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Larry Page Issues Public Update On Google Changes
itwbennett writes "Larry Page just wants to be loved. Well, he wants 'Google to be a company that is deserving of great love,' Page wrote in a public letter. But he also wants to offer the kind of personalized service that the requires trampling on your privacy. 'The recent changes we made to our privacy policies generated a lot of interest. But they will enable us to create a much better, more intuitive experience across Google — our key focus for the year,' Page wrote."
From the letter: "Think about basic actions like sharing or recommendations. When you find a great article, you want to share that knowledge with people who will find it interesting, too. If you see a great movie, you want to recommend it to friends. Google+ makes sharing super easy by creating a social layer across all our products so users connect with the people who matter to them." With all the claims of altruistic intent in the open letter, one might wonder why Google has to push their own social network instead of working on open protocols for sharing.
I'm not really a Google fan. I deleted quite a lot of my information when they announced the privacy policy change. I don't use Google+.
But, really, "why didn't Google work on Diaspora"? Give me a break.
how about when searching via google you actually get links related to your search, instead of everything others have tagged their pages with?
Oh, but that is not something google can do.
Now everyone knows how to take down the usefulness of google, have at it...
1) We need to know your friends, so we can help you share things.
2) We need to know what like, so we can offer you things.
3) We need to know what your thinking so we can sell it.
4) Profit!
The statements of the CEO are irrelevant. The actions of the company are relevant. Google's actions have crept closer and closer to "evil" since they went public. When this changes, i'll reevaluate.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
There's no profit in supporting the open platform versus G+.
"With all the claims of altruistic intent in the open letter, one might wonder why Google has to push their own social network instead of working on open protocols for sharing."
Because the open protocols are half-finished, and used by absolutely no-one? Anything Google makes will almost instantly have more users.
or any of about thirty different forums
"Buy 'open protocols for sharing' at Walmart!"
Spin it any way you want, if your goal is to have a system that just 'feels like it knows me' then it HAS to collect data on you to personalize the experience.
Your changes all suck.
And google + is stupid. Go back to being a good little search engine company we can mostly trust and stop fucking things up because you're bored.
Well, he wants 'Google to be a company that is deserving of great love
If you want to be loved? Do some loving.
I'm sorry, but lately Google has given reason after reason to hate, not love.
A.K.A.
YER DOIN' IT WRONG.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Open protocols don't help when everyone stops making webpages and moves to Facebook, which isn't publicly crawlable. Remember when everyone wanted their OWN website, and websites linked meaningfully to other websites, and there was a whole ecosystem of small, independent webpages with information on a crazy number of niche topics, and everyone's webpage had links to other webpages that they thought were cool? That doesn't really exist anymore. THAT web is dead. If Wikipedia and Craigslist, and a dozen other silo-type sites are all that's left to crawl (if they decide to let Google do it), how important is Google, really? The web has changed, and Google had to change or die with it. Google+ is just Google's attempt at taking what's left of the public, open web and internalize it (and make it all 'social' content mostly not publicly crawlable, ironically). So yeah, the (open) web really is dead, or will be soon.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
I love people, I love freedom and some other abstract concepts, but there's absolutely no way no how that I will give love to a corporation.
A corporation is a social and legal arrangement that exists to make money for its shareholders. It does this by producing 1 or more products, selling them to customers, and paying a portion of their sales to their employees as wages, another portion to the suppliers, and giving the remainder to their shareholders. That's it. It's a purely economic affair, and thus any dealings I have with a corporation are a purely economic relationship.
I am officially gone from
Google will not be loved if it is, as alleged/alluded to by Chris Dodd (MPAA), involved in secret, back room meetings with said MPAA and the RIAA.
That would be one huge way to make this developer happy.
Seems like a good way to target ads to specific programmers too..
When you find a great article, you want to share that knowledge with people who will find it interesting
And if you do, just cut/paste the url and send it. There are a heap of ways doing this and most don't require me to convince my friends to join FB or G+ or other crap, bullshit sites.
What I really don't like about the way social media/networking sites are going is that they force you to do things the way they want you to. Often that is just inconvenient and loses the personal link you have with your friends. It's much more friendly sending an email or link than 'sharing it' with a myriad of batshit crazies or circles or whatever epithet some moronic social designer has made up.
It's just bullshit. Nothing more. And we as trendsetting individuals are supposed to follow the latest gimmick, get all edukated about it and be one with the in-crowd. Why? WTF?
