Is Google turning into a Goolag?

Title.

We have come to rely on Google a lot over the past two decades or so. Since then Google has gone from being a humble search engine to a ad driven megacorporation today with revenue in excess of the GDPs of some third world countries. Over the course of their growth, they have started incorporating shady and anti-competitive practices to leverage its dominance of the web to bully competitors and consumers alike.

Some points regarding Google's maliciousness:

- Aggressively pushing Google Chrome and using non-standard web technologies to put other browsers at a disadvantage. This is what Microsoft was sued for back in the day for simply bundling IE with Windows, but Google gets a free pass?

- Bullying websites into adopting AMP so that those site contents will be displayed within a Google controlled environment without going to the websites themselves. Websites not adhering to AMP may have their search results rankings drop.

- Collects information of its users and uses it for not only personalizing the search results, but also to hide information that the user might disagree with, thus creating an echo chamber encouraging like minded behaviour among users. A massive attack on free speech.

- Hid a critical Google+ data leak from the public due to fear of govt. regulation.

- Bullies youtube content creators with severely demonetizing videos that don't confirm to their family friendly agenda. Such videos are identified using algorithms that are known to false flag videos and support for wrongfully flagged videos is slow. However, they hypocritically show ads on videos by viral content creators regardless of subject matter.

- Allows corporations and individuals to abuse Youtube's copyright takedown system to remove videos that they don't agree with rather than a legitimate copyright reason. Also, poor support for content creators whose videos were fraudulently taken down in such a manner.

Plus many more.

So, my question is, is Google going too far and at what point do we draw the line? I know that most of the public is apathetic towards such issues, but how much do we, the more tech-oriented populace, care about this?

Edit: For those of you who don't know, a Gulag is a soviet fortified prison camp. Goolag is a play on gulag. Gulag - Wikipedia

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They turned into Skynet way back.
About G+ bug, they know that social networking is not in their DNA but they don't want to admit the same.

I personally feel that we must stop feeding Google's dominance and start looking for alternatives to their services. I have started using duckduckgo on all my browsers and replacing google logins on sites with my email/password login.

Google is the biggest tracker on the web..it tracks everything, your browsing habits, what u buy, watch, share and event the content in your mail.
I was surprised to see that google knows what I have bought till date from Amazon.

I have noticed few times now,might sound funny to you people, but it happened and I am aware of it now. I never, ever, search for cars, let alone Indian cars which launched recently or whatever. I was just speaking to my colleague about car and he was telling me about his plans. So of course, he has googled about these cars he wants to buy on his android phone. Suddenly by the night I am seeing google ads on apps about that car In particular. Before this I never saw car related ads ever on phone.

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TheSloth said:
I have noticed few times now,might sound funny to you people, but it happened and I am aware of it now. I never, ever, search for cars, let alone Indian cars which launched recently or whatever. I was just speaking to my colleague about car and he was telling me about his plans. So of course, he has googled about these cars he wants to buy on his android phone. Suddenly by the night I am seeing google ads on apps about that car In particular. Before this I never saw car related ads ever on phone.

Maybe your Google Assistant/some other assistant was on at that time or maybe your friends. Either way Skynet thought that you two would like to buy cars or something and hence the ads.

European competition commission already fined Google. Now they are charging up to $40 from OEM if they want to pre-load Google services. But that means your smart phones getting costly by 2.5

billubakra said:
Maybe your Google Assistant/some other assistant was on at that time or maybe your friends. Either way Skynet thought that you two would like to buy cars or something and hence the ads.

Google assistant you mean when we say "ok Google" to start speaking to phone.
Anyways, I am quite sure my phone records everything I speak. I have seen ads based on my talks. Those ads I shouldn't get as I don't browse about those.

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TheSloth said:
Google assistant you mean when we say "ok Google" to start speaking to phone.
Anyways, I am quite sure my phone records everything I speak. I have seen ads based on my talks. Those ads I shouldn't get as I don't browse about those.

1 of the terms and conditions of the Google Assistant says that it will collect data from your phone to make your user experience better. So, whether you say ok google or not doesn't matter. Skynet is collecting everything, even your social media chats.

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meetdilip said:
European competition commission already fined Google. Now they are charging up to $40 from OEM if they want to pre-load Google services. But that means your smart phones getting costly by 2.5

What will happen after EU collects the fine? Nothing, Skynet won't stop collecting stuff. I remember once a women uploaded her photo on some cloud service, I don't recall the name. Few months later she saw her photo in an ad on an island. Then she found out that anything that we upload on these cloud services becomes their property.

Google actually collects data regardless of whether you manually choose to opt out or not.

billubakra said:
What will happen after EU collects the fine? Nothing, Skynet won't stop collecting stuff. I remember once a women uploaded her photo on some cloud service, I don't recall the name. Few months later she saw her photo in an ad on an island. Then she found out that anything that we upload on these cloud services becomes their property.

Wow, this is why you should read the terms of service carefully.

Google used to officially have a "Do no evil" clause in their terms of service. They quietly removed it later.

