A quote contained within both stories:
> The software company Oracle revealed Google could be harvesting a gigabyte of data from Android devices each month
Given that my data plan is 1.5 GB/month, I would notice if a gigabyte magically disappeared every month (it doesn't). Hopefully the ACCC has enough skepticism and technical knowledge to see through Oracle's FUD. OTOH what's in it for Oracle here? Purely trying to damage Google's brand? I suppose the media have run with it and it's working.
Actually I thought the originally submitted article had a more informative title: "ACCC investigating Oracle research showing Google users Android phone plan data to spy." The article content is approximately equivalent; though of low value in both cases
> The experts, from computer and software corporation Oracle, claim Google is draining roughly one gigabyte of mobile data monthly from Android phone users’ accounts as it snoops in the background, collecting information to help advertisers.
Then goes on to give a cost breakdown of how much this hypothetical data download is costing Australian's via their mobile data connections.
It's Google they are very good at data analysis them needing to use 1gb of data to know about you are doing on your phone is an idiotic assumption. They could probably do it 5 mb only. My bet is they are counting Google photo uploads to get the 1 gb figure.
Maybe you should ask yourself "how much data is 1gb times the number of android users?" and "how big is Google's datacenter?" (hint: the first number is bigger by a factor of 5)
If Charles Manson said that the sun rises from the East...wouldn't it be true, regardless of the source? What Oracle said can easily be checked by a lot of independent companies.
Unknown English text compresses ~1:6 if I remember correctly. Known can be compressed better. There's also ways to send incremental updates where you say "previous 0.999GB hasn't changed".
I'm not saying that's what they do, but you can have many scenarios when you get 1gb of information without transferring 1gb of data.
But that's not what the article is claiming. They are saying Google is using 1GB worth of data, though with very little evidence to backup their claim.
It could mean data transfer, but it also could mean other things. They write:
> could be harvesting a gigabyte of data from devices each month
Which is unlikely to be true in the literal sense of pure bytes transferred simply because: a) people would notice that very soon, b) people consume gigabytes but don't produce nearly as much - all of my monthly activity would likely fit in a few MB, c) processing that much is a pain - at the scale of millions of users they'd optimise that.
I think data transfer is a big issue. Even at Google's scale, 10 petabytes a month (10 million android users) probably creates more costs than it's worth for them. It's much easier to compress data on the device and only send new information, with that you can easily get a month of location history <10mb even for people who move a lot.
What are you basing your claim they have "very little evidence" on? Do you have access to the full contents of what they presented to the ACCC? Presumably this brief news article doesn't contain all of the information on the matter.
Right, I should've been clearer. There's no evidence provided to us public readers. To be throwing such a bold claim out there though is often intentionally reckless. They are either baiting views or trying to chip at Google's image. Until we get the specifics, there is nothing here to discuss really.
Given that it's Oracle 'providing' the story, and News Ltd originally reporting it (both who have beef with Google), they are definitely trying to chip at Google's image.
I used to be paranoid about companies using my microphone and camera to spy on me until I realized the data costs associated with the spying would be so great, that I'd notice. That single argument has ended my paranoia on the matter. I hope others can be at ease. That said, I still put tape on my laptop and refuse all tracking and ad requests.
That's assuming they're listening/watching all the time. Google Assistant (and all the other assistants) wake up on a certain magic word; who's to say that other apps/companies aren't doing the same? Well, probably your battery life might be terrible and your phone running unusually hot, but Assistant and co get away with minimal battery usage...
Quite often while talking about a restaurant, opening google maps will have it highlighted. I think this shows that not only does google not require a magic word to start recording, it actively processes the input it gets. I'm highly considering switching to lineage os.
Dont be silly. Companies and institutions can just pay or coerce the data operator for transmission, o do it when your on wifi.
In Sao Paulo Brazil, the mexican-based operator Claro offers free bandwidth for facebook and whatsapp access.
