OK so you are simply going on what's in the privacy doc ( which is almost identical to Apples) and you really have zero knowledge of what's shared.
Why don't you educate yourself and open an ad words account (free) and see exactly what's shared and what's not shared. You wouldn't have to take my word for it.
Thanks for sharing that, that's a good experiment to try, but still wouldn't show that my newly account is not an edge case and is not the norm. What needs to be established is the in what circumstances does Google share and what are the incentives/motivations for Google to do that.
Allow me to paint a theoretical picture here. Let's say a person's relative passed away and that information was passed through Google services, now that person start's receiving ads about burial, cremation, coffins, headstones etc. Mind you, this is deeply personal information. The vendor whose ads are served has information that the ads were served to this particular person or obscured entity, the part that's disturbing that the vendor could have some form of this information.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you didn't read the info in the link you provided. If you did, you'd quickly realize it 1. doesn't say what you think it does. 2. doesn't support your sharing claim.
Well let's dig a little deeper.
One example - excerpt from the Google privacy link -
We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.
This is what sensitive information as defined by Google-
This is a particular category of personal information relating to confidential medical facts, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality.
What is not clear is the consent part - is it implied consent, explicit consent, or consent that's buried in some obscure disclaimer/TOS that no one bothers to read. And what is for sure to happen the boundaries for implied and explicit consent are obscure, so the TOS can change at any moment and this part the user has to keep track of, the inherent nature of the business model where the user needs to stay one step ahead or keeping track is unacceptable to me. This whole affair becomes unscrupulous to me because the onus is on the user to keep track, this is because of the position that Google is in and could/can/are take/ing advantage of. And Google's primary business is built upon making use of all the information fed to the machine. There is no escaping that for a user.
It does very closely mirror Apple's privacy policy though.
http://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-policy/ Doesn't matter which you read first, you'll reach the same conclusion. They essentially say the same thing.
I am in complete agreement here. But the difference for me is the conclusion as a user with no legal background, the conclusion that I reach comes from various inputs that I receive and my interpretation/perception of the incentives/motivations that Apple has to make use of the data. That's where the business model comes in, Apple business model is far different from Google. Apple most likely collects information among other things to improve its service for the user and not to leverage the information to run an ad business. And Tim Cook has stated plenty of times they are not in the business of collecting information for ad business.
I now understand what you meant. Though completely unrelated to the context of what I meant by transparency, thanks nonetheless for clarifying. I was talking about transparency in letting people know they are harvesting data. They harvest data. They tell you, they harvest data. Can't be more transparent than that. Could you point to where it shows pretty clearly data is being shared. To be fair, I could have overlooked something.
That transparency is only on the surface, real transparency would deeper down. I am sorry for going off topic there, but transparency is a generic term that could mean different things to different people. If Google really wants to get user consent, one example of transparency is - if a person has a wart on their privates, would Google ask user consent before serving ads using that information. The answer is no, so that's not transparent.
The transparency that states that they collect information is not transparent at all, its quite opaque.
Context. You seem to ignore it. Clearly I was discussing data mining and advertising, not business models.
I overlooked the context because I did not read every post associated with that comment.
This is pure supposition. You made it up. There's not one verifiable fact in this statement. When Apple clearly states they 1. collect data and 2. use that data for, among other things, advertising. Those are facts. Why would I, or anyone for that matter, put credence in what you assume are reasons?[/QUOTE] I am not asking you to assume what I am assuming, but provide a counter to that by providing credibe information that refutes that assumption.
Again, supposition not backed up with facts. I can show conclusively that Apple does exactly what you claim they don't.
Please do show that, I am all ears.
To be clear, I'm not saying it's a bad thing that either company does data collection. I'm saying they both do. Old saying: It's not what know, it's what you can prove. You can't prove any of your points. I can prove all of mine.
I would love to see the proof and maybe also prove that Google is not being unscrupulous now and the probability that it will not in the future.
