YSK: Google tracks your app usage and so much more
YSK: Google tracks your app usage and so much more
Why YSK: Because you deserve to have peace of mind. Your privacy can mean your safety. I found out about this today, and in this comment I mentioned it and said I would make something more detailed.
I bet you heard that Google tracks you, as have I. But it's insanely daunting to see every movement, app and thing you have interacted with on your device for the last 8 years just laid out in front of you neatly. When you add your google account on your phone(or any device), it tracks this, with a timestamp, including:
-any app you used(including Contacts, Calendar, Phone, and when you pressed your home screen button-it is regarded as Samsung UI Home etc.)
-apps you viewed on google play
-map area on maps(you don't even have to search a specific place in order for it to get logged)
-if you called a place from maps(if you press the call button from maps to call a place and make a reservation, for example)
-images you saw and searched for on your browser
-location, video and voice notes and more
It is mentioned that if you log in on another device, it can keep track of this on that device as well.
#What can you do?
The first thing you can do is turn it off. Log on your google account, press the icon on the top right, then press on "Manage your Google Account". On the left side you will see a panel, choose "Data and privacy", and scroll on the center of the screen to see History settings, and press on My activity. You can choose to turn it off if you want. Make sure to stroll around to manage your advertisement settings, location settings, subscriptions and so on.
I also recommend switch to Proton Mail if you can.
#How I found out?
Recently, as you probably know, Youtube decided to be foolish(yes, more than usual) and force its users to either consume ads or buy Premium, blocking you after three viewed videos if you use any form of ad block. I said ew, no. Let's use yt clients that don't scrape your data and allow you to have privacy and no ads, it's about time I jump ship.
I didn't want to have to manage every subscription and videos in playlists manually(it would take days). I wanted something for my desktop, and I stumbled upon FreeTube. They have a guide that tells you how to export subscriptions and videos, the whole thing.
Following the instructions, I inevitably stumbled upon my managed data. It's a weird feeling seeing all that was. I vaguely remember how I felt in those years, but I never thought I would see what I was doing or what app I was using then. Inevitably we forget some trivial things in our lives, but this is what gets to be remembered, and this is the proof that we existed. It's strange.
Ending note: I assume most people here probably already know this, but I just wanted to pass this along for awareness purposes. I knew that I wanted to have random stats at the end of my life to like, review and read, but not like this.
Turning off your history in Google is about as useful as using the incognito mode in Chrome. It just hides it from you, but you can be sure Google is keeping their own copy. Don't use Chrome, gmail, Google docs.... Use custom ungoogled roms (GrapheneOS, LineageOS). Switch to Linux, use privacy friendly dns, or even your own... The path to privacy is a long and arduous constant fight, full of inconveniences.
The path to privacy is a long and arduous constant fight, full of inconveniences.
You got that right! Especially when rooting your phone is the best option. I never did figure it out, that shit is hard!
I don't root my phone these days anymore. It makes a whole host of other issues with banking applications and the like, plus a nasty app might take advantage of the elevation as well. Either a full rom, or going the path of adb disabling system apps. Not pretty. Using GrapheneOS these days.
I turned off my activity history, and I've noticed a needlessly degraded experience on some Google apps, like in Maps where it no longer labels your home location as "Home", but it's a saved location anyway.
My moment of realization was when gdpr was introduced and I pulled all data Facebook had on me. Found call logs, every picture I had, sms conversations etc from my Sony Ericsson phone and all of my android phones. They scraped everything of every phone I ever owned and used Facebook on. Some sms conversations were from when I was 10 years old. Very strange feeling and that made me delete Facebook and over time move away from big tech in general.
Do you really think Google will stop storing those juicy records of you if you click a switch?
Yes. Failing which they will eventually fall for a class-action.
Shit, sorry! We didn’t know that these internal stores — which you cannot see — were still retaining your information after the removal request.
Jokes aside, all collected information is likely compiled as an aggregate (which ostensibly removes the personal aspect) that’ll have more uses for than just targeted advertisements, and not just on the data sources themselves. Pattern matching/guesswork for “filling in the blanks” with users they’ve less information on is one possible use case I could think of.
People like you and me can often be predictably unpredictable . . . I think it’s now (more than ever, what with all the quantity of data and extent of technology) the case of what they effectively know, instead of them explicitly having that information.
I'd trust them to stop storing it but I don't trust them to stop processing it.
Ingest -> Train various AI models -> /dev/nullrather thanIngest -> Train various AI models -> store for future training
eh, i realized a long time ago than the only privacy that exists is between your ears.
Not really, it's possible to reach it online, but it comes with compromises to user experience. That's not something most people will ever want, but everyone can easily minimize the data being collected about them without harming user experience.
Yeah. The best case scenario I can think for this is location data for Google maps. For all the users sharing their location with Google maps, Google can generate eerily accurate ETAs. And you as the end user greatly benefit from that. You can see if a place is busier than usual. You can see where accidents have occurred or where construction is happening.
Sure, we could aim for an open source alternative that does collect this data but strictly uses it for the increased accuracy of the maps, but getting enough users for it to be as accurate as google would be near impossible. Not to mention the people coding google maps are some of the best developers in the world. You're just not going to get nearly as good of an app. Maybe you could get one that's less accurate, not as smooth, and doesn't collect your data. How many people would make that trade? It just makes an average person's life realistically easier, and that's what people want from technology.
This is why I switched to Graphene OS, it's much easier than I thought it would be!
This is why I stay safe in my blanket fort at home.