I imagine it would be possible to process media locally into actionable and highly compressed data. For instance use the google text-to-speech toolset on media while the phone is on sleep and even run it though a sentiment analyzer and wordlist. eye tracking and activity correlates are even more compressible.
Earlier in the year the police were monitoring activity on public wifi hotspots and using the info to target people labelled as undesirable in the quickly gentrifying city center.
Since I am a a)foreigner that b)transverses a diverse array of classes, groups, and political affiliations on a daily basis, i go ahead and always assume that i'm being constantly monitored.
Phones are so full of back-doors at every level that you wouln't notice if it's sending information. This is why we can't have open phone firmware. I don't think Google is secretly transmitting data, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do. Only way to stop it is to make it illegal to collect any kind of data without user consent. If you read the user agreement it probably already say what information is collected.
They don’t have to send back all of the raw data, just analyses like ‘person X’s face detected, is in a noisy place’ or ‘conversation included these 5 keywords’. The processing and data transfer could also be deferred until the phone is idle or on WiFi.
It's just as farfetched to think they're doing constant image/voice recognition with your phone's processor without you knowing. Those models are big and take a lot of computing power
It doesn’t need to be constant or continual. I don’t talk continually near my phone, for one.
Siri and other voice rec is able to get words from my audio without appearing to affect my phone function or slow it down. There are plenty of times my phone is idle that it could be doing that.
Same with photos. When you give many apps access to your photos, as we know, they will analyze and/or transit the metadata of all photos on the device. It’s not hard to imagine going farther than that, and as noted, processing or data transfer could be deferred.
There's an enormous difference in model complexity between key phrase detection and (general) automatic speech recognition + natural language processing. There's a reason nearly everything Google Assistant does except "OK Google" is done on Google's hardware.
> They don’t have to send back all of the raw data, just analyses like ‘person X’s face detected, is in a noisy place’ or ‘conversation included these 5 keywords’.
Not without making a noticeable drain on the user's battery.
When you fire up an app like Instagram, it does many things that create various drains on the battery. It opens the camera repeatedly when I don’t intend to use it, for instance. When you click stories, it opens the camera, often facing you. Who’s to say it doesn’t send that pic or some analysis of it to FB? I don’t think that would use any significantly higher battery or network anything especially since the processing and data transfer could be deferred.
> the data costs associated with the spying would be so great
I've just checked my monthly Discord traffic and it's mere 251MiB in/73MiB out. For roughly an 1-2 hours of gaming every other evening, and some longer weekend sessions.
Power usage, on the other hand, is a different story. When I've experimented with an app that'd continuously record everything around me, battery ran out in just a few hours.
> Given that my data plan is 1.5 GB/month, I would notice if a gigabyte magically disappeared every month
Is that so? We're already used to updates, videos and even simple websites needing an enormous amount of data. I could easily imagine a gigabyte vanishing that you'd attribute to other things.
Also note that this is probably an average value, not an absolute.
I read "they" in the phrase "... but they are also reportedly paying their telco providers to send the data." to mean Google were paying, so it wouldn't appear in the metered usage for which the end user is billed. This makes sense, as it seems the data apparently can be transferred when "... they do not have a Sim card or apps installed."
What would bother me, though, is if they were purposefully not exposing that data transfer in the data metering on the device. That seems shady.
But they could fetch metadata from our phone and generate data on their side.
Like photos we saved from internet, or search history, google drive backups, watched videos, liked photos, location maps. Even though you have 1.5gb/month plan, you are creating enough meta data that google can use for profiling.
They legit even store how you download a picture, via sharing, saving or dragging on desktop.
Geee i guess because you stated under oath your device doesnt drain 1gb of data then we can all quietly go to sleep now.
If i were still at Google, and given this project, it would be obvious to tap into mobile brands feed and only use mobile data plans of those who wouldnt notice that 79% of their data disappear. Google knows precisely what plan you have and what data use and still have for the month period through reading your IMEI and many other tricks.
