Of course it does. Google is a personal information farming company, who uses that information to help sell targeted advertisements. They are not an email company, or a maps company, or a search engine, or a phone OS maker. The sooner more people recognize this, and the ramifications of it, the better off we'll all be.
There should be a law to enforce giving and accepting 'no' as an answer. I'm seeing "not now" everywhere nowadays, and it started to make my blool boil.
I can and I am already using all sorts of blockers at different level that even if I said yes at some point the data isn't going anywhere, but enough is enough, it shouldn't be an arms race to protect very basic privacy or simply having dignity in front of my computer or cellphone.
Rossmann calls it the "rapist mentality" and as vulgar as it sounds, I have to agree.
Do you want to hand over your data now, or later? Okay, maybe you'll "change your mind" and "consent" tomorrow when you're focused on something else... Aha! After 185 days of saying no, your finger slipped and accidentally pressed "Yes", we have informed consent!
Seems apt though groomer seems even more apt, slowly with persistence grooming a population to eventually consent. Rapists are more violent like an interstitial that denies access unless you acquiesce to its demands. Like a Hollywood couch.
I get a fucking SMS from Vodafone every day reminding me to complete some fucking survey. I even sent STOP back to the automated phone number they use, as it's specified if I don't wanna receive such messages anymore and I still receive them.
At least with Google you're using it for free. I'm f*ink paying for that Vodafone service and they still consider appropriate to spam me incessantly.
I could report the fuckers to https://anpc.ro/ but it's too much trouble on my side following up and they probably know it.
I can't read Romanian, but many years ago I reported a pizza restaurant to the British equivalent for a similar problem — I was being sent texts every day, and STOP and replying hadn't stopped the messages.
They wrote to the restaurant, the texts stopped, and I had a follow-up email from the data protection agency.
An ombudsman is a great route for any telco-related complaints, during my time at least they were flagged with the same (or higher) priority than vip-effecting issues.
If you use Android, an interesting way Google may be collecting your location data - even if you didn't accept any TOS - is SUPL (Secure User Plane Location). It sends cell tower info to a Google server to improve GPS fix times, but many implementations needlesly include PII like the SIM card IMSI number. It can be disabled in settings>location, but it's enabled by default even in GrapheneOS. In my experience it doesn't affect the GPS fix times significantly.
Another one, the play store says I must continue setting up my account every time I use it. It does this to ask for my payment details, but I can skip it, so it's not required. Yet it will ask again next time.
I get the same thing. It’s not the browser-setting which I also have set to always deny, but a modal dialog in the middle of the results page that I have to manually click deny (I think it’s actually “not now” but I stopped paying attention a while ago).
Replace your launcher with one that isn't tied so explicitely into Google (I use Rocket launcher), then replace Chrome as your default browser (I use Firefox). Finally in your new default browser set your default search engine to something besides Google (I run my own instance of SearXNG) .
This is Firefox on a Mac with adblockers up the wazoo. I use Google there because I’m not signing into my personal Kagi account on work equipment and I haven’t yet been able to pill my boss on Kagi.
None of those matter when you have google play services installed, which has special permissions to do whatever it wants, including grabbing your location.
And finally finally, replace android with GrapheneOS.
But seriously, it sucks that it is such a pain in a butt to find phone that supports alternative os and sometimes even hard to install stuff into that too.
They have recently updated their login page. Now instead of a single TAB to get from the user name field to the password field you need something like five key presses to get to the enter password page.
Yes, I should not use that surveillance company in the first place. Or in their opinion never log out, not use cookie auto delete, Firefox account containers etc.
Unfortunately I try to balance between the two standpoints.
I don't understand your description of the problem, it doesn't match how the old login page works at all.
1. The username and password fields have not been on the same page for like, 15 years. You havne't been able to get from one field to the other with just tab for ever.
2. If you mean the number of tabs needed to go from the username field to the "next" button, on the old login page it's still three tab presses
3. The obvious way to get from the username entry page to the password page is to just press enter while focus is on the username field. Doesn't that work with the new login page?
I must admit I have not really studied the differences. Not sure whether I could get the old login page back to do so. Probably not permanently, so not worth my time.
