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Google Hasn't Updated Its iOS Apps Since the Day Before Apple's New Privacy Labels Requirement

Solomani said:
For the people here bashing Google's privacy issues, I wonder how many of these apps you use daily?

Why not delete them until Google comes into compliance and updates the apps?
Click to expand...

I have deleted everything and anything Google on my MBP and I have never installed anything Google on my iPhone.

The last thing I found by pure chance was "GoogleSoftwareUpdate.app". I have never installed Chrome, perhaps it was left over from Google Earth which I deleted long ago...

Why Google's Software Update Tool Is Evil

The recently released desktop app Google Earth 5 contained a little surprise for many Mac OS X users — it installed Google’s automated Update Engine without clearly asking. Worse, the latest version of Google Earth won’t work without the Update Engine running in the background. We mentioned the...
www.wired.com www.wired.com

macpaw.com

GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle: What it is and how to remove it

Find out more about GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle on your Mac. Read the article to discover what it is and how you can remove it.
macpaw.com macpaw.com


​

 
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triangletechie said:
Apple preaches non stop about privacy and acts holier than thou. They shouldn't want to accept money from someone who is anti-privacy, right?
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Straw-man argument,.

Apple preaches that THEIR products protect privacy. They market to people who care about privacy. They don’t tell you that you have to care about privacy. They mandate that, on iOS, companies reveal their privacy policies. This is all completely consistent.
 
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triangletechie said:
If you're going to stand on a soap box and say Google bad, then criticize Apple for taking their money.

If Apple truly cared about privacy, Duck Duck Go would be their default search engine.
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I can't criticise Apple for taking Google's money for allowing to be the default search engine - we all still have the right, and a very simple way of changing that to DuckDuckGo for example, as I have.

It's up to Google to comply with Apple's conditions.

Apple are now obliging Google, and every app developer to declare clearly what data their app collects. If developers fail to make the declaration Apple has the right to block them from the Apple Store.

Seems fair to me...
 
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triangletechie said:
I'm well aware that they take money from Google for the search engine deal. My point is don't preach privacy and then still accept money from Google if they are so anti-privacy. Lots of members on here love pointing out flaws in Google and have no issue with Apple's agreement with Google. If you're going to stand on a soap box and say Google bad, then criticize Apple for taking their money.

If Apple truly cared about privacy, Duck Duck Go would be their default search engine.
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Seems like you’re making perfect the enemy of good. Most people aren’t under the impression that Apple does no wrong. They’re still better than the other big tech companies. Which other major tech company does more for user privacy than Apple?
 
Is there something that FB didn't *tick all the boxes* on? I quit this cesspool years ago... When are people going to realize nothing is free?

I do love their non-personalized attack ad's in a print newspaper.. The irony of all ironies.. :)
 
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I don’t have a problem with Google being the default search engine. You can change it in settings at any time in about 30 seconds. In spite of their data collection practices, their search function is one of the best, if not the best.
 
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A lot of people like to trash Google but the fact is billions of people all over the world use Google everyday and benefit from them. When they google ”restaurant near me fish”, the restaurant owners benefit from it. Customers also benefited since they got the fish they wanted.

Business owners, big and small, online or offline have benefited from Google by reaching their customers without doing much advertising.

Millions of students have benefited in their learning process because of Google.
When a student is doing their homework and can’t remember how to do a long division, they got their answer instantaneously because of Google.

I have tried 3rd party search engine like DuckDuckGo or Bing but their search result is not as good as Google. I remember how hard was it to find what I wanted before Google. The search engine in the old days before Google like Alta Vista, Yahoo search or Lycos were complete trash compared to Google.

I am grateful to Google. Their search engine has greatly improved my life and I don’t even need to register or pay anything..
 
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So how exactly is this App Privacy information useful to us? Sure, it says if they are collecting contact info, or location info, etc, but...
  • The developer has to provide this info. Is Apple auditing every app to make sure they didn't leave anything out?
  • Facebook for example has things listed out, but also has "Other Data" in all the categories... What's the point of having this if developers could just hide things under "Other Data"?
 
doolar said:
The only Google app and service I use willingly is YouTube. And I’m probably going to delete the app and just use Safari for my YouTube watching.
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Youtube runs much better with Chrome than Safari or even YouTube apps though. With Chrome, you can instantaneously jump 15 seconds forward or backward. Scrub quickly through the video without effecting the video quality. These features are useful when watching an instructional video.
 
