That's based on the assumption that privacy is a human right, which I'd tend to believe it is more than not. With that being said I from what I'm aware of from the situation, information was aggregated and no personal information was ever shared with third party companies. There would have been no way to figure out who was affected because identifying personal info was never shared, so the redress would not have been possible. Additionally, I find it ironic that the website https://www.youoweus.co.uk/ uses Google analytics, not saying they can't I just find it ironic. Finally, Google was already ordered in 2011 for the FTC to conduct privacy audits until at least 2032, so other countries could have (and still can) follow suit if they so wish, but they're already being held to a certain standard as is.
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U.K. Court Blocks Mass Legal Action Over Google's Alleged Tracking of Safari Users
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Apple does it differently. First of all, they delete all the data after a maximum of two years, but it could be earlier. Also, the command you send to Siri is unidentifiable to you, because every request is anonymised and users get a random ID There is zero correlation between you, your device and that randomly generated ID, and that business model I can live with.
Just do it. It may take an entire day or it may take a few weeks, but you'll be happy once you've done it. I'm actually doing it now with both hotmail and gmail. But I'm moving those to a secure email service.
Would all these services from these companies be FREE to use otherwise? Serious question directed towards anyone.
Google, I believe anonymizes data after 9 months, with data becoming increasingly safeguarded over its lifetime. Also, with differential privacy, it is very possible that Google slightly edges out Apple in terms of how are that data is to be directly linked to you. Both companies certainly have a ways to go, with Apple seemingly putting out a rhetoric that favors privacy, but Google also does well in this regard. I wish I had a slightly better source, but this explains is slightly httpsw.macobserver.com/analysis/google-apple-differential-privacy/
Exactly.
The use of Google services is free. Somehow, everyone wants everything to be free, but drag them to court if they collect personal data. Easy! Don't give any personal data to them. Don't use GMail if you don't like to give Google your data. Don't use google search engine if you don't like to be tracked. And don't spill your guts on your Facebook page if you don't want Facebook to know about it.
25 years ago when I started to use the internet, everything had a price, and if you wanted email you had to have your own mail server or belong to a company/organisation that provided that service. Then came the free services and companies enjoyed the goodwill of providing free services. And then the internet "exploded" and there was no way to keep providing free services to the millions of users that flooded the internet. Somehow the big datacenters needed to bring services online at that scale had to be paid for and goodwill was not accepted by distributors of power and hardware.
The use of Google services is free. Somehow, everyone wants everything to be free, but drag them to court if they collect personal data. Easy! Don't give any personal data to them. Don't use GMail if you don't like to give Google your data. Don't use google search engine if you don't like to be tracked. And don't spill your guts on your Facebook page if you don't want Facebook to know about it.
25 years ago when I started to use the internet, everything had a price, and if you wanted email you had to have your own mail server or belong to a company/organisation that provided that service. Then came the free services and companies enjoyed the goodwill of providing free services. And then the internet "exploded" and there was no way to keep providing free services to the millions of users that flooded the internet. Somehow the big datacenters needed to bring services online at that scale had to be paid for and goodwill was not accepted by distributors of power and hardware.
It’s lack of understanding. Look at me for example. While I’m a regular visitor to this forum and love technology, unlike my husband I wasn’t formally educated about tech. I probably have an above average awareness compared to people who don’t read tech news and forums, but I’m still learning as I go.
I thought our laws protected me in some measure in that if Google lays out specific terms and gives me the tools to set the parameters I am comfortable with, that I was in fact being granted the knowledge and control over my data that their terms and instructions spell out that I am.
For my part I do read all their long terms of service forms. It’s tedious but it’s my responsibility. I understand if I’m not paying cash for their services I have to pay with data. And I looked at what my control panel was supposed to let them have and I decided I could live with it. And I trusted that because of our laws, the control panel would work as Google cheerily says it will.
And I guess in the US and with the fines they had to pay, the laws can work as I expected.
But this...this is them circumventing Apple’s terms. And it’s just plain deceitful and unethical. And as regards our so called control panels, they were caught lying about how those worked, too. (Correction: the control panels DO work but they used other methods to get location data from Android phones. Also, you do need to check your control panel setting regularly to make sure your interactions with Google partners or apps didn’t inadvertently change your settings.)
This is tough for me because I also use and absolutely love Android phones. I love my Google Pixel phone. I am going to have to rethink that.
