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Two-Thirds of Consumers Don't Expect Google To Track Them the Way It Does (niemanlab.org)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

A significant majority of consumers do not expect Google to track their activities across their lives, their locations, on other sites, and on other platforms. Jason Kint, writing for Nieman Lab: Our findings show that many of Google's data practices deviate from consumer expectations. The results of the study are consistent with our Facebook study: People don't want surveillance advertising. A majority of consumers indicated they don't expect to be tracked across Google's services, let alone be tracked across the web in order to make ads more targeted. Nearly two out of three consumers don't expect Google to track them across non-Google apps, offline activities from data brokers, or via their location history.

There was only one question where a small majority of respondents felt that Google was acting according to their expectations. That was about Google merging data from search queries with other data it collects on its own services. They also don't expect Google to connect the data back to the user's personal account, but only by a small majority. Google began doing both of these in 2016 after previously promising it wouldn't.

47 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Same consumers purchased Google Home by OffTheLip · · Score: 1

    or Amazon Echo/Dot/whatever. In other words they don't understand the EULA or business model.

  2. Expect vs. Care by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sure few people expect what Google actually does, as it would require technical understanding to realize what is possible and what is probable...

    But here's the truly important thing - how many people truly CARE what Google or Facebook is doing?

    People say they don't want to be tracked across Google, but then they keep on using it. People say they don't want Facebook tracking, but they keep on using it as well. They are saying "I would like everything this does today but disable the tracking". That's nice and all but by continuing to use those services even when they know what is going on, they are indicating they really don't care that much at all and are willing to make the tradeoff of privacy for service.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Expect vs. Care by flippy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Excellent question. I believe the answer is that almost NO ONE cares what the companies are doing. If they cared, they'd stop using the services.

    2. Re:Expect vs. Care by astrofurter · · Score: 1

      It's much like elections. MOST PEOPLE do care. They just don't perceive any realistic option to avoid the tyranny.

    3. Re:Expect vs. Care by flippy · · Score: 1

      I'd tend to disagree. There are realistic options, but they take more effort to use - the Facebooks and Googles of the world are so much easier, many people make the decision to use them even though they know they're giving up some information. I think that most people who make that decision have no idea exactly HOW MUCH information they're giving up. If they really knew the amount and kind of data these companies had on them, they'd be shocked.

    4. Re:Expect vs. Care by Pitawg · · Score: 1

      It is UNLIKE elections. Someone other than you turns against your privacy by sharing their contact list with your details. Then that same person takes pictures of you, and the things you do, writing names and descriptions with the pics. They talk or text about you.

      You find this out, or just realize what others are doing to you on your own if lucky, and you decide whether it is worth your time and effort to keep other things to yourself instead of spreading to your devices. Most think the effort is too much, or it is just too late to decide differently.

      Now, when it happened to me? I told "them", they do not respect me nor my privacy, and will be without me for the remainder. The only thing that changed was the count of people that I could even attempt to call friends went down. That was the goal. You cannot team up against the ruling class if you hate everyone around you, and cannot trust them as far as you can throw them. See something, say something, type something into your phones. Just not to people anymore.

    5. Re:Expect vs. Care by tsqr · · Score: 2

      And those of us that see it and try to circumvent it are seen as the outliers, the weirdos, the nut jobs.

      I don't see you as weirdos or nutjobs, but you're definitely outliers.

    6. Re:Expect vs. Care by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      You're right; many don't care, but only because they don't think far enough into the subject of their own privacy, in a long-term way, to really understand what it is that's being done to them.
      For the average person, you have to beat them over the head with the fact that they're being tracked, watched, listened to, and monitored all day every day, before it really starts getting through to them what's being done to them.
      Meanwhile companies like Google and Facebook may be required by law to disclose what information they're collecting and what they're doing with it, but they hide all that in page after page of twenty-dollar legal terminology that nobody ever bothers to read, and since they would just as soon you didn't bother reading it anyway, they make it easy to 'agree' to it all with one simple mouse-click.
      People are being treated like animals in a zoo or convicts in prison so far as their privacy is concerned, and they're not even aware of it -- and if they do manage to be aware of it, again, companies like Google and Facebook and their ilk have gone to great lengths to indoctrinate and brainwash the masses into believing that 'sharing everything freely' is normal and natural and right, and 'privacy' is only something desired by people who have something to hide, like criminals or other 'bad people'.
      Then to make matters worse, the actual criminals, extremists, terrorists, and other wrong-doers of the world have leveraged platforms that Google and Facebook and Twitter and others have created, to spread their misinformation, radicalization, criminal activities and criminal intent, and so on -- which just re-inforces the 'programming' that's been imposed on the populace that 'privacy is BAD'.

      Really, so-called 'social media' should be abolished. Any valid uses for it have gone by the wayside in favor of corporate profits, and has become the weapon-of-choice for malevolent organizations and malevolent governments. But I diverge..

      To bring it back on-topic: EULAs and Legal Privacy Notices should be required to ensure that the people agreeing to them fully understand what it is they're agreeing to -- not just give them an opportunity to rubber-stamp it and have no idea about it.
      How about treating it like the 'training' that some companies require? Where you have to sit through an online training session, then it reviews the highlights of each section, and at the end you have to take a pass/fail quiz to demonstrate you actually undersand the material? It would likely piss some people off, but perhaps if you're not willing to sit there and be informed and understand what your rights are under the law, you shouldn't be using whatever platform it is in the first place?
      Also, of course, put stricter controls on what information social media and other sites are allowed to collect, and what they're allowed to do with them.
      Ideally, I think we'd all be better off either having so-called 'social media' sites require paid membership instead of the 'free' (as in 'lunch', as in 'no such thing as a free lunch') accounts they have now, or at least an option for a paid account, the main point of which is if you choose to pay, then they collect no information from you whatsoever.

    7. Re:Expect vs. Care by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      There has been and always will be an 'option': don't use it at all, be 'actually social' with people instead of 'fake social' on the internet. Email, skype, or (shocking!!!) actually be social in-person with actual people, and the heck with the internet.

    8. Re:Expect vs. Care by ChatHuant · · Score: 1

      If they cared, they'd stop using the services.

      That would be fair, if true. You're using the company's resources, you should pay them one way or another - either directly, via some subscription, or through ads.

      The huge problem is that companies like Google and Facebook don't abide by this implicit contract. They have developed so many sneaky ways of tracking you that they don't need you to sign off with them at all. Google grabs your credit card transactions from brick and mortar stores; Facebook plunders friends' contacts and builds shadow profiles for you. They can and do track you even if you don't use any of their resources and they don't care whether you have consented to any tracking or not.

      This unfettered and shameless tracking has IMHO poisoned the internet. The two big data vampires (and a multitude of lesser ones) are so omnipresent and so insidious that it's practically impossible for a normal person to use the internet and retain any shred of privacy anymore. Stopping an Android phone from snitching on you every minute of the day means disabling so many features that it becomes pretty much unusable. Even giving up on Android altogether and buying an iPhone or a plain featurephone is not enough - because Verizon and the other mobile operators will sell you out to Google anyway.

    9. Re:Expect vs. Care by Dirk+Becher · · Score: 1

      You have to endure Google/Facebook tracking without using Google/Facebook at all. I have several webpages I need to use for work who embed Google services (maps) out of convenience.

      And they buy your cellphone location data.

    10. Re:Expect vs. Care by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      I'm sure few people expect what Google actually does, as it would require technical understanding to realize what is possible and what is probable...

      how many people truly CARE what Google or Facebook is doing?

      Interesting you appear to be conceding the fact people don't understand what these services are doing.

      Then you proceed to make the "nobody cares" argument.

      When the actual argument devolves into: How many people truly CARE about something they don't understand and don't know is happening?

      It isn't clear what value if any exists in the resulting answer.

    11. Re:Expect vs. Care by tsa · · Score: 1

      For most people outliers ARE weirdos or nutjobs.

      --

      -- Cheers!

    12. Re:Expect vs. Care by tsa · · Score: 1

      Also, if your friends are all on Whatsapp, good luck using Viber to contact them. Same holds for FB and all that other stuff.

      --

      -- Cheers!

    13. Re:Expect vs. Care by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      People care, just not enough to stop using the free services that Google provides.

      Most adults have realized that you don't get something for nothing and almost everything is you trading a bit of yourself, your time or your money or your soul, in exchange for something you want.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    14. Re:Expect vs. Care by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Semiofftopic: I'd actually like if those companies offered the chance of not spying on you and instead pay for their services with money. I doubt they'll ever willingly do it if only because that'd give away how much they can get from your data (obviously less than what you'd pay)

    15. Re:Expect vs. Care by deadwill69 · · Score: 1

      That's nice and all but how? Even if you don't use FB, google, et al, they are still tracking you. They track you by your friends, Your mobile signal through your carrier. Your wifi signal anytime you touch a 'compromised' access point. Almost any website. So how is not using their services going to help? I use all the blockers, vpn's and filters to clear out what I can find. I operate under no illusion that I am being tracked, but how am i supposed to participate in modern society? Unless you go off grid you are being tracked.

    16. Re:Expect vs. Care by Radiophobic · · Score: 1

      People do care. They weigh the benefits of using a service like Google and Facebook, against the cost to privacy that accompanies the use of those sites. People care about privacy, but they also care about getting free email, robust search, and social connections in a way that doesn't confuse them or cost them money.

  3. Two thirds of consumers are stupid by DogDude · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have one question for people who think I'm crazy when I say I don't use Google/Android: Where do you think Google makes its money?

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
    1. Re:Two thirds of consumers are stupid by astrofurter · · Score: 1

      Where do you think Google makes its money?

      From Uncle Sam and other oppressive governments?

    2. Re:Two thirds of consumers are stupid by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      From selling browsers and self driving cars

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    3. Re:Two thirds of consumers are stupid by DogDude · · Score: 1

      That is simple lack of awareness.

      Lack of awareness of what? Of how Google makes money? Is that a complicated idea?

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    4. Re:Two thirds of consumers are stupid by lexman098 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think you're crazy and I can answer your question.

      Google makes its money from anonymously connecting you with advertisers. They create a very detailed profile on you based on their tracking data. Then they sell advertisements, expecting the buyer to provide blanket information for the kind of person that they're targeting. Google probably then adds some of its own AI on top of the advertisers' expectations to create more ad clicks. Then you go to a random webpage which asks Google which ad to show you. The advertiser pays Google who gives a smaller amount to the website operator.

      Note how Google never has to release any of your information to make money here. I don't think I remember a single article about Google even accidentally leaking private information.

    5. Re:Two thirds of consumers are stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What is Neutrophils? What is the closest star to the Sun? What do the SR in SR-flip flop mean and which operation has priority (in logic programming, not electronics)?

      Don't call people stupid just because they do not know something.

    6. Re:Two thirds of consumers are stupid by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      >That isn't stupidity either, so long as it is a conscious decision being made.

      Just because something is a conscious doesn't exclude it from being stupid. See "Jackass The Movie".


      >There are easily that many people who upon buying a "40w lightbulb" and actually
      > getting a 40w lightbulb will bitch and complain that what they ordered can't be eaten.

      I would kindly inform them that they are wrong. Almost anything is edible. At least one time.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    7. Re:Two thirds of consumers are stupid by fatwilbur · · Score: 1

      I've had my current smartphone (Apple) for nearly 5 years, finally approaching the time when the combination of slowness and years of wear is forcing my hand to get a new one. I so desperately wanted to move away from Apple and try Android. Not only do the phones appear more capable, I disagree with so much that Apple does, and it's also very good to get practical experience in multiple platforms.

      That said, I think I have sadly resigned to having to stick with Apple. As much as it pains me to give Apple another cent of my money, I begrudgingly have to give them credit for being the only company that puts privacy and encryption first.

    8. Re:Two thirds of consumers are stupid by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Yep. Many people don't think about how many businesses make their money. If they did they wouldn't be surprised about this.
      Thinking about that was why I was happy when WhatsApp charged an Euro per year for the service because that was a clear business model and it meant they were less likely (you never know) to sell my data. Also why I don't trust Telegram: It's supposedly financed by one of its founders out of the goodness of their heart. Sure...

    9. Re:Two thirds of consumers are stupid by strikethree · · Score: 1

      I don't think I remember a single article about Google even accidentally leaking private information.

      This actually supports your argument, but there is an incident in which information was "leaking" out of Google. Google started using SSL for internal communications because they found that the NSA had internal wiretaps a few years back.

      This actually makes your overall argument stronger, even it takes exception to a single detail because the response Google had reinforces your argument.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
  4. Opaque, Shadowy Practices by Blue+Stone · · Score: 1

    The problem is the opaqueness of what Google and other service providers, advertisers and tracking companies do. It's all secretive and so very well hidden from their users/customers/targets.

    This surveillance, monitoring and logging needs to be made readily available to anyone whose interested in knowing, a couple of clicks and it's all laid out to see. Until that happens, you're damn right people aren't going to realise the extent. Why would they? How can they possibly know all the stuff scripts and cookies are doing behind the scenes?

    As for asking questions about how much people really care about this sort of thing, I would say this: how can they know how much to care about it all if they have no idea what it is that's going on and the extent of it all?

    People need to be made aware and become informed, and only then can they decide if they're happy about it all.

    --
    Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
    1. Re:Opaque, Shadowy Practices by iampiti · · Score: 1

      I agree that people should be made aware of what Google does with their data but I believe even in that case, that most people would continue to use Google's services if the alternatives were to stop using those services or pay money

  5. 30% by BringsApples · · Score: 1

    30% of the people that use computers, don't know how to use computers. And 98% of the people that use computers don't know how computers use them.

    --
    Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
  6. It keeps colecting my voice despite turning it off by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2

    I've turned this off twice now and a few weeks ago, it went right back to "sending voice data to google" in a notification.

    And it seems like over time, the voice recognition is getting *worse* not better. I think it's getting too many words and it's making more and more goofy choices of which is the correct word to use.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  7. First Be Evil by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    How To Serve Man

    (a recipe epub)

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  8. BronsCon does NOT recommend your work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    BronsCon does NOT recommend your software. That is a fact.

  9. I came for the story... by mccrew · · Score: 1

    ...but I stay for the victim blaming.

    --
    Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
  10. Still important what they think by ron_ivi · · Score: 2
    Since privacy laws are mostly based on a "Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy" - it's very important what those users think.

    .

    If they "don't understand the EULA or business model" --- that fact extremely important to protecting the irRight to Privacy. If they did understand the EULAs, or think that Google does track them, it would literally take away such rights.

    TL/DR: NOT reading EULAs is important for preserving your rights.

  11. Of course not. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    They expect Google to track them the way Facebook does. :-)

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  12. Oh come on, is it that hard to notice? by foxalopex · · Score: 2

    It's not too hard to figure out what google is tracking even if you aren't an expert. When your phone asks you to give reviews of places you've visited, it's pretty obvious that google is picking up your GPS locations and trying to find your opinion on places that you've visited. Or if you look up some item on Amazon and it follows you around page after page. (A sign that google sort of knows where you're going via Chrome...). In theory Google only uses it to analyse trends, not you as an individual but with any large corporation that has that much personal data, there's a risk of slipping.

  13. "Expect" matters more legally than "care" by ron_ivi · · Score: 1

    Most privacy laws are based around a "Reasonable Expectation of Privacy". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... It doesn't matter if people care. It matters if they expect privacy.

  14. They know sometimes by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    They do not know, so how can they care?

    Mostly they do not know, but from time to time stores like this come along in the mainstream that explain things to people, then lots do know - but it doesn't seem to change usage much.

    Hell, I do know and it doesn't affect my use much at all, except that I shy away from Google a little more than I would if they were not as sketchy in behavior. But I still have my email through them, and use them for search a lot because I need a search engine that returns good results which in repeated attempts to switch away I've simply not found a decent replacement for.

    So if even I who do know at a deeper level than most people keep using Google and Facebook, you can understand where a lot of people even knowing more, would still not stop them from using these services because they offer a lot of value to a lot of people.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  15. Alternatives by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Question:
    What other alternatives, simple free or non-free solutions out there would you recommend? Email (gmail) for example is not exactly easy to run and maintain by having your own mail server.

    When you use something such as Protonmail, it's still hosted by a 3rd party that you need to trust to use.

    Even if you're using an alternative 3rd party mail service, if you're using an Android device to check your mail, Google would still have access to all your mail.

  16. I wouldn't mind ad tracking if it were good by StevenMaurer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, I get it. Googlers got to eat too. And I use enough of their services that having them keep track of every time I use their service to tailor ads to me is a fair enough tradeoff. I'm not buying poodle-porn and doggie sex toys anyway. I don't even know if that exists (though maybe I'm about to find out.)

    But Jesus Christ (no, google, I'm not interested in finding a church), they really need to adjust their machine learning algorithms (please, no keyword matches for that either). I go buy a vacuum cleaner from Amazon, and for months afterwards I'm getting ads for the same model that I already bought!

    I mean seriously. If you go google for wedding cake (no, please no marriage ads - that will look pretty strange next to the doggie sex toy ads), what happens? You get tons of ads, as if you have to get a bulk discount of wedding cake.

    1. Re:I wouldn't mind ad tracking if it were good by Daralantan · · Score: 1

      But Jesus Christ (no, google, I'm not interested in finding a church), they really need to adjust their machine learning algorithms (please, no keyword matches for that either).

      This just reminds me of a strength and muscle site I follow. One of the main editors was talking about how he looks into meat stuff a lot online. And how one time he looked at a hoody. Now he often has Google advertising a hoody to him that is just completely covered in a design of "raw meat."

  17. The app store is an epic cash cow by Chozabu · · Score: 1

    Google takes 30% of all sales/transactions on the app store

    Sure, that is not their only income - but it is a large enough part it should limit bad behaviour to a degree

  18. What choice do consumers have? by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    It's not like Google was running around in 2005, telling everyone that they planned on tracking everyone and everything, even if you didn't use their products. But now they are a monopoly, and have been some time. And a note for would-be pedants: monopoly doesn't mean you have 100% marketshare. It means you have enough market dominance to harm consumers even if they don't use your products.

    So you want to quit Google, and block all their known domains in your hosts file. Okay, cool - but the next biggest search engine is Bing, and Microsoft also tracks the hell out of users. It's not like consumers are going to develop a Borg hive mind and move to/fund Duck Duck Go or anything.

  19. Re:in 2016 after previously promising it wouldn't by yuriklastalov · · Score: 2

    Imagine thinking that a company motto meant jack shit in terms of actual corporate behavior. Congratulations, you fell for corporate PR mumbo jumbo.

  20. Re:It keeps colecting my voice despite turning it by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

    I have a friend who went to that. But I have carpal tunnel. So it's painful even to swipe text.

    But if you dont'- I recommend it. And using duckduckgo or some other similar browser.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.