Rupert Murdoch does not own the Guardian. That is laughable. It's owned by The Scott Trust Limited, which was formerly a charitable trust and is dedicated to keeping the Guardian's editorial independence.
The original posted news story was by a Murdoch-owned newspaper; has since been changed to the Guardian (possibly while OP was writing this equation?). So the equation kind of holds, just drop the Guardian but.
Of course Oracle published this to damage Google, that's obvious. But that doesn't mean the claims are untrue. It's likely that there's something to it, even if the amount of data is incorrect.
> "The information fed back to Google includes barometric pressure readings so it can work out, for example, which level of a shopping mall you are on."
(It's also useful for weather observations, see the old PressureNET.io site for an opt-in version.)
Anyway, my monthly mobile data usage for Google services is 110 MB and that's including the map tiles, Google Play services and Play Store (I have location history disabled). I'd be interested in whether anyone is having a gig of their data used.
I would really like to explicitly tell Google to stop tracking my location. Period. Despite what might be in their terms of service,this tracking is a violation of privacy. I have never given informed consent to such locstion tracking, and still get prompts to 'rate this location' despite having explicitly disabled location history. Google location tracking is increasingly unethical.
I think your realistic options are to move the EU or to stop using Google. Maybe one day they'll offer a subscription based fee for it's services, but for now you pay with your data.
I turned all assistant features off (search obviously still works) and only location on for apps. Location history and sharing are also off but I'm not sure if they still save some location information. I'll wait for the 25th May and then download data (I'm in the EU) to see what they have..
You now can download what's currently available through Google's Takeout. Maybe once GDPR is in effect more stuff can be available, but I'm not sure what those will be.
I have location history off, but obviously need location turned on for my apps to work. I only want to turn off Google (I even froze the Google Search app).
Most EU countries do. Southern Europe can also be very nice and better suited if you don't like rain (although southern France works for that as well). Apart from the language barrier, moving within the EU isn't much more difficult than moving between states in the US.
My family never had problems in Paris, and they lived there quite happily for four years. I even did an internship at UParis-Sud. It’s a wonderful place in my experience.
I wonder about this with news sites that are increasingly going paywalled. Do they also turn the tracking or even ads entirely off, or do we just pay money to be tracked now?
Not really. The price of iOS is baked into the (usually higher) costs of the hardware. The parent comment is presumably referring to the fact that Android phone manufacturers are allowed to put Android on their devices for free, as Google instead makes money on the advertising/service revenue they get from your usage of the OS.
- after stopped using Google Play services/framework and replaced it with microg, battery life improved for 30% with same programs beeing run and same settings without losing any functionality, this is the most obvious part that something is going on and it is hard to deny. I never used (while on google play) any syncing, gps fix and so on. Meaning exactly same settings, same programs, no google applicatios (maps,...) same AOSP rom, not even factory resetted in between, just no Google Play presence on same phone. I switched to microg as I have figured out that whatever I do can't stop the Google Play services/framework communicating with google (firewall, xprivacy,...)
- there are hidden sync in Google Play that can't be disabled and are syncing regardless of your settings (https://www.reddit.com/r/Nexus5/comments/270axz/enabled_reve...), like Location reporting (not the one visible, there is second one, you will need root to see it, you can disable it but it will automatically turn back on after a while).
- DNS is defaulting to google dns 8.8.8.8, it is overriden in most cases by router settings but still.
It is up to each person to decide what this means but I would seriously suggest looking at https://lineage.microg.org/
"like Location reporting (not the one visible, there is second one, you will need root to see it, you can disable it but it will automatically turn back on after a while"
Not if you delete the apk from /system/apps (?and correponding /data/data folder?).
Instability follows if you click settings>location or when apps still allowed location access call for it, however.
Am so tired of this ctap, I don't use G services(runninh AICP w/ many apks removed). The real challenge is removing Webview, most apps crash despite having no need for web access/functionality.
> The experts, from computer and software corporation Oracle, claim Google is draining roughly one gigabyte of mobile data monthly from Android phone users’ accounts as it snoops in the background, collecting information to help advertisers.