If there are no iron strings in your blanket, then Google is also tracking your fort
I use a couple of counter measures and I am quite happy since years and hope to be as invisible as possible for tracking companies. I have a samsung phone, this is what I did:
- on your pc install adb
- when switching on the phone for the first time, dont connect to wifi, dont make or use a google account, press skip and all the fake "warnings" until you see your launcher
- download a browser apk of your liking and install it via browser
- activate developer mode for apk (you find the instructions online)
- via command line remove all samsung bloatware
- uninstall all google apps except the absolute must haves like "google play service" and so on
- go into settings - apps in your phone and deactivate all remaining google apps that you dont dare to delete via adb
- install an alternate app store via your newly installed browser
- install wireguard and setup connection to your vpn at home
- on my homeserver install pihole or adguard home to block google out completely
- set a different search engine like qwant or so in your browser
- install all the security add ins in your browser to your liking
As a result, I am almost google free, except probably for samsungs trackers. Sometimes apps or commerce websites dont work as they use google captcha or things like that.
The biggest privacy problems are Google location services, G play services and G analytics in other apps. This approach doesn't fix that. To really degoogle you have to use a different phone OS, like E or Lineage/microg.
While this helps... If you have any Google software, it tends to call home anyway by using hardcoded IPs into their apps. Samsung does likewise. The solution being, not only a DNS server, but also a serious firewall in the router. And, even better, a ROM you can trust, such as LineageOS.
Yes and I will add to this... Just degoogle your phone and slowly stop using Google services. Even this is not a perfect solution but its better than doing nothing.
I'd hate to be that paranoid tbh
Wait until he finds out about Google Maps Timeline.
Wait until he finds out about Google Maps Timeline.
Can u remind.me what were waiting on
I wish Apple was transparent enough to have a real comparison of their privacy.
Personal guess, Apple is generating just as much personal data, just using it less offensively than Google. That's not good but it's betterish, I guess.
Main things I'm stuck using Google for at the moment are Gmail and Maps. Gmail, because my address I've had over there since Gmail was invite only. Maps, because they are one of the only decent sources for restraunt reviews these days (why did Zomato have to kill UrbanSpoon :( )
For even more counter-measures, going to plug privacyguides.org, as well as the lemmy community (and instance) that is run by the owner of the site, !privacyguides@lemmy.one
I have been very happy with my new email provider, with all the info being sent to my inbox now I didn’t want Google seeing it all before me. (mailbox.org is who I went with for the curious )
Mailbox is great! You get so much with teh account (cloud drive, calendar, notes, online docs, spreadsheet etc)
Permanently Deleted
Yes! Proton mail started to behave like typical corporation :(
I mean, it's unlikely you'll get a legitimate private option for free. The people hosting private email servers with encryption as the selling point can't very well serve ads, and certainly aren't tracking your emails. They would be operating at a constant loss. Would the money be coming strictly from donations? A subscription is the only feasible way a service like that could operate.
You're going to have to pay one way or another. Either with money, or with your data. It's up to you what you decide
Could you summarise their important points and sources? I don't want to watch a cringy YT video.
I discovered google had recorded all the hashtags I had visited on mastodon. I thought I had turned off this recording, but there were additional categories which I think they have added since the last time I was there.
Of course the UK government and ISP record everything too, by URL, so that includes hashtags, even this post has a unique URL.
I want to know if the proton unlimited subscription is worth it?
I changed over to it and I am very happy with Proton. The only thing I don't use is the new password keeper.
How cN I get a copy to see ally data? While it certainly is creepy, I want to just see everything I have forgotten. So many things I've looked up and can't remember when I went to find it again I couldn't remember but I couldn't just ask my computer. I consigned myself to knowing they were probably doing this when I bought a Pixel 2 so long ago.
Sweet! Man-made horrors beyond my comprehension!
I am a gmail user so I’m not in a position to preach, but I am glad that I’m not using an entire phone made by an ad company.
Question, where did you find a phone that isn't run by an ad company?
It’s obvious from this that you consider Apple an ad company, and if you think that then I know already I won’t be able to convince you with reason. Apple Search Ads does exist, and monetizes promotion of apps. I suppose this makes them “an ad company?” Suffice to say I disagree. Google makes phones too but I’d hardly call them “a phone company.” Apple’s business is in selling hardware/software devices. And while their privacy record isn’t perfect, they’ve figured out that they have more to gain than lose by restricting tracking and foregrounding user privacy. If you don’t think Apple are strict about this, then I guess you haven’t bought any ads in the last 2 years. I have. I develop apps for Android and iOS and iOS has definitely gotten tighter since 14.5. You can get away with much more tracking, as an advertiser, on Android.
I honestly don't care. It's all resold analytical metadata and they just serve ads. The rest just makes the products and apps better. For the vast majority of users privacy has nothing to do with safety.
Youre what's for sale. When they log your biometric data, like images of your face, voice, or fingerprints, then sell that to a 3rd party, it's literally the things that make you an individual that are up for sale. Neat huh
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Please research why privacy matters.
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Cambridge analytica manipulating facebook users via ads, influencing elections
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By saying you don't care about your privacy, you're willingly ignoring any downsides. You're saying that you, or a close one, will never do anything your government might disagree with, even in the future. Governments change, people can be in charge you never thought should be, and some people might not like what you do, whatever that could be. (I'm having a hard time explaining this one, words don't come easily rn, see edward snowden "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide, is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.")
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By contributing your data, you're helping other, less "fun" countries discriminate against people. It's really easy to guess using algorithms if someone is gay, had premarital sex, etc. And some people don't like some others based on that, and would rather they were dead.