Sure there's a place for it, but the shear drain on logging in and posting inane crap is just too much and too boring, wasted time and energy for nought.
FB and G+ only exists in my world for project status updates and contact details, nothing more.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Long before there was Google+, Google tried to standardize the web with an open social platform that anyone could use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSocial
In the end, though, people didn't want to adopt it. The problem is that, like proprietary format wars, there's a lot to be gained by being the dominant player with a closed ecosystem. Facebook does not want to share its data or platform with other people.
The problem is that for all the cool stuff they build and make available, Google is an advertising agency. Their core job is to get advertisers to spend money on ads targeted at you. I'm a little bit older than the current "millenial" crowd who is supposed to be influencing the future of computing, and I find some of the stuff Facebook, Google and other advertisers do very creepy. Not in a tinfoil hat kind of way, but in a "I'm not totally comfortable with an advertising agency knowing everything I search for, every YouTube video I watch, every email I send if I use Gmail, who my acquaintances are and what I like if I use Google+ -- and then using that to build a package to sell to an advertiser."
Facebook and Google have done a very good job eradicating this creepy feeling from the younger set. They're very smart about it too -- Facebook is incredibly easy to use and fun for people to post pictures and share all their personal information. Google is incredibly useful -- I'd be lost without their search engine or mapping features embedded in the iPhone. When you grow up using a certain set of technology, and have been posting everything about yourself on Facebook since you were 7, I can see why a person might pull out the tinfoil hat designation on someone like me. Privacy policy change or not, people aren't going to stop using the service they love until something happens. I think what's going to happen eventually is that some people might realize they're sharing too much, not get a job because of their social media profile, or maybe just get the creepy feeling I was talking about. (Example: I went online to check airfare to a city I need to be in next month, and this morning, up pops a Delta ad offering low low fares to that city. It's not a big deal because I've never clicked on an advertisement or sponsored link in my life, so they don't directly make any money off me. It's just the feeling that another record got added to Google's database about my set of cookies.)
So yeah, it's not so much that they collect your data -- everyone knows that. It's the fact that your profile is readily accessible and way more plugged into your life than was previously possible. Before the current age of zero privacy, constructing a profile on someone meant digging through a lot of different sources of information, most of which were not accessible directly. It's the same argument that prevents national electronic health records from being implemented -- there's always the possibility that someone knowing what's in these can negatively affect you (medical/life insurance companies would love that kind of access, for example.) If Google and the like want to keep this kind of model going, I think they're going to have to be a little less overt about it.
He's talking to his customers, meaning the companies that advertise. The people that use Android smart phones, Gmail, Google search, Google Documents, etc. are the product.
Those produce exactly the same discussion every time out, filled with adrenaline-fueled posts flaming "greedy coke-snorting dinosaurs clinging to obsolete business models trying to force crappy music like Britney Spears down our throats for $18.98". And those are the "Insightful" ones. The few that try to take the opposing view are modded into oblivion.
It's just repetitive and juvenile, does nothing to enhance the reputation of Slashdot as a site for thoughtful discussion.
I was well connected to the people who matter to me before Google. I must be a wizard or something.
"But he also wants to offer the kind of personalized service that the requires trampling on your privacy"
Wait. Personalized services must trample my privacy? This is news to me... sounds like the old "GMail is evil because the ignorable ads are more relevant" rant.
Call me up when Google actually starts selling my information to advertisers, rather than merely targeting ads.
When he says:
"When you find a great article, you want to share that knowledge with people who will find it interesting, too. If you see a great movie, you want to recommend it to friends. "
I want to share it. But I don't want you to know about it. If I like an article, I'll send the link or create a .PDF and send. If I see a great movie, I'll call them or send them an email.
Why won't you let me do it my way instead of yours? The internet has tools to do it without you knowing about it or trying to monetize it.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
" one might wonder why Google has to push their own social network instead of working on open protocols for sharing."
Because getting involved in another persons project is a fucking nightmare.
Could you imagine if Google showed up and starting putting in changes? The open project would freak out about how Google is taking them over, and how they lost control.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I am an early adopter of Google. I brought dozens of people to Google and Gmail because I am the guy people ask for technical advice.
I don't care if Google tries to emulate Facebook. It's pathetic but it doest need to concern me. but when G+ started to influence other services it became personal. I paid for Google Apps and now they hired an incompetent designer to fuck it all up. I don't need avatar in my business apps. I don't want the abortion that is the "new look" and I for sure don't want to be nagged about it every hour.