Then goes on to give a cost breakdown of how much this hypothetical data download is costing Australian's via their mobile data connections.
The article does state that, but there's zero evidence backing it. It also doesn't help that said experts are from Oracle, which aren't really the most unbiased source when it comes to Google news.
Well, that's kind of my point. Yes, you could hypothetically transmit 1 GB/month batched to use wifi, but the article in question is saying it's using your mobile data (to sow FUD). There is no evidence that Google is sending 1GB/month of data over wifi either.
GPS _is_ less accurate vertically in certain circumstances (namely when you only have a lock on 3 satellites, as there are two possible altitudes you could be at), but usually this doesn't matter unless you're flying - otherwise just figure you're on the Earth's surface, and cross-reference map data for the altitude. Inside multi-storey buildings it's a different story, but you won't be getting a GPS signal indoors anyway.
GPS _is_ less accurate vertically in certain circumstances
GPS is less vertically accurate all the time, due to 'dilution of precision', which depends on the position of satellites in the sky [1].
When you move x distance horizontally, unless you have a very poor view of the sky some satellites will get closer and others further away. When you move the same distance vertically, all satellites will get closer but by differing amounts [2]. As vertical moves produce a smaller change in the measured data, noise in the measured data has greater impact on the vertical measurement.
just figure you're on the Earth's surface, and cross-reference
map data for the altitude
Once GPS data reaches an app on a phone, they're free to discard the height data, true.
But the GPS reception module itself doesn't contain a detailed elevation map of the earth; there isn't enough memory to store a detailed map, or any way to push out map updates.
usually this doesn't matter unless you're flying
The main application I've seen for height data is sports trackers. For example, cycling and running up steep hills is hard work compared to running the same distance on the flat. Some trackers will even set challenges like climbing 2000m in a month [3].
Things like drone altitude control also like having height data, obviously.
> ACCC investigating Oracle research showing Google users Android phone plan data to spy
(typo is theirs)
And by "investigating" it means Oracle did a presentation stating that if you have location history on it uses data and the commission chairman told News Corp Australia, "my people are looking into it."
> That Oracle had come to Australia to do the presentation showed the value of the ACCC inquiry, he said.
So, my read on it is basically that the claim is that Google's data collection on Android costs users a lot of money in data charges. It's probably a fairly reasonable point to bring up since almost everything could be done on-device if Google didn't have specific interest in people's user data, but it's also very hard to argue that Google doesn't have user permission to do it, assuming EULAs nobody reads or can understand are legal in the given jurisdiction.
And of course, this appears to be another front in which Oracle is helping point out the many ways Android is screwing everyone else over, mostly because they're upset about Android screwing them over.
Yeah. I'm no Google apologist, but Oracle has repeatedly shown itself to be whiny and petty, especially when it comes to Android. It isn't news that if you're running Google software on Android, they're tracking every bit of data they can get their hands on.
It isn't news to you or me, but a surprising number of government investigations haven't happened, that should've. I appreciate Oracle's help in the matter, even if I have no particular love for them either.
If someday someone's writing the "why we failed" article for Google, I suspect bullet one will be "we should've paid for our Java license". Whether or not what Google did was technically legal, the amount of scrutiny they've faced thanks to Oracle being ticked at them alone is monumental.
They have explicit consent. The article is about location services, which is explained in plain English at first boot. This "scandal" is 100% manufactured by Oracle
This might be another situation where GDPR saves the day; Google will need to push updates out to limit their data collection, as well as reveal the full scope of their data collection activities with Android.
Except that Timeline in Google maps has been GDPR compliant for a long long time.
1. You can opt out
2. You can see all your data
3. You can export all your data
4. You can delete all your data
Also, they have very little evidence for their claims that it's actually using that much data. From my experience, Google only syncs on wifi and rarely wastes your mobile data.
It isn't Google Maps that is collecting this data, it's Google Play Services, which is a service layer at the bottom that underlies all location information on the device.