I posted exactly that Saturday:
forums.macrumors.com

No updates from Google since iOS 14.3 Privacy Labels came out

Funny how companies like Google (the ones you know don't respect your privacy) stopped updating their apps weekly like they usually do since iOS started. No more "bug fixes and improvements" BS. I wonder why? 🤔
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

Google is full of crap and know it will receive backslash since their apps are more invasive than Facebook!
 
Mac Prodigy said:
Google is trash anyway, so there's that.
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Unfortunately, it is not trash, except for political or politically correct issues, and paid advertisers. Google has more data than anyone else, better algorithms, and has been doing it longer.

So by default, I use anyone else for searching, but I end up going back to Google sometimes to get what I need. The thing is, there are some subjects that you just don't want to use Google for, because they only show results that Google finds acceptable. As long as you know that, then there are migrating strategies.

1) Don't use Google unless you have too.
2) Don't use Google at all for anything political.
3) Make sure you feed the monster. Meaning when you're bored, not able to concentrate, had a few too many adult beverages, etc., do some google searches just to mess with the algorithms. If you're tech savvy you might automate that. Not saying I do.
4) Always ignore the first few pages for anything that is not tech related. These results have been bought.
 
Solomani said:
The US lawsuits against Facebook won't really do much because US regulators often lack teeth, it will end up with a minor slap on the wrist.

Now let's talk about the European Union regulators..... oh boy, they are the vicious zealots that really can defang both FB and Google.
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Its actually worse that that. US regulators seem to be paid off with campaign contributions, priority search placement for campaigns, etc. This is not Facebooks fault, they are playing the game shown to them. The real problem is our elected officials that care more about money and power than they care about doing the right thing.
 
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DocMultimedia said:
I know Google sucks all info, but I consider their free services worth that cost. Luckily I’ve got nothing to hide, so don’t really care.
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I've never really understood this argument. I have nothing to hide, but that doesn't mean that I want others to have access to all of my activity. There are many people who have been put in prison based off of things said or done in private and taken out of context. They had nothing to hide, but because private things became public, it was used against them. If you have nothing to hide, post all of your emails, web browsing history, purchase history and any other internet activity in a public forum for everyone to see and don't explain the context behind any of them. Would you be okay with that? Have you never been to a site that you wouldn't be okay with others knowing that you went to?

Oh, by the way, DuckDuckGo is also free to use. There are a lot of free services that are very viable alternatives to what Google offers that also put privacy first.
 
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Sodium Chloride said:
Youtube runs much better with Chrome than Safari or even YouTube apps though. With Chrome, you can instantaneously jump 15 seconds forward or backward. Scrub quickly through the video without effecting the video quality. These features are useful when watching an instructional video.
Click to expand...
Ha well I quit Chrome on my personal devices about a year ago, and just uninstalled it on my work PC, trying Edge instead.

But yes, again, Chrome may be the better browser (most supported at least), but I don’t think it’s worth the privacy cost.

I’m trying to strike a reasonable balance between privacy and usability, completely aware that it’s all about compromises. But I’m not about to make it easy for Google, Facebook et al to harvest my data.
 
A claimed tech lead responded to a similar article on slashdot.

Google's iOS Apps Haven't Been Updated in Weeks. Could Apple's Privacy Labels Be the Reason? - Slashdot

As a tech lead for a Google iOS app, hereâ(TM)s where weâ(TM)re at: Weâ(TM)re taking the month to organize all apps and make sure we have privacy labels that are accurate. Our infrastructure means we can share all third party frameworks and thus their licenses and privacy implications...
tech.slashdot.org

As a tech lead for a Google iOS app, hereâ(TM)s where weâ(TM)re at: Weâ(TM)re taking the month to organize all apps and make sure we have privacy labels that are accurate. Our infrastructure means we can share all third party frameworks and thus their licenses and privacy implications. In order to leverage our infrastructure in a sustainable way, tooling is being built to automate this stuff. So if one team updates some sdk with different privacy implications, all apps will inherit the changes. This takes time to get it right.
Click to expand...
 
Sodium Chloride said:
A lot of people like to trash Google but the fact is billions of people all over the world use Google everyday and benefit from them.
Click to expand...

"DOS/WIN based computers manufactured by companies such as IBM,
Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others, are by far the most popular,
with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the
other hand, note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and
that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."

- New York Times
 
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