“Oh, come on!” I hear, “Why do you hate Google so much? Their tools are fantastic! Come on, a FREE Office alternative? Unlimited storage for my photos?? How is that not great?” Simple.. nothing is free. I’ve told people this over, and over and over. Google is not giving you free tools and unlimited storage out of the goodness of their heart.. there is a price to pay, one you have been washed to think doesn’t matter.
Wolf in sheets clothing?
Google Is NOT Your Friend
Steve Jobs once uttered the phrase, “This don’t be evil mantra: It’s bullshit.” in response to Google including it in their corporate code of conduct. Since then and in the making of the new parent company, Alphabet, they have ominously removed that phrase. Not like it EVER was adhered to. It’s seems every other week there is a new privacy issue that crops up… remember when it was found out that Google Street View cars were scrapping wi-fi network data?
It boils down to the fact Google is an advertising company. Ever single product they have, Search, Android, their services… are all geared to funneling absolute perverse amounts of data to their advertising machine. With the data they get from you, they can better target ads to you, they can better sell their services to advertisers.
With Google photos, they mine the metadata on your photos for location data and more, they can see your patterns, and that combined with everything else they know about you can make a pretty complete profile of you. Oh, you don’t care? What about your kids?
Schools are being pressured to adopt Google services and Chromebooks for their student body, after all, super cheap hardware and free services helps the bottom line in criminally cash strapped schools in the USA, and Canadian schools do enjoy saving money as well. My own children are forced to use Google Docs to work with the teacher on projects, getting a Gmail email address. I was not fond of this, and then of course my fears came true, once again, Google was mining their data.
Google is facing anti-trust violations on nearly all fronts, using its power to force Android manufacturers to use Google services by default.. that sure sounds like the “open” paradise they promised eh? Earlier this year it was found Google is selling your Gmail data to 3rd party, something that’s been talked about for ages. Something they promise not to do, then later on make a quite change to their privacy policy that completely guts what they said in public.
You would think it should be a simple request of them when you click “Do Not Track” in their apps, but somehow it was found Google is still collecting location data even after telling them not to. When does this become obvious? When will people realize they are being gaslit by this company?
I guess free access to a word processor is enough to sell your privacy.
Not for me.
And your soul should be worth a little more.
And just to add a cherry onto this cow patty cake, Google secretly bought data from MasterCard this year. For millions of dollars it can now provide advertisers with your master card purchase data. The biggest issue with this is the fact they weren’t upfront about it… and nor was MasterCard. You have companies selling your data behind your backs without your knowledge.
Oh, and nearly forgot, guess who didn’t bother to show up for a Senate hearing regarding Foreign Influence Operations and Their Use of Social Media Platforms? Good to know they take responsibility for the proliferation of fake news…
But guess who just announced they are going to force developers to write-up and adhere to privacy policies? The company I choose to trust with my data.
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