Google's spying on me

"boredalways" (boredalway666) 10/06/2020 at 18:26 • Filed to: The Google is watching, Porsche, Porsche 968 CS, 993 Turbo, Porsche Newsroom, Parsh, Parshlopnik, Maximum Parsh, All the Parsh

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I typed “ 968 CS” as a reply to another post. About 3 minutes later, I tried to refresh a Google discovery tab. Nothing happens. So I closed the tab and opened a new one.

And this was the very first article!:

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Creepy!!!

Thomas Donohue > boredalways 10/06/2020 at 18:42

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Silly Google....doesn’t even know the difference between water-cooled and oil-cooled, and ass-engine vs front engine....although they did get front end  right.

onlytwowheels > boredalways 10/06/2020 at 18:42

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Roadkilled > boredalways 10/06/2020 at 18:51

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Remember, if you aren’t paying anything for a service, you probably aren’t the customer. Google’s customers are marketing companies and you are the product that is being sold. It’s in Google’s business interest to get as much specific information about you as possible to sell it to advertisers, marketing firms and other agencies. They are very good at it and they will only get better.

Now, where did I put my tin foil hat...

BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind > boredalways 10/06/2020 at 19:06

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I love having conversations with people, and then a day later, seeing an ad for the thing we were discussing show up on my phone 

boredalways > Roadkilled 10/06/2020 at 19:27

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There's no time!  Just make another hat!!!

functionoverfashion > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind 10/06/2020 at 20:20

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But seriously, this happens. 

SiennaMan > boredalways 10/06/2020 at 22:28

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Yup, Google, Facebook, if it weren’t so dysfunctional I’d say Kinja is tracking us.. (I can’t remember if my searches on my computer at work show up on kinja that night or not..)

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > Roadkilled 10/06/2020 at 22:34

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Well put, w e’re not the customer. We’ re not really the work for ce either but  I guess we a re the producers of the product.

The one thought I have is if they don’t treat us well enough and someone else dangles a decent search engine and/or browser in front of us, their product is toast.

Roadkilled > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 10/06/2020 at 22:54

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You aren’t the producer of the product. You are the product. Google is selling access to you to advertisers.

I’ve tried a number of search engines. For most of the major search engines, I get the results I want for the vast majority of searches. The availability of other options isn’t what keeps people from switching.

Most people use the default browser and search engine on their phone, which means a large portion of Android users default to Google. Desktop users who have used Google for searching for years are reluctant to switch to another engine partly out of inertia, and partly because results from another search engine appear different. People don’t like change and they are used to Google. Many people have brand loyalty without even knowing why the do it.

Why did so many Americans stick with the big 3 well into the 1990s when there were so many good imports. Inertia and brand loyalty are a lot stronger in most of us than we like to admit. Change is hard and Google makes use of that fact.

There are other things Google does. They control the Chromium core used by many browsers, and that gives them some power. Look what happened when Microsoft switched Edge to Chromium. Google added custom non-Chromium stuff to Google Chrome. Web sites that were optimized for Chrome didn’t display right on other Chromium browsers. Websites started breaking for Edge because it was only Chromium compliant. (I know that’s not the whole story, but it’s part of it.) Google doesn’t have an incentive to make Chromium an even playing field. It’s probably hit Firefox hardest. 

John Norris (AngryDrifter) > Roadkilled 10/07/2020 at 11:40

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Google’ s customers aren’t paying G oogle for me, they are paying G oogle for my information. Of course they plan to use that information to market to me, or perhaps some other use. But the product is not me, it is my info . The info enables access to me or targeted marketing to me. But the product is the info.

By using Google I am the producer of the product . If I don’t use Google I am not the producer of the product.

Roadkilled > John Norris (AngryDrifter) 10/07/2020 at 12:32

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But why do the advertisers want the information? They want it so that they can better target adds at you. They want your personal data so that they can figure out how to get you to click on links and buy their products. You are being sold as a customer to the advertisers. Google sells your data to advertisers so they have more access to you as a purchaser. I still think that you are the product being sold to advertisers.