This particular story/investigation appears to be in Australia. Google's only required to limit their tendency to stalk your every waking moment in the EU. While some of the improvements made will probably end up being available globally just because, for instance, improvements to Google Takeout-like work, I doubt Google's going to stop tracking you where it's still legally permissible.
They may though because of the difficulty of deciding if you are subject to GDPR. ie what if an Aussie moves to the EEU and becomes a resident, bringing an Australian-purchased phone? How long can someone visit the EEU before becoming a resident (I have no idea and suspect the rules may not be crystal clear.)
If the origin of the traffic is within the EEU, GDPR applies.
So the moment you visit the EEU, GDPR applies; irrespective of residency status. The moment you leave the EEU, GDPR no longer applies, even if you are an EU resident.
> It applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of data subjects residing in the European Union, regardless of the company’s location.
its amazing how much misinformation is floating around... i recently read on HN that it also applies to eu citizens living abroad, but thats wrong.
Furthermore my VPN provider notified me that the plan i have will be for non EU provies andnstarting from June they will have premium membership for those who want to use European gateways. i guess all of sudden everyone want to look like they are from EU ;)
Not only is it absurd that every android user is losing an entire gig of data per month to a secret service without anyone noticing
But if you multiply by the number of android users, Google is allegedly collecting an exabyte per month.
That's about 1/10 the size of the entire web. More data than the big 5 combined can store. Per month.
Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Oracle. Shouldn't you be out arguing to a judge that you've copyrighted the idea of lists? Or was that last year's money-grubbing bullshit?
Android is the biggest example of how companies practice bait and switch under the banner of "open source". I's rather have fully proprietary software that respects my privacy than open source software that opens up my private data.
My guess here is that most of the tracking bits are implemented through the Google Play Services app/service, which is fully closed source. This isn't an open vs. closed thing... unless someone would want to make the point that this sort of tracking would be easier to find and verify if the software doing it actually was open source.
That's true as far as I know as well. I started removing permissions from the play service applications in Android. I've run into two issues afterwards: Some apps complain (but continue to work) and you can't install new apps from the play store (the store stops working without any warning or error). However I wonder how effective this is - does anybody have any insights to share?
google employees revert community features (e.g. hiding/limiting referrer header, essential for adwords revenue) silently with big unrelated commits (the referrer one at least 3 times)
I don't understand what the problem is. You can turn off location tracking in Google Maps. You can see all the data it has collected in your activity page, and you can delete all of it too. Sure, the fact that it's opt-out instead of opt-in is dodgy, but to be fair, the majority of the features we use everyday such as traffic estimation wouldn't exist without this data.
Example: my phone has both a Wifi and GPS chip. I open Maps and it tells me it can't give me navigation unless I turn on Location Services or whatever, which allows them to use the Wifi to scan for APs or whatever else they do.
It's 100% a lie, because any other GPS based navigation system (such as TomTom, Magellan GPS devices) can in fact do this; and they have far less CPU power than my phone does.
The cold start for a GPS can take several the better part of a minute. Using WiFi or other information to get an improvement on the cold and warm start times.
Background wifi scanning is unrelated to this. You're describing AGPS, and google maps doesn't even ask permission to use that. They just go ahead and use whatever internet connection is available to fetch that.
Can confirm, the maps app would ignore an existing GPS fix (obtained by osmand) and tell me it doesn't know where I am. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it insisted I permit it to track me first. Not sure what this depended on, maybe the app version, maybe whether WiFi was on... But indeed, I'd call it dishonest to claim not to be able to get a location when it is, in fact, available and ready.
Yes and everytime you open google maps it will bug you. It will say "turn on background wifi scanning if you want to use navigation". You can dismiss it and it still works fine! Because of course it doesn't need background wifi scanning for navigation. Oh and be ready to get nagged every time you open the app. They won't let up.