The new page just felt much heavier and slower, so I looked what I need to do to the stupid next button. For my UI I want: If it's not broken, don't touch it. Marketing and graphical designers go elsewhere. And there was nothing broken for me with the old UI. (Those with screen readers might have more substantial insights in one direction or the opposite, I don't know)
Login and password should always be on the same page and require only one <TAB>... How hard is that
My bank fucked that up too, long ago... I even complained about it... I think software engineers fuck stuff up on purpose for job security and/or for the sake of staying busy. Yet I can't find a job because I dont have an IT degree
Ideally, you would just require an extremly complex password and no user ID though... Something like UUIDs
Looks like they measure usability of features: the more often a feature is used, the more useful it is. Coincidentally the more they nag the user about a feature, the more often the feature is used, i.e. the feature becomes more useful. Welcome to attention economy.
I have a similar thing with the google photos app.
Almost every day it asks "You photos are not backed up, enable it now".
I say no (obviously).
Then it asks "But maybe you should backup these 100 images?" Pretty please?!
Clearly 100 images is enough to build a good profile.
Google photos are closed source. For all we know it could have analyzed all your photos locally and trickled the result to Google servers a thousand times by now.
I do this. I have a phone, an iPhone SE original, that I use very occasionally but I rarely use it except when some service requires it. But when I go out, it's at home. I've given up on smartphones. I think on a societal level, they make life worse. (On average, of course there may be exceptions.)
Same with cookies settings, on many websites. I decline/refuse every time, while logged in, but they continue to ask every time, probably until I misclick. Some browser extensions help a bit to manage this, but the burden is still here.
It could indicate a very conservative or simple implementation of a cookie banner. That is, unless you consent to cookies, the homepages won’t store any cookies, not even a cookie to remember your cookie choice.
Hence, without any cookie, you will be treated like a first time visitor every time.
That would hold true, if it meant that it also logged you out each time the active session expired. If you’re able to stay logged in, that means a login cookie persists - as it should.
The only cookies websites need your permission to install, are third party tracking cookies. Consent is not required for the first party cookies necessary for technical operations of the site.
I find that uBlock origin also improves things a bit, though it won't do much more than hide the notices.
The "I don't care about cookies" extensions tend to consent automatically, so if you use those you should also make sure to manage your cookies somehow, with e.g. Cookie AutoDelete.
Disable GPS, and just enable it when you use it. That's how i solved it, google probably don't want that data since it's just "hotspot" accuracy (maybe you want to disable wifi too)
They're more like predators. First they start peaking in your windows and photographing you on your way to work which is already creepy, but that's never enough. Eventually they'll break into your house and start riffling through your underwear drawer and looking through your trash. And they'll just keep escalating.
My ability to interact with government services largely depends on access to the Internet. Various services are exclusively online, including the ability to file records of and pay taxes for my business.
So yes, in 2024, my ability to interact with the society around me largely depends on my phone, which does indeed make it precious.
I remember getting similar disdain from people who thought laptops were a overpriced passing fad and that I was a fool for not sitting at my desktop computer too.
Then the trend changed, and laptops became more prevalent than desktops for personal use.
The trend has long since changed again, and phones have become way more prevalent than laptops for personal use.
It’s just Apple that continues to pretend that the iPhone (and iPad) aren’t full computers, despite having specs that prove otherwise.
Some of us like to embrace change. Some people like to stay with what they know. Neither is wrong, as long as you’re happy with your choices.
Google asks me every time I need to open their cursed SMS app if I wanted to enable RCS (as if anyone cared about it)
One of the top idiotic designs by google for sure.
I would probably enable it if I believed their SMS app wouldn't become even slower and bugged than it is, still their decision to ask every time makes me not trust them with that decision
Not wanting to excuse Google here (or in any way alleging that they aren't a greedy adtech/surveillance capitalism outlet that is stripmining the world for data) but are we sure this particular situation isn't a software bug?
I also have an android phone, and I never so far got persistent nag screens asking for my location. One screen on a new install, sure. Also lots of passive-agressive behaviour when you disable location. But no daily asks.
So I'd more chall this up to a bug or a third-party app abusing the permission system. I think more information would be needed when exactly the notification are happening, from which app they are coming and when they started.
Even if it is, this is the tactic many software companies use: provide annoying behaviour that benefits the company, and then claim its a bug. Bottom line: companies should be held responsible for their behaviour, even if the behaviour is caused by bugs. Because ultimately, even bugs are part of the program, and since software affects the world so greatly, there should be a zero tolerance policy towards bugs that cause breaches of privacy.
Anecdotal evidence from my kids and their various friendship groups is that they all flocked to Brave (especially on desktop) to avoid the ads on YouTube.
They all seemed individually very proud for doing so, beating the system as it were, which meant it very quickly caught on amongst all of them.
That is the danger for YouTube, as it's a key demographic..
