corporation has a data breech they are assessed millions of $ in fines that federal the gov't keeps (none goes to those who had their info stolen). But when the federal gov't has data stolen it's only "Whoops! Sorry about that (lol)"

Also consider not just what they use this info gathering for today but how it may be used in the future. Personally I feel there's way too much tech running amok just waiting to be abused and I can think of some real bad ways things may go bad. I really don't like the way these companies and the .gov do things as it is so I'm not the best one to give advice here I suppose.

Another thing I have an issue with is iTunes, Amazon, etc. requiring you store credit card info with them.

Tobes said:

Have the same experience...Facebook keeps suggesting friends to me including people I have gone to grammar school with and whom I have never even met or talked to ever since.

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I get that too, these old acquaintances have just been creeping your profile.

Honestly unless you are actively plotting against the government or have a family member or S.O. (or spurned former lover?) working in domestic intelligence it is so highly unlikely that any of your collected information will ever be accessed by anyone, you've got a higher chance of winning the lottery. I know we all like to think we're special unique individuals, but sadly the fact of the matter is that the (stupendous staggering gargantuan etc) amount of data collected on an hourly basis could not possibly be processed by human beings.

WildBoar said:

no chit. My wife got her letter from OPM last week about her info being part of the last big breech, and yesterday she was called by a debt collector about a PayPal account opened in her name in April that had $1,400 in bad debt... I'm more worried about my own gov't compiling all my info in one place and then letting hostile gov'ts steal it.

It's funny, but when a corporation has a data breech they are assessed millions of $ in fines that federal the gov't keeps (none goes to those who had their info stolen). But when the federal gov't has data stolen it's only "Whoops! Sorry about that (lol)"

Click to expand...

It's more than likely that your wife has been the victim of identity theft. Illicit or compromised Debit/credit card readers are pretty common especially in metropolitan areas, as they say all else being equal the simplest solution is usually correct. Also it's possible to initiate class action litigation if you feel you have really been the victim of a corporate data breach!

The OPM data breech contained info from evryone who had security clearance reviews since the early 2000s. That included my wife, who was in for a TS clearance. The info that was compromised includes the info from the references, etc., so not just your key data but that of your family members and friends/ neighbors. It was pretty bad, and is being largely glossed over.

All the tracking is creepy to me. I miss the days of paper phone books and maps. Pretty tough to escape it all at this point. I don't see the need to have such high levels of data collection clear down to license plate readers on the highway and phone/internet record collection unless something sinister is around the corner. Even if it is done with pure intentions under the guise of safety, it seems like it could all so easily be abused without anyone knowing.

WildBoar said:

The OPM data breech contained info from evryone who had security clearance reviews since the early 2000s. That included my wife, who was in for a TS clearance. The info that was compromised includes the info from the references, etc., so not just your key data but that of your family members and friends/ neighbors. It was pretty bad, and is being largely glossed over.

Click to expand...

whoops my bad, because I did not understand the OPM acronym initially I read your post ambiguously. That is pretty terrible.

TheDispossessed said:

So I first thought maybe this was tooooooo off topic and maybe even too political for this forum but what the hell here goes.

I decided recently to move away from Google. A little bit of backstory, (if you even care, but you are reading this so) I am a long time Apple user, and a long time user of Google services like Gmail and Google Maps. I felt I had to break out of the walled garden of iOS recently and gave a Nexus (5x) phone a shot. I was initially pretty damn impressed with what my $349 got me when iPhones are running over $700 now with tax. I also was totally charmed by so many features of Android 6.0. Then it got creepy.
I didn't realize "Ok Google" was running in the background for days listening to me ready to answer back. Then I hit "Assistant" on my photos tab only to have 100 pictures of my son sent to the cloud, where I no longer own them. Google knew everything about those pictures right away and made terribly cute little collages.
Being a person who highly values my privacy I started relentlessly researching Google and what I drummed up was extremely unnerving to me. I won't get into it, I don't wanna push any of my flawed, biased, and incomplete perspectives here. Just to say, if you are a person who values your privacy you may want to look into this. Google appears to be so very generous with all their 'free' services and storage and inexpensive hardware but there is a HUGE (not so) hidden cost and it is all of your information, all the time.
Maybe that doesn't matter to you, and maybe it's our inevitable future, and maybe it's really the only way we can have such excellent AI, but for me it was simply too uncomfortable.
Cheers
Matteo

Click to expand...

This is probably going to come across as a bit harsh but this isn't a Google issue. You partly didn't read the instructions and should have read the TOS if you are this concerned about your privacy.

OK Google is the equivalent of Siri. It not eavesdropping on you recording your every word. If don't say "Ok Google" its not going to respond.

Android on the Nexus by default uploads photos to Google Photos. You could have changed this to keep on your phone.

The a snippet of the Google TOS plus information compiled from another source reads.

“You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.” Which is great news. However, the next passage of the ToS is something to consider carefully:

“When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services.

The second part is fairly common in most TOS's

Here is a piece of Apple's TOS for iCloud not their general TOS.

H. Content Submitted or Made Available by You on the Service

1. License from You.*Except for material we may license to you, Apple does not claim ownership of the materials and/or Content you submit or make available on the Service. However, by submitting or posting such Content on areas of the Service that are accessible by the public or other users with whom you consent to share such Content, you grant Apple a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available, without any compensation or obligation to you.

I wouldn't vilify Google because this isn't any different than Apple or Microsoft. They are equally complicit. It sucks we have to agree with these things to utilize a product or software but it is what is these days.

If it bothers you this much. Just use your phone for making phone calls and disable mobile data.

WildBoar said:

no chit. My wife got her letter from OPM last week about her info being part of the last big breech, and yesterday she was called by a debt collector about a PayPal account opened in her name in April that had $1,400 in bad debt... I'm more worried about my own gov't compiling all my info in one place and then letting hostile gov'ts steal it.

It's funny, but when a corporation has a data breech they are assessed millions of $ in fines that federal the gov't keeps (none goes to those who had their info stolen). But when the federal gov't has data stolen it's only "Whoops! Sorry about that (lol)"

Click to expand...

That letter should include information on identity theft tracking/insurance that the government is providing for 3 years. I've gotten 2 letters from OPM (Our security information was collected back in the '80s) & Mr. Lucretia has also received one. The "debt collector" may also be running a scam--make sure you don't give out personal information over the phone when someone calls you like that.

Our health insurance company has also been hacked. They only provided a 1-year policy.

She signed up for the offered tracking. And the funny part is when you enroll there is no aknowledgement that your enrollment went through ok, so you have to, er, trust the same people who already let everything get stolen...

We both had health insurance breaches. Lots of good info there for the theives I'm sure, but nowhere near the depth of info that is in the gov't files for the TS clearances. Goes beyond SSNs, etc. of the individual, and throws in all the info on relatives, in-laws, etc.

You aren't trusting the people who let the information get stolen. They contracted the protection services. You're trusting the lowest bidder. :bigeek:

ha ha, so true. Hopefully OPM thoroughly vetted them like HHS did with the company that developed the health care web site. :sh*thitsfans: