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wigby

macrumors 68030
Jun 7, 2007
2,742
2,690
Google most definitely does many things better than anyone else. GMail is still, to this day, IMO, the easiest and most user-friendly email client. Why? Because it makes use of Googles #1 search algorithm.

But they were late to the party when it comes to smart-phones. And how did they play ball in that arena? They made a product and gave it away, all the while knowing that doing so would be a great way to compete, without actually competing. And why did they give it away? Because it benefits their core business of search.

Why do you think they are giving away Google Play cloud? Because it will benefit their search business.

Wait until Google decides to get into whatever business you yourself are engaged in? And they start giving the same product you sell for money away for free.

I just don't like the drug-dealer business model. Services and Products that have value should command remuneration.

How is Google's search algorithm helping gmail exactly? Better ads?
 

MacAddict1978

macrumors 68000
Jun 21, 2006
1,650
883
So, Apple struck a negotiated deal with all the labels so that they would be compensated for the music uploaded, much of which has been pirated by some.

Now, Google is doing the same thing, without charging anyone for it. How are the artists getting paid for the cloud versions? Is Google just footing the bill? Maybe. Probably. All under the guise of sucking you further into their world where they make money off of who you are, what you do, what you write, what you search for, and what you think.

I'll stick with Apple, paying my fee, so that I'm the customer and not the product.

then there are artists getting paid for stuff we already bought....
if people make good music, people buy it...
 

haruhiko

macrumors 604
Sep 29, 2009
6,529
5,874
Anonymous?? You are kidding right? I'm going to assume you were being sarcastic.

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Google can likely tell you more about you than you can tell yourself. Their algorithm can predict what you are searching for before you finish searching. I think this is fantastic computing. But it's also a little unnerving that they know every disease, birthday gift, movie, old girlfriend, and restaurant I've ever searched about.
Actually, "Morshu9001" is the least valuable information Google wants to get from you. What's the value of that? It's the thing you do on the internet, where you are visiting, where do you live (if a person stays at a location overnight every day, most probably it's his/her home!), where do you go to work, what websites are you visiting, what you are searching on the internet that's valuable! But if Google can tell these things about you, I don't think getting your name or not has ANY difference. Actually Google knows about you more than your mom.
 

Renzatic

Suspended
Anonymous?? You are kidding right? I'm going to assume you were being sarcastic.

Google can likely tell you more about you than you can tell yourself. Their algorithm can predict what you are searching for before you finish searching. I think this is fantastic computing. But it's also a little unnerving that they know every disease, birthday gift, movie, old girlfriend, and restaurant I've ever searched about.

They don't know it was you specifically, and it is completely anonymous. If you go and search for gonorrhea, they won't know that you, jmcrutch, searched for it. Only that you, aged 25-36 male, serached for it, and that people in your age group seem to search for it more often than other demographics.

Predictive text? It isn't predicting anything off your searches, only what's generally searched for when the first three-four letters pop up. Like if you want some Prometheus reviews, it doesn't know that's what you're looking for when you type up "pro", only that a whole ton of people have searched for "prometheus reviews", and gives it to you as the first option.

Don't be so paranoid.
 

Mechanic

macrumors member
Dec 15, 2011
63
0
Are you aware that AAC is just a fancy name for MPEG-4 Audio, or m4a? It's not really a "vendor-specific" format. I haven't seen an audio player that couldn't play m4a files for a long, long time. Maybe ten years ago, but no longer...

Just to clarify for all of you saying that AAC is apples proprietary audio format your wrong it is a standard. To quote the mpeg la group who licenses it:

AAC was developed with the cooperation and contributions of companies including AT&T Bell Laboratories, Fraunhofer IIS, Dolby Laboratories, Sony Corporation and Nokia. It was officially declared an international standard by the Moving Picture Experts Group in April 1997. It is specified both as Part 7 of the MPEG-2 standard, and Subpart 4 in Part 3 of the MPEG-4 standard.
 

jmcrutch

macrumors regular
Jul 27, 2010
249
79
They don't know it was you specifically, and it is completely anonymous. If you go and search for gonorrhea, they won't know that you, jmcrutch, searched for it. Only that you, aged 25-36 male, serached for it, and that people in your age group seem to search for it more often than other demographics.

Predictive text? It isn't predicting anything off your searches, only what's generally searched for when the first three-four letters pop up. Like if you want some Prometheus reviews, it doesn't know that's what you're looking for when you type up "pro", only that a whole ton of people have searched for "prometheus reviews", and gives it to you as the first option.

Don't be so paranoid.

You are wrong. If you are signed into Google, via Google Docs, Gmail, Google's own search engine page ("Sign In"), YouTube, etc, then they know very specifically that the search was performed by you. And they associate that search on their server with you forever.
 

Porco

macrumors 68040
Mar 28, 2005
3,314
6,908
Just in case anyone fancies trying out any of these services I think it's a good idea to repeat that it's always a good idea to back up your iTunes library / all your music before signing up to Match or similar services because no-one will be able to help you if you accidentally replace that really obscure, hard-to-find version of a song you love with the bog-standard version, but only realise it in a few years' time after you cancelled Match etc…
 

jmcrutch

macrumors regular
Jul 27, 2010
249
79
How is Google's search algorithm helping gmail exactly? Better ads?

It allows you to search your entire library of emails (8 years worth in my case) for something by just typing in a word. Prior to Gmail, it was not this easy - with other email clients the search was very wonky.
 

haruhiko

macrumors 604
Sep 29, 2009
6,529
5,874
It allows you to search your entire library of emails (8 years worth in my case) for something by just typing in a word. Prior to Gmail, it was not this easy - with other email clients the search was very wonky.

Gmail's search is MUCH faster than my iOS / OSX e-mail clients. It just works.
 

Renzatic

Suspended
You are wrong. If you are signed into Google, via Google Docs, Gmail, Google's own search engine page ("Sign In"), YouTube, etc, then they know very specifically that the search was performed by you. And they associate that search on their server with you forever.

I'll have to look up to see exactly what they keep on you, but I do know personal information you've bounced around in their system among their services are only tied to you for a matter of months, not forever.
 

haruhiko

macrumors 604
Sep 29, 2009
6,529
5,874
Just in case anyone fancies trying out any of these services I think it's a good idea to repeat that it's always a good idea to back up your iTunes library / all your music before signing up to Match or similar services because no-one will be able to help you if you accidentally replace that really obscure, hard-to-find version of a song you love with the bog-standard version, but only realise it in a few years' time after you cancelled Match etc…

You have to MANUALLY delete your old songs and download the matched songs on iTunes ;)
 

Morshu9001

macrumors regular
Dec 16, 2012
214
0
the capital of Assyria
Anonymous?? You are kidding right? I'm going to assume you were being sarcastic.

Go break into Google, and open their database. You won't be able to find anything about me specifically there, especially because Google doesn't know my name.

Google's just using your data to help searches on your computer and collect mass statistics.
 

jmcrutch

macrumors regular
Jul 27, 2010
249
79
I'll have to look up to see exactly what they keep on you, but I do know personal information you've bounced around in their system among their services are only tied to you for a matter of months, not forever.

I'm sorry but you are wrong. Searches made when not signed in are disassociated with the IP address after a matter of months. Searches performed when signed in are associated with the IP address forever.
 

jmcrutch

macrumors regular
Jul 27, 2010
249
79
Go break into Google, and open their database. You won't be able to find anything about me specifically there, especially because Google doesn't know my name.

Google's just using your data to help searches on your computer and collect mass statistics.

Then you have never signed into a Google account ...
 

Morshu9001

macrumors regular
Dec 16, 2012
214
0
the capital of Assyria
You are wrong. If you are signed into Google, via Google Docs, Gmail, Google's own search engine page ("Sign In"), YouTube, etc, then they know very specifically that the search was performed by you. And they associate that search on their server with you forever.

Yeah, like it's any privacy breach that they know that a guy named Morshu9001@gmail.com (That's his real name, right?) searched these items. Then they'll totally sell that data to someone because many companies love to know what Morshu9001@gmail.com specifically is doing, and they don't care about using this for mass statistics. They're just really interested in me. :rolleyes:

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Then you have never signed into a Google account ...

I have. I am signed in right now.

----------

You are wrong. If you are signed into Google, via Google Docs, Gmail, Google's own search engine page ("Sign In"), YouTube, etc, then they know very specifically that the search was performed by you. And they associate that search on their server with you forever.

Big deal, your ISP does that anyway, and THEY KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE. They also have your credit card number and your phone number, and I'll bet they sell a lot of your statistics off, including the phone number.
 

Morshu9001

macrumors regular
Dec 16, 2012
214
0
the capital of Assyria
How is Google's search algorithm helping gmail exactly? Better ads?

Better email search. But really, who cares? OSX Mail does it well enough instantaneously anyway, and it's way better than using a web emailing client. Gmail has an excellent web client, but it still sucks majorly compared to OSX Mail or even Outlook.
 

jmcrutch

macrumors regular
Jul 27, 2010
249
79
Yeah, like it's any privacy breach that they know that a guy named Morshu9001@gmail.com (That's his real name, right?) searched these items. Then they'll totally sell that data to someone because many companies love to know what Morshu9001@gmail.com specifically is doing. :rolleyes:

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I have. I am signed in right now.

Then every search you've ever made on Google when signed in has been associated with your IP address. Your internet provider knows who you are (your name address and probably a credit card #) and they certainly know what your IP address is and can be forced to give it up under certain circumstances. So, if certain authorities get the right warrants to present to both your ISP and Google then they can have all of your search data on Google, even 50 years from now.

If you weren't signed in then it wouldn't be there and couldn't be discovered, even with a warrant.

The difference between your ISP and Google is that your ISP isn't keeping a "forever" record of you search queries.
 

NorEaster

macrumors regular
Feb 14, 2012
239
23
So, Apple struck a negotiated deal with all the labels so that they would be compensated for the music uploaded, much of which has been pirated by some.

Now, Google is doing the same thing, without charging anyone for it. How are the artists getting paid for the cloud versions? Is Google just footing the bill? Maybe. Probably. All under the guise of sucking you further into their world where they make money off of who you are, what you do, what you write, what you search for, and what you think.

I'll stick with Apple, paying my fee, so that I'm the customer and not the product.

Please... you have heard of iAds right? And why do you think Apple is offering a maps app? Yes, they want to provide you with a better mapping service, but they also want to capitalize on your user data that can be mined from map usage. And why do you think they released Passbook?

And you do realize that Apple's TOS allows them to use your data however they see fit and it allows them to share your info with its "partners", right? Case in point: All Siri requests are stored on Apple's servers. If you don't believe me, google it.

Don't let the RDF fool you... Apple is trying to do the same with our user data as Google has been. You'd be foolish (or just a naive fanatic) to think otherwise.
 

dalbir4444

macrumors 6502a
Oct 30, 2012
572
0
Anonymous?? You are kidding right? I'm going to assume you were being sarcastic.

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Google can likely tell you more about you than you can tell yourself. Their algorithm can predict what you are searching for before you finish searching. I think this is fantastic computing. But it's also a little unnerving that they know every disease, birthday gift, movie, old girlfriend, and restaurant I've ever searched about.

And the answer is YES, I do care about it. So much so, that I've been taking steps to Un-Google my internet life (a task not so easily done, which is Google's design). I also refrain from FaceBook because it's another entity that makes all of its revenue on people's information - a concept that I simply object to.

But it's not just Google. Just from you user name, I can find out a lot about you. Just by searching you user name, I found:
1) Your youtube channel. From here I can tell what kind of videos you like, etc.
2) Your instagram profile. From here I can actually tell what you look like, where you live, etc.
3) I can check your ebay profile, your amazon profile, and your Google+ profile.

These are some of the most popular services, and they all store your information. Also, these are just from the first page of the Google Search. Some of the most popular Android and iOS apps require access to your GPS location, contacts, and other personal information. If you want to remain completely private, you pretty much need to just stop using the internet or you need to be very paranoid as to what services you are using.

I would never actually look someone up in this much detail, but this was just for a demonstration. All this information is on the internet for everybody to see, so what is so surprising by the fact that Google is storing all of this information about you. Also, even on this site, I can easily browse 20 pages of your comments.
 

KiwiAdventure

Suspended
Dec 7, 2010
607
304
New Zealand
Well considering I got locked out of my itunes match account for 90 days because my wife wanted use the computer I might just cancel it and upload my music to google now.

This is what I don't understand with Apple locking an account for 90 days. I have 4 days left to unlock my iPad this sucks, but I will not move to the other side as the other side has never known about service to its customers.:rolleyes:
 

Renzatic

Suspended
Then every search you've ever made on Google when signed in has been associated with your IP address.

Which changes about once a month for most residential internet subscriptions.

Your internet provider knows who you are (your name address and probably a credit card #) and they certainly know what your IP address is and can be forced to give it up under certain circumstances. So, if certain authorities get the right warrants to present to both your ISP and Google then they can have all of your search data on Google, even 50 years from now.

No. Only for 9 months.

The difference between your ISP and Google is that your ISP isn't keeping a "forever" record of you search queries.

Hate to tell you this, but every website you visit records your IP address and likely keeps a log of it for...hell, I dunno. Years.

Though since your IP address changes every month, it doesn't matter all that much. If you did some illegal, like grab a file off a website, and the feds requested the IP addresses for all the people involved. They wouldn't contact Google. They'd get a warrant for the webmaster, then go straight to your ISP, and ask who was assigned 149.224.14.237 at such and such date. Google wouldn't even be involved at all.
 
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