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Desmond David said:
Google actually collects data regardless of whether you manually choose to opt out or not.

Just like modi sarkar, aadhaar har jagah pakka karo.

Zangetsu said:
Google is the biggest tracker on the web..it tracks everything, your browsing habits, what u buy, watch, share and event the content in your mail.
I was surprised to see that google knows what I have bought till date from Amazon.

Google (and also facebook in FB) even tracks how you move the mouse cursor in Chrome.

Everything is tracked even the Skype calls we make to our friends.

Google is everywhere. I believe it has already won. You can "try" to avoid Google. But for how long can you do so?
I tried DuckDuckGo when it came default with the Firefox on Ubuntu. Had to switch to Google, since I was so used to personalized results.

When you search for an item on Google and if you have bought that on Amazon it shows when you last ordered that item. Yes, for that it went through your email, and it maybe a red flag, but you have to admit, it's extremely useful.

I can give countless examples of the ease Google have given to people, and while it is scary to think that Google is slowly dominating our lives, but in the long run, people want more convenience over privacy. It's a sad truth for most of human society.

I agree that Google Plus was a big blunder and Google needed to be accountable for it, but who will boycott it? People who don't even stop using Facebook after an event such as Cambridge Analytica? We are already too far gone. The best we can do is to "try" to look for alternatives. But then in the "society" we will only be seen as an outcast and will always be those people who are "missing out" on what society think is cool.

Edit: Should we move this thread to Cavern, to avoid prying eyes of Google?r

Honestly, there is not much of a difference between the search results of Google and DuckDuckGo. Plus, personalized results is not that big of a deal IMO, with some persistence, anyone can find anything.

And if you still need Google's results, use something like StartPage which acts as a Google proxy and shows results from Google.

Edit: Link.

Google now using unethical ads for revenue:
Pornhub Ad on Family Friendly Youtube Video
Kids YouTube ad that looks like a new video to click

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Cyberghost said:
Google now using unethical ads for revenue:
Pornhub Ad on Family Friendly Youtube Video
Kids YouTube ad that looks like a new video to click

+ Condom ads in comedy show videos. All hail the ad blockers.

That's because Google relies on algorithms to determine what kind of person is watching the video. These algorithms don't always work and Google just doesn't give a f***.

Desmond David said:
That's because Google relies on algorithms to determine what kind of person is watching the video. These algorithms don't always work and Google just doesn't give a f***.

Machine Learning

I own a Redmi 2 Prime... and I've tried to disconnect everything except the very basic. Yes, Google is still logged in. I still have Play store.
Since its an old firmware I've uninstalled all Google Apps except Play st0re. (In Redmi 2 Prime we can)

And its actually working for me, I no longer get ads based on my talks, and even when the recent auto contact addition was done by Google, somehow no contact was added to my phone.
Location is turned off, and I don't use Google maps, yet, I don't get specific location alerts when I travel.

Although, at the same time, Mi's own account seems to be working in BG and that does steal data and I can't uninstall it.

Now, I can't change my phone... Google will start its lookout in full power if I get a Galaxy S9+ or so.

Desmond David said:
I personally feel that we must stop feeding Google's dominance and start looking for alternatives to their services. I have started using duckduckgo on all my browsers and replacing google logins on sites with my email/password login.

Bold approach I was thinking of using duckduckgo too but I know what a mammoth force we are up against (Google). They are big.
We really need to tweet Gabriel Weinberg to change the name man, I can't take duckduckgo seriously

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Samarth 619 said:
I own a Redmi 2 Prime... and I've tried to disconnect everything except the very basic. Yes, Google is still logged in. I still have Play store.
Since its an old firmware I've uninstalled all Google Apps except Play st0re. (In Redmi 2 Prime we can)

And its actually working for me, I no longer get ads based on my talks, and even when the recent auto contact addition was done by Google, somehow no contact was added to my phone.
Location is turned off, and I don't use Google maps, yet, I don't get specific location alerts when I travel.

Although, at the same time, Mi's own account seems to be working in BG and that does steal data and I can't uninstall it.

Now, I can't change my phone... Google will start its lookout in full power if I get a Galaxy S9+ or so.

About your last line, this way you will never be able to change your phone. If you want then you can install some privacy based custom roms in your new phone.

Also non-removable apps can be removed after rooting.

rockfella said:
Bold approach I was thinking of using duckduckgo too but I know what a mammoth force we are up against (Google). They are big.
We really need to tweet Gabriel Weinberg to change the name man, I can't take duckduckgo seriously

What's in a name
-William Shakespeare

Why was this thread locked? Reopening.

*www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/05/1020376/resist-big-tech-surveillance-data/

Algorithms are meaningless without good data. The public can exploit that to demand change.

Every day, your life leaves a trail of digital breadcrumbs that tech giants use to track you. You send an email, order some food, stream a show. They get back valuable packets of data to build up their understanding of your preferences. That data is fed into machine-learning algorithms to target you with ads and recommendations. Google cashes your data in for over $120 billion a year of ad revenue.