There are many more like it but this one is particularly annoying because of the asymmetry between the work they do to get you to consent to something that isn't in your advantage compared to the work you have to do to reverse your decision (which sometimes isn't possible at all!).
Another example: I open Google Photos to look at a photo album someone sent me, and it tells me it can't function without access to my own photos. Untrue.
For a while I could still click no, but then they forbade that. So I gave up and clicked yes, and now they've got all my photos
There are much more examples like these. And then at some point Google seems surprised people hate them. There is a huge contrast between the outlook inside G (we're an ethical company, still based on do no evil unlike the rest) and how others see them.
instead of all apps with access to your sd card (virtual internal shared storage) having access to your photos, they created a secure photo storage, and apps can subscribe to it. they just happen to conveniently offer a bloatware photo app, shipped with every device just like internet explorer, that also happens to upload all your pictures to google servers.
gphotos is the first thing I disable on every phone (because you can't uninstall bloatware system apps). chrome is the second, because I must use it to download f-droid and firefox.
> BlueKai also runs the world's largest 3rd party data marketplace to augment a customer's proprietary data with actionable information on more than 700 million profiles.
Do you expect Apple to listen to your conversations just because you use a mac and it has a microphone? Do you expect Toyota to track you everywhere you go because your car came with a GPS system?
Building the system, let alone just making the software, doesn't give you the rights to all the data it produces after you sell it.
I don't know why that comment was being voted down, but it is a correct and important point. Consumers' idea of product ownership is more aligned with that of cars and coffee machines.
Most consumers don't realise how little of their phone is purchased and how much of it is licensed, rented or reliant on corporate existence. Imagine if Apple and Google magically disappeared from the universe—the value and utility of your phone will plummet.
> Consumers' idea of product ownership is more aligned with that of cars and coffee machines.
Well in germany there is a good sentence about that.
'Ignorance of the law is no excuse'. So basically no matter what you know of anything you won't be guarded by laziness (at least if you are under normal conditions of course).
What is the difference? Both the hardware and the software are covered by hundreds of patents, copyright protections, license agreements, end user agreements, etc.
The question here is what basic privacies can someone expect when they purchase a phone, and how transparent do companies need to be about what information they are collecting.
The difference is the essence of ownership. Google/Apple can't physically take away my phone, but they could declare a violation of the terms of service and terminate the software license agreement.
One would think so. It is, after all, an operating system created by the largest advertising company that has ever existed, and they are not giving it away for altruistic reasons.
Not certain why the downvotes; apart from community ROMs and Amazon's Android devices, Samsung has been positioning itself for some time to not be completely reliant on Google for it's phone business - they have an App Store of their own and their own duplicate functionality of many of Google's core services for Android. I wouldn't be surprised if they de-coupled from Google entirely at some point (yes, they'd need to convince developers over to their app store, but they're playing the long game)
True Samsung's not any better, but diversity is a good thing; if they have an alternative in place then they could much more easily provide competition with Google in this space (after all, Samsung sells hardware and doesn't really need to harvest your data)
I'm really sick of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and every other company that uses lies, deceit, ambiguity and general dark patterns to coerce me into parting with the ownership of my systems.
Google must be laughing their asses off with all the Facebook scrutiny - I am pretty sure that the profile FB has on users and non-users alike is but a vague precis when compared with the profile Google has on all of us.
Microsoft has now started claiming that "Windows is a service" and they can fuck right off. I have lost count on the amount of times my machine rebooted in the middle of the night, despite implementing hack after hack to stop this disgusting behaviour.
I paid for my hardware, and I paid for my software - none of these bastards get to decide what part of my data they get to siphon off.
They are all at it, like pigs on the trough. I bought a OnePlus 2 years ago, due to the promise that it is lightweight, has no crap pre-installed like an unremovable facebook, or whatever else these fuckers come up with next. Turns out OnePlus is just as happy grabbing your data and silently siphoning this off to some hidden database.