I have made it a mission for me to convince people to move away from Google and G+ in particular. Asshole Paige made a big mistake in pissing off his most loyal customers.
"Think about basic actions like sharing or recommendations. When you find a great article, you want to share that knowledge with people who will find it interesting, too. If you see a great movie, you want to recommend it to friends..."
No, no I don't. I don't want to electronically recommend things to friends, because I hate it when my friends electronically recommend stuff to me. If it comes up in conversation, fine, but otherwise, I don't want to know about it.
Back when I was on facebook, I had a friend who seemed to want to share his entire internet experience. He posted about 20 to 30 times a day, and every post was some article that he read, which he felt was VITALLY IMPORTANT that all of his friends look at. I had to defriend him because my wall had become nothing but his stream-of-internet-conciousness posts.
I can only imagine the Babel-like cacophony that would result if ALL my friends shared everything.
Proverbs 21:19
Here's the thing - Google is a truly great company that thinks long-term outside their realm of expertise. There's not many of those left because everyone has caved in to the almighty greed of the $. Autonomous driving? That's a REALLY HARD problem with the potential to change the world. Renewable Energy? [google.com] That's a REALLY HARD problem with the potential to change the world. Sponsoring the Summer of Code program? Hey, that's really helped a lot of open source projects and brought some long-term developers into the fold.
When Larry say something like "Don't be evil". I actually believe him. I've been a Google user for how long.. 13? 14 years? In that time, how has any of the information I've provided Google impacted my life in a negative way? Um... it hasn't. However, it's had a dramatic impact on a lot of areas of my life. Work is A LOT easier now that I can just google an error code. Getting directions via Google Maps, and then being able to see the street view has saved me countless hours. My Android phone? Well, at least it's better than my Blackberry.
I really don't think there's any other corporation or company I could ever trust to that degree. Facebook? Well, for me that's a cute way to share pictures with friends or play a game here or there.
As far as privacy goes, it's the US government that scares me, not Google. It doesn't matter who hosts my email, they're always going to have access to it. The things I want to be private in my life are. They're the things that don't get broadcast over the Internet and that I talk about with close friends over a campfire.
----- obSig
Except that I'd add that Google+ pushes "Hey, why not make this public?" while still defaulting to private, for instant uploads for instance.
I'll be honest, this discussion is far better than listening people bitch about the privacy implications of instant upload, which is private and will always be private, unless you specifically set an upload to public.
Why do they bitch? ZOMG, It "Asked permission to upload!" FREAK OUT, RUN AWAY! HOW DARE THEY ASK! UNINSTALL!
Yeah. I can only take so much stupid before I bail out of such conversations.
I8-D
You know, I totally get why they want to do personal search like this, but I think that they're missing the bigger picture. On all but a very small subset of topics, I don't need or want something that's customized to me individually. The fact that it's there at all means that something I'm directing a client to look for is going to be harder for them to find, if we both have highly customized search enabled (?) when we visit the web search page.
I've also found that Google news has noticed that I don't like to read right wing political content. So they've been giving me less of it. That's another problem, as I never asked them to do it. Maybe the solution here is letting users sculpt their own experiences, based on what they actually tell Google they want? Automating this has the potential for being absolutely disastrous if they don't get it right.
You make great points, but you have one thing backwards.
Would it creep a female out to see an ad that apparently knows they are female?
Who knows you're femail? Google or the ad? The answer you seem to have is the ad. The real answer is Google.
It's like ads for the GAP. GAP doesn't know who a douche is. They just market to the douche segment. If they place such ads at douchy concerts, it's not because they had to survey the crowd. They just know where the big douche congregations are.
Same difference if you go on Google and search "vaginal cream". You're probably not a guy with that search.
The other way they know is informations you A) give to them or B) is found on the web. Can Rick Santorum scrub his results? No. Is this a privacy issue? For him, maybe. Problem is, if its online, it's public knowledge.
The EU would like to change that. Force companies to scrub the web. And frankly, that's just horseshit. That's modern day book burning and heretic scourging.
I8-D
for someone who wants to get up-close and personal with you when you really don't want them to, because they're convinced in their own mind that you really do, and that it's better for you?
Oh, yeah. "Stalker".