Am I slow to wake up? Yes. Did I fail to understand the extent of Google’s willingness to be underhanded and their greed? Yes. Because their customers already willingly give up almost everything. It’s hard to fathom how much more they insist on taking through outright deception and subterfuge. Am I naive? Not usually, but I’m feeling pretty naive right now.
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No assumption, it is UK law that privacy is a human right, both via the Human Rights Act, and as members of the ECHR under article 8.
This - for example, make or listen or search for a a non-PC joke today (such as, listen to Eddie Murphy from his 80s comedy tours) have it taken out of context - and see how it might be used against you or your children:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/sports/autoracing/conor-daly-nascar-racial-slur.html
The truth is that the UK courts are corrupt and are pro big business pro spying on people no matter what. Imagine you are under constant scrutiny, every cough, every sneeze, every thought you have is put under the microscope and criticised to the Nth degree. Imagine very person you talk to is looked at with a high degree of suspicion, imagine every action you do looked at as criminal, all your coms vowed, listened to. Now ask yourself would you be ok with that? Nope, didn't think so.
We all have the right to privacy. Period!
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Actually the UK courts are corrupt and only care about taking away our privacy so that they can grab even more power and money. Google are far worse than Apple any day of the week.
You’re right on that, I didn’t realize. Though my other points still hold. Additionally you’d have to prove that your rights were violated in a way that are protected by law, which seem limited to a specific set of rights, of which advertising the way google does it doesn’t seem like it would fall under that category, since data is anonymizes using differential privacy. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/l...hts-are-protected-under-the-human-rights-act/
Separately, google’s take on differential privacy has been utilized since at the very least very early 2011, which would fall under the time period of allegations being alleged. Alternatively, Apple only started using differential privacy in 2016 during iOS 10 days. I say this to say that all tech companies are created equal and some are leading others only have the reputation of leading. https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/42852.pdf
Maybe I’m justifying the actions of a company that isn’t as good as I think it is, but the good they do in the world far far outweighs anything negative in my strong opinion.
I wasn't aware of Apple doing this with our phone numbers, is there a way to opt out of this?
I don't get this. Do you think the hundreds of thousands of servers in the data centers of Google and Facebook are free? they run on fresh air? OF course they are gonna make money from you
Except that Google do that even if you tell them not to. They have no right to basically hack my devices and track me across the web only to make cash from me and I get a big screw you from them if I tell them not to!
Google are evil, if you ask me, period1
I'm confused, what exactly is this email and phone number fraud score? I haven't heard a thing about it. Scratching my head right now.
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Very true. It is for these reasons I use paid for email accounts (Protonmail & Tutanota), privacy friendly search engines (DDG, Searx, Startpage etc), apps and firewalls that I can block as much of Google et al as I can (ie Little Snitch). I even have a script on my Router that blocks all advertising across my LAN,as well as a good amount of tracking. And I use as many Open Source Apps as I can. I guess there's no full proof way of avoiding the sheer amount of tracking (or could we call it stalking?) but I try to at least limit it, the best I know how to.
I see what you did there lol!
Wonder why they blocked it? Hmm maybe they don’t want us turning into America? Strange decision.
But as google and other American tech companies are the governments darlings I doubt they’ll be fined anyway.
Sure, but I would be willing to pay for the service just so they don't build user profiles and give access to that data to third parties.
It was a front page story on this site not long ago. I’ll try and get the link for you.
I think this is the story: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...event-fraud-on-itunes-and-app-stores.2139312/
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That's very true - all these people complaining about these large corporations but the reality is, these businesses profit from your data and it's what keeps these services free at the point of use. Your data is what keeps these businesses alive and helps them to deliver more personalised/targeted services to the point where it can become quite scary.
Heck, even the small businesses are at it. Every business, small or large is by it's very nature out there to make money. Just look at small or large game/app developers with their free games or apps filled with ads and/or in-app purchases. Not so innocent now are they?
As for Apple, they aren't in the business of selling targeted or personalised services to users, but it's what also causes them to lack behind in data-driven services such as their voice-assistant, Siri.
I'm not condoning the actions of Google here, in fact I think they should be penalised heavily for these underhand practices, but there's plenty of people out there who go ape sh** when reading such news, while continuing to use such services and not appreciating that much the quality of such apps is because of data collection.
You say that but who's gonna pay for a search engine? Perhaps there's a business opportunity for you there...