Increasingly, we can no longer opt out of this arrangement. In 2019 Kashmir Hill, then a reporter for Gizmodo, famously tried to cut five major tech giants out of her life. She spent six weeks being miserable, struggling to perform basic digital functions. The tech giants, meanwhile, didn’t even feel an itch.

Now researchers at Northwestern University are suggesting new ways to redress this power imbalance by treating our collective data as a bargaining chip. Tech giants may have fancy algorithms at their disposal, but they are meaningless without enough of the right data to train on.

In a new paper being presented at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency conference next week, researchers including PhD students Nicholas Vincent and Hanlin Li propose three ways the public can exploit this to their advantage:

Data strikes, inspired by the idea of labor strikes, which involve withholding or deleting your data so a tech firm cannot use it—leaving a platform or installing privacy tools, for instance.

Data poisoning, which involves contributing meaningless or harmful data. AdNauseam, for example, is a browser extension that clicks on every single ad served to you, thus confusing Google’s ad-targeting algorithms.

Conscious data contribution, which involves giving meaningful data to the competitor of a platform you want to protest, such as by uploading your Facebook photos to Tumblr instead.

Google is pathetic

An experiment was conducted by some researchers in which they used two phones one with No SIM Card + No Internet and another with only Sim Card + No Internet

And as soon they connected it to the internet after roaming around the City for a day. The phone started sending entire phone captured data to google servers

While this thread specifically focuses on Google, other big data companies like Facebook, Amazon, etc. are also doing this. Thus this is a much more general issue.

Desmond David said:
While this thread specifically focuses on Google, other big data companies like Facebook, Amazon, etc. are also doing this. Thus this is a much more general issue.

Including Telecom operator who sell our data to Credit Card/Loan Companies and other agents.

Zangetsu said:
Including Telecom operator who sell our data to Credit Card/Loan Companies and other agents.

Oh man, these are the worst. It makes me wish I had some kind of disposable phone number to give these people.

As for the telecom companies there needs to be government regulation to stop them from selling the contact info.

Desmond David said:
Oh man, these are the worst. It makes me wish I had some kind of disposable phone number to give these people.

As for the telecom companies there needs to be government regulation to stop them from selling the contact info.

You can also get anybody data for as low as Rs. 500

Zangetsu said:
Including Telecom operator who sell our data to Credit Card/Loan Companies and other agents.

Is it airtel? I have suddenly got a huge spike in spam calls. I get around 4-5 calls per day. I had to download truecaller for this.

Fortunately google dialer is getting caller id feature, so I will leave truecaller

RumbaMon19 said:
Is it airtel? I have suddenly got a huge spike in spam calls. I get around 4-5 calls per day. I had to download truecaller for this.

Fortunately google dialer is getting caller id feature, so I will leave truecaller

Every telecom. not just Airtel.
Also saw a string operation (long time back) of people responsible for handling Aadhaar data selling it for Rs 500

Zangetsu said:
Every telecom. not just Airtel.
Also saw a string operation (long time back) of people responsible for handling Aadhaar data selling it for Rs 500

india seriously needs a regulatory.

now recently dominos and bigbasket too got hijacked.

RumbaMon19 said:
india seriously needs a regulatory.

now recently dominos and bigbasket too got hijacked.

what's the use of a regulation when you have cartel with the regulators ... don't we have enough laws and regulations already and look how far that has brought us particularly starting from note ban. No amount of rules can save us unless we have politicians who are enjoying many things which they don't deserve. For starter : to get a decent job we need to give test of our competence but politicians who are under educated can get in top most positions without going to through a single exam of their eligibility. So they fail to understand actually what's going on and the gravity of a matter. If they don't understand how can they properly solve an issue.

Found an interesting link about Google's internal culture of suppressing discussions about Google's monopoly in a eerily Orwellian manner - Googlespeak™ - How Google Limits Thought About Antitrust

In George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984, he introduced the concept of Newspeak – a language of “simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to limit the individual’s ability to think and articulate” about taboo or undesirable topics.

Orwell observed that when you limit a person’s language, you can successfully limit their thoughts.

As it turns out, in order to turn a blind eye against growing antitrust concerns, Google has codified its own version of Newspeak and made it official company policy.
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In documents obtained by The Markup, Google makes it obvious that certain words are taboo in both internal and external communication

For example, under no circumstances are Googlers to talk about “Market Share.” Those are bad words not to be used.

Instead, Googlers should use a good word such as “Industry” or “Space” as a substitute.

*www.documentcloud.org/documents/7016658-Communicating-Safely.html

Other slides emphasize how even “competitor” is a bad word.

Indeed, the whole concept of beating the competition isn’t allowed to exist in Googlespeak™, although that is exactly what they do.

Instead of beating or getting ahead of competitors, Googlers are simply to communicate the approved concept of “Improving our product/service.”

Is Google turning into a Goolag?

Google turning into a Goolag: YES and we all love it. Imagine a world without Google today.​

Google turning into a Goolag: YES and we all love it. Imagine a world without Google today.