Using information voluntarily provided to provide services to the person providing information isn't "trampling on" the privacy of the person providing the information.
Sharing that information with third parties in a means beyond what that for which there is meaningful informed consent is.
Getting bent out of shape over things that don't impinge on privacy as if they did impedes efforts to focus attention on stopping actions that genuinely impinge on privacy.
Well, that, and the fact that google didn't push their own social network instead of working on open protocols for sharing.
Google has pushed a number of open standards for information exchange, both in general and in the social space specifically.
They also are pushing their own social network.
"It is far better to be feared than loved" -- Niccolo Machiavelli.
That is NOT to say that one should strive to be feared. Only that one's conduct should inspire awe.
And for all this emphasis on protocols, they forget the key ingredient to success in the business in which they now find themselves: tools win over developers. Developers will not flock to the best hypothetical outcome. They will flock to the best outcome in their circumstance. And the circumstances of developers are improved tremendously with improvement in tools.
Android has 50% of the phone market and less than 20% of the app market. Why? Because there is still no cloud server presence from Google (only cloud storage). And there is still no developer studio. As a result there is still no way to develop for Android as your first choice.
Google apps? Yeah, that's nice. That's effectively a bunch of libraries with some clever hacks. That's not gonna make me wanna develop for Android. They've hired thousands of highly competitive developers and they still haven't created an environment which enables developers outside the company in the way that MS did and in the way in which Apple did.
When you have clever workers and you don't produce a clever product, the problem is the management. Until I see the kinds of tools coming out of Google that would elicit spontaneous rants about "sexy", I don't give a hoot about a founder's fetish to press new shiny buttons.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Stop fscking us in the rectum with your evil sales of our privacy.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I officially like Microsoft more than Google...wouldn't have said that 10 years ago, hell even 5 years ago
The problem people have with Facebook isn't that it wasn't creepy enough. What Google+ has mostly done is make Facebook not look that bad after all.
I have no problem with context sensitive ads. Google displays ads for Chrome on OS X when I browse from a Mac and Chrome for Linux when I browse from a Linux box; that's fine with me. It's also more efficient than Microsoft displaying ads for IE9 when I'm browsing from a Linux box.
When I read an article about electric cars, an ad for a car would not be out of place. Of course that ad would be wasted if I don't want to drive a car, cannot afford a car or just bought a new car. So the car company would be willing to pay more to Google to show the ad only to people who are in the market for a new car. However, to deliver that service Google has to create a much larger context than what the HTTP request by itself provides. They could get that information by looking at which other pages I visited, what I searched for, what I wrote in e-mails, what items I bought. However, this is where it gets creepy: when they follow me around everywhere and build a profile of my entire life. When a person does that, we call it stalking.
Google could be satisfied with selling ads based on limited context information. It wouldn't be as profitable per ad, but with the huge volume they have it should be enough to keep the company afloat. Instead, they want to provide higher value ads, like Facebook can. But I don't think there is a way to be like Facebook without being creepy. The only thing they can do about it is being less overt, as you say, but faking lower targeting accuracy (such as Target putting lawn mowers next to diapers) doesn't help if you want people to believe your "don't be evil" motto.
Google is a good search engine which is working hard to become a "portal". Look at the top line of a Google search result page now: "You+ Search Images Maps Play YouTube (not "video" now) News Gmail Documents Calendar More". 9 of the 11 lead to Google in-house services.
Yahoo and AOL were "portals". That didn't work out too well. Google seems to be trying hard to emulate them.
All Google accomplished through their privacy policy changes is force me to use their services differently. Up until a year ago I used to let gmail keep me logged in all the time. I used to have a YT account with playlists, subscribed channels, etc that was also logged in continuously. I never got into G+, since, well... FB (going to get into that in a bit).
I cannot get rid of my Gmail accounts. I HAVE to use one for Market access on my phone. I do however create a new Gmail account for every new phone I get, since Google in its infinite wisdom will not allow me to delete old phones from their database. It's nice to know that Google remembers all my phone models, ROM versions, IMEI numbers, apps installed better than I do. Migrating from one phone to another without syncing to Google is not even that difficult by the way. All you need is to export your contacts as vcf, back up your apps with Titanium backup, and back up your SMSes with SMS Backup and Restore. The slowest process is moving your pictures, music and videos, but that's a manual process anyway.
