Should I be bothered by Google's reach into my life ?


 

Lynn Dollar

TVWBB Emerald Member
If this is considered political, my apologies and please delete.

But I'm seeing anti-trust debates on TV about Google, Amazon, Facebook , et al. And I see both sides. But at times, it bothers me just how much Google is in my life. Through search, You Tube, Maps, on my phone, G-Mail, and probably many other ways that I'm not even aware of.

Its beginning to anger me, when I go out somehwhere, say like a barbecue joint, and when I get home there's a message on my phone from Google asking me how I liked my visit to that joint and wanting me to offer a review. It would not think much about it, if I knew how to get rid of it. And I don't . There's much about my phone that I don't understand.

I've got nothing to hide and I'm no one of importance ..........but still, its an invasion of my privacy. And I got a hunch, even I found a way to think I had it disabled, it would still be there and I would not know it. If that makes any sense.

The amount of data these people have access to is mind boggling. And I don't know if I trust them to use it properly.
 
They do tend to reach in a bit more than they should. Some say you can turn off location tracking on your phone. Though there is a caveat here. It is important in an emergency. Given the proliferation of mobile phones as people's only means of communication a call to 911 without this "tracking" means no one has a clue where you are and depending on how your call is routed means you could be routed to a call center 2 counties away. Or take the scenario of this: I like to go out hiking in our local preserve and along the river. I am an old guy. A little "pudgy", high blood pressure, Type II and so on. If I get in trouble on one of those trails and call 911 do you think you would have the presence of mind to turn GPS on? There are some settings you can do in Android and IOS to limit the messages though.
I am still wondering though how the hell Cortana on my home computer knows everything. I never take it out of my home, it is in the basement (no gps) yet every few days I get a "report" that pops up from Cortana with all the places I have gone to, my local commutes and so on.
There are also privacy settings you can enact on FB as well. I HIGHLY recommend initiating 2 step authentication (not just on FB but EVERYTHING)
Oddly enough you see many people warning you to stay off sketchy sites i.e. p**n sites especially. Oddly enough I was reading some security articles my son in law sent me and p**n sites are generally SAFER than most others as they really want you back and don't want to **** you off.
So stay safe and go surf those p**n sites :D
 
Well, I know how to disable GPS, but as you say, I want some features that it allows without Google stickin their nose into it.

But that's just one example on one platform. They are everywhere. And I doubt Amazon or any of the other tech giants are any different.

I think maybe George Orwells ideas about Big Brother, have arrived, and its not the government. Its Silicon Valley.

And I've got Facebook figured out, I don't do Facebook ....... never have.
 
And I've got Facebook figured out, I don't do Facebook ....... never have.

I've never joined FB either, but it bit me last week.

Had a long time friends wife pass away, when we went to the wake we found that they had had a big 50th anniversary party that we didn't get invited to. His daughter had gotten all their friends names from their FB account, which left us out of it. Reconsidering FB.
 
I don't trust Google or Facebook one bit, though I use both (it's almost hard not to). I try to limit my exposure. Device-wise, I'm all Apple, and use their services whenever possible. Sure, they have all the same data on me now, but for some reason, I have a much higher level of trust with Apple. A lot of sites/services will let you 'join' using a Google of Facebook ID - I NEVER do that. Sure, it's convenient; but then everything you do with those sites and services is now being tracked and logged. Location services is tricky. I generally have GPS on, but most apps on my phone are set to either not allow location services, or only allow when actively using the app. Although I heard recently that someone had discovered Facebook was tracking people regardless of their settings.
 
I like that ads I'm seeing are actually stuff I'm interested in. However, if my wife gets on my computer it throws the whole thing off.

There is a lot of data that can be misused easily and it's clear facebook has. I was a very early adopter of facebook back when you had to have a college email address. I worry when every one I know is fired up about politics when no one used to care. It's nice to have a refuge like this forum that's politics free.
 
My Dad was an insurance agent in a small town, 10,000 people. He kept his political views close. And from early on, he trained the family that we did not speak politics outside the house. Nor even that we had a fav sports team, such as OU vrs Ok State U . He was not going to lose a customer over politics or sport.

But today, that would be more difficult because the algorithms know everything about us. It can be learned from what sites we visit or what we read. Now, that said, the " algo " is not a person and the " algo " doesn't care what our views are, they just want the data. If a person is active on social media, privacy becomes more difficult.

The issue for me, is who these tech companies choose to share that data with. I would think its far deeper and more accurate than political polling, i.e. Gallop, Rasmussen. And when they sell this data to private companies, they've no assurances of how the data will be used. I don't know that I want to contribute to that.

But on the flip side, we give up our data and privacy in exchange for a lot of free products that we use almost daily. If I had to pay a user fee for Google Maps or every time I use a search engine, the internet would not be affordable. And I don't know if I'm really harmed by them collecting this data, really , it just feels creepy.
 
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You mention OU and OSU.
My niece in Broken Arrow is married to an OSU grad, both their sons are OU grads.
Lots of family rivalry, all in fun.....mostly. :)
 
You mention OU and OSU.
My niece in Broken Arrow is married to an OSU grad, both their sons are OU grads.
Lots of family rivalry, all in fun.....mostly. :)

Absolutely ............ the vast majority don't take it that seriously, but Dad had a lot of customers and he was not a gambling man. There's always a few who might take it seriously. Selling insurance was the number one priority.
 
Lynn, your Dad sounds like an intelligent man. Don't mix personal & business.

Google's huge data correlations I do view as a problem, but it's not necessarily trivial to stay out of their reach. M$/Bing falls into the same category, but M$ just doesn't have the far-reaching tentacles that Google does.
 
I as well never speak of political support openly. Who I vote for and why is my own business and even my wife did not know/does not know who/how I vote. However I make not bones about my hatred of both main political parties and distrust them equally. I give respect where it's due to the office held but that is ALL I will do. There have only been a few presidents of my time I have ever respected regardless of how I voted at the time
 
Speaking of Google and Facebook's intrusiveness, Yahoo mail is not far behind. If you're looking for email privacy, check out Proton Mail...

https://protonmail.com/

Speaking of Google search, I sometimes use it when shopping, but I depend on Duck Duck Go for much of my search needs. Start Page isn't bad either.
 
I as well never speak of political support openly. Who I vote for and why is my own business and even my wife did not know/does not know who/how I vote. However I make not bones about my hatred of both main political parties and distrust them equally. I give respect where it's due to the office held but that is ALL I will do. There have only been a few presidents of my time I have ever respected regardless of how I voted at the time

This is my thought too. My friends and family know my feelings on the matter. Who, and why, I vote for are my business.
And Lynn talked of her dad not talking politics or sports outside of the house. This is a good policy.
My customers know how I feel about the Carolina Panthers. Been a fan since I moved to Charlotte, which was when they started in the league.
But I stay away from college sports. There are too many choices here! NC, Duke, Wake Forest, NC State. Plus, SC is just over the border. So, I gotta deal with the Gamecocks and Clemson fans too.
 
I try to keep my political beliefs to myself but I think everyone who knows me knows what they are. I'm in IT and don't use Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media.
 

 

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