Another reason I cannot give up Gmail is that one of those accounts is tied into many website registrations. It would take days to change all my random sites registration info, notify all my contacts and I still haven't found a service as fast and reliable. By far the most difficult part would be migrating my contacts, as I still have idiot friends emailing me to a 10 years old ISP account that is only spam now. However I changed how I use Gmail. Instead of staying logged in all the time, I now log in, check my mail, read/reply/delete messages and then I log out. I also delete every single message that is not relevant, and I delete all messages after a while. Google obviously retains everything, however at some point the deleted messages are bound to become white noise. Did I delete them because they are not relevant, spam, outdated information or because I want to mess with Google's algorithms?
As far as YT is concerned, I had an account there before Google bought them. I saw nothing wrong with tying it into my Gmail account a few years back, since they still stayed separate. But since the privacy policy changes, I've deleted all my uploaded videos (all 3 of them), playlists and subscribed channels. I still listen to music on from YT, but I either bookmarked some clips or I just ripped them with flashgot. This started before the privacy changes, when YT reimplemented their playlist feature. If I'd play a song from my playlist, it would load the entire playlist and then continue playing every song there. I was unable to find a way to disable this behavior except through Adblock Plus Element Hiding Helper.
G+ got the axe due to their mandatory name policy. Normally I'd consider having my potential G+ account disabled for using a nom de plume a feature. However that would take my Gmail accounts down as well. And I do have several, legitimate email accounts. So G+ out of principle. Besides, I already have a FB account which has proven to be enough of a PITA to keep at least somewhat private. I really don't need my life readily accessible on two separate security and privacy voids.
So ultimately all Google accomplished is information obfuscation on my part. I, as most people, still need their services. But when I search on Google, I don't want to see what my friends liked. Too many of my friends are idiots, and of the 3-4 whose opinions I actually value, I can easily call them up and talk to them in person. I also use search to look up stuff I did not know before. If I'm looking for a new gaming laptop, the fact I own an Asus should NOT affect the results in any way. And if I'm looking for a new set of racing shocks for my Suzuki, I will type in "Ohlins Sukuki shocks" to get reviews, and if I want a local dealer, I'll type "Ohlins Toronto dealers." I don't need or want Google to second guess me.
I thought that project went under after an author committed suicide under the crushing realization that their start-up had failed after collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars of crowd-funded money based on a knee-jerk anti-Facebook backlash.
From the post: "With all the claims of altruistic intent in the open letter, one might wonder why Google has to push their own social network instead of working on open protocols for sharing."
Indeed, one way to prove their good intentions, and possibly avoid litigation to boot, would be to take these protocols through an open standards group (like OASIS or W3C - not some sham group that Google "just happens" to control). Then I might start to believe them
Would someone pass this on to Google? Surely someone here has a connection. Sorry for posting as AC, but I feel more comfortable with some anonymity. You never know who is watching your every move.
Dear Google:
We're through. Once I loved you, but now it's over. Oh, it will take me awhile, a long while, to get shut of you, but make no mistake, it's over.
It's not me, it's you. I haven't changed, but you have. Once the deal was you gave me free email, news, and search and I looked at your ads, and I paid you for online photo storage, and you gave it to me. Oh, and you also promised not to be evil.
Now I can't tell what our deal is, but I'm pretty sure what you're offering is that you will gather every bit of information you can find on me through any source possible, and sell it to anyone who will pay for it, and sometimes, you'll just give it away. Every where, all the time, forever. In return I get access to your decaying product base.
Yes, you want it all. Just about every web site I go to, you've got your slimy little fingers there, tracking me. And on my phone, if I have GPS on, you are literally recording every step I take. So basically you are trying to completely record every possible thing you can about me. Oh, and screw you and your privacy policies. I know corporate doublespeak when I see it.
Yes, your product base is decaying. I haven't seen much new or interesting in awhile. Gmail has some strong points, but certain features have been missing so long its obvious that you don't care about the products. For instance, there's no way to automatically save sent items in the inbox. So every so often, I move messages manually. Forever. Let's talk about news. Have you actually looked at Google News lately? It's actually gotten pretty lame when compared to other news sources. There's just not much there. And Picasa. Wow, you *really* made a mess on that one. Picasa had promise, but in the last year or so all the Picasa efforts have gone into Google Plus. What do I know, but I have no use for Google Plus for sharing photos. I share photos with my family, and my volunteer organization. I was pretty happy with the way it was. G+ is certainly NOT the answer. Everything I ever wanted to do with photos, you've broken it. Google Sites. Pathetic. Google maps. Once pretty clever, now a technology laggard. And Android. I curse you Google at least once a day. First there was the inexplicable Google Talk authentication error that went on forever. Oh wait, before that. Has it ever occured to you that people might want to sort their address book by last name? You know that's how we've been doing it for quite awhile now, right? And "Google Play". Pathetic. The name makes me ill.
Oh yeah, about the don't be evil part. When we were young it was kinda cute. Sure, it was naive, but it seemed your heart was in the right place. Now it's taken on tones of doublespeak. You know, "war is peace". Like that. Now when you say "don't be evil", what you mean now is "Here at Google we aren't evil because we've moved past all that. Evil is a concept for mere mortals. We have higher standards. Besides puny humans, who are YOU to judge ME? Muah, hah, hah, hah!" Attempting to track my every move is by definition evil. It creates a power differenial that I can't mitigate. Your desire to collect everything reminds me of totalitarian states. Communist Russa. communist Romania, for god sake. North Korea. And I won't even mention you-know-what. Godwin's law, you know.
Oh, and Facebook? That you want to be so much like? They're evil, too. By the way, social media as a concept isn't evil, it's wanting to track people that's evil. Create a Facebook killer that doesn't track its users, and Facebook will become a distant memory.
There's only one way to deal with a power imbalance. Guerilla tactics. First of all, I'm going to do my best to never look at an ad you serve, ever again. And if I do, I'll write the ad buyer and give them a copy of this. And I will speak badly of you. To everyon
Even if you hate Microsoft and Bill Gates, you cannot ignore the fact that for once there's a billionaire who has actually used his cash reserves for great good. Compare this to the Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin who use their shady money got from selling your private information for buying 193-foot long yachts and marrying models (Lucinda Southworth) [dailymail.co.uk], similar to what MPAA/RIAA/record label executives do.
You obviously haven't seen Gates' yacht and primary residence.
I'm not saying he isn't "good guy Gates" for his contributions, just that maybe buying something extravagant doesn't preclude you from being a good, charitable person, too.
And let's not just completely ignore things like the Brin Wojcicki Foundation, et al.
Yes, we should. How else can we have a biased commentary on the guy? Stop with you socialist commie islamic chinese mexican objectivism, that's not how we roll here dude.
Learn to LOVE big brother.... LOVE! double-plus good I say!
If I'm reading that Wikipedia link correctly, OpenSocial has to do with making social applications (like Facebook's Apps) write-once, run-on-any-social-network. This does not have much to do with making an open social network. Also, as you point out, Facebook is far and away the most powerful player in the social networking space. They are not going to be brought down easily or quickly (see: the long slow decline of IE... and IE's network effects are a fair amount weaker).
I get why "social" is so hot right now. We're social beings. It's cool that sharing is easy now. You know what's not cool? Companies trying to turn me into some kind of sharing machine.
The maximum of 10 seconds that would be required of me to use a service owned by Google without their massive merge is well worth not having an accurate super-identity of me created somewhere over which I have no control.
Does Apple allow you to delete their logs, tracking, GPS coords, messages, itunes history, personal details etc. ? - No!
Does Facebook allow you to delete you details, posts, history, messaging, contacts, etc. - No!
Google is open about their system, and gives you the options to delete or bow out etc.
Google supply endless services and features and support to so many for little to no charge, other than a bit of advertising. If tracking a bit of info makes the services work better and interact better then I say go for it. At least with Google you have a choice, not like other fruit loop companies.
Google is doing a good job, keep it up!
...one might wonder why Google has to push their own social network instead of working on open protocols for sharing.
Could it be because they tried working on open protocols for sharing and it didn't work? Hate to reign in the $MEGACORP bashing here, but Google really HAVE tried in this area - G+ looks like a last-ditch attempt to gain some traction amongst the big players in "social".
"The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
The things I want to be private in my life are. They're the things that don't get broadcast over the Internet and that I talk about with close friends over a campfire.
And there is always the asshole with the iphone in the campfire who uploaded everything you said (even an audio) to facebook, twitter and google+ within a minute...
Only Android's kernel is GPL; the rest of Android was written or paid for by Google. They didn't have to open the vast majority of Android with an Apache license, but they did anyway (to encourage adoption).
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
, I will type in "Ohlins Sukuki shocks" to get reviews,
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