I have a new PC on the way, which will be the first time in about 10 years that I'll be going back to a Linux desktop as my main daily driver. My phone is next, I'm looking for a nice feature phone that doesn't send my private information back to these fuckers.
Could I suggest you look at https://puri.sm/products/ for both private phone and laptops running Linux.
They can't deliver everything that RMS would look for in a laptop or phone yet but they are actively working to remove all binary blobs from their CoreBoot BIOS and to disable the Intel Management Engine.
Just because you paid for a software license doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with said software.
Just because I bought their software doesn't mean they get to do what they like with my data, or my systems. The only right these companies get is that they can give me their software to use.
It does mean they can do what they want with your system because the hardware and software are so closely linked. If Microsoft doesn't have the right to control your system then they can't sell you an operation system. That's what an OS does.
I also do not see why you think they have no right to your data. If you send them the data, they should be able to use it for whatever purpose they want that you agree to in the license. Assuming it's not illegal for some other reason, like credit card fraud.
I don't understand what principles people use to decide that they own all of their data and all data about themselves. It doesn't make sense to me.
I don't like the whole 'Google tracks us' thing either, but it seems so hypocritical when the background seems to be the Oracle-Google dispute, as we all know that Oracle isn't really known for being the good company either. But at least the whole privacy topic gets some media coverage that way.
Oracle would do better to just publish facts and let other people doing the fighting, IMO. They risk tainting the whole discussion with their radioactivity and I'd prefer it be based on the facts.
How naive would you have to be to believe Oracle has showed up in the best interests of consumers and is actually being truthful here? Problem is, from the article it actually feels like the ACCC might indeed be that naive.
I have two feelings about this. The first is, that if my data usefully supplies information to "the commons" which makes services like maps better for everyone including me, there is a zero-sum win-win here, and I'm ok.
The second is, that if there is some private leveraged advantage Google gets, over other people, which dis-equilibriates in the commons, This is not good, and I should be told quite clearly thats the case, and how it works.
Fyi, google also uses it. Has been using it before Apple. Even opensourced it so that people could make sure its effectiveness. Also, right now its AI division is doing considerable research in federated learning ( its basically, diff. provacy).
But,apple promoted this as if it was their breakthrough.
Heard of Ian Goodfellow (the GANfather)? He is one of the geniuses at G researching in this area.
Google also uses Differential Privacy, in fact, Chrome was the first consumer app to ship with differential privacy (RAPPOR: https://ai.google/research/pubs/pub42852).
Neither Google nor FB should be gathering personal information worse than NSA. Personal information is personal, and free people in a free society should not be followed by multinational corporations.
Furthermore, Facebook and Google control close to 85% of the digital ad market. The rest 15% goes to the content creators and to the journalism. If Google and FB were not able to invade everyone's privacy, that would have created a level playing field for national, regional, and specialized media to prosper. But because they know who you are, they can display an ad for you on any platform. If you are from Denver, here's an ad for a Denver event on your mobile game. So who needs journalism if an article in Denver Post is on par to a Candy Crush screen? Who needs quality content on the internet? There is a reason why there is no VC investment in the content whatsoever.
The experts, from computer and software corporation Oracle, claim Google is draining roughly one gigabyte of mobile data monthly from Android phone users’ accounts as it snoops in the background, collecting information to help advertisers.
Sometimes you need to take off the gloves and get your hands dirty. Google really needs to take Oracle to task for their public smear campaign.
Maybe it should, but in my experience Android is perfectly happy to automatically update Play Services and Service for Instant Apps (whatever the hell that is) over the cell network, despite settings being set to manual update on WiFi. Which is a Windows 10 level of obnoxiousness. So I wouldn't be surprised if they were sending stuff over customer's metered connection.
>>Given more than 10 million Aussies have an Android phone, if Google had to pay for the data it is said to be siphoning, it would face a bill of between $445 million and $580 million a year.
It's obvious that Oracle and Google don't get along. To be generous. So it's brilliant for Oracle to have the state(s) or attorneys do their work for them. Now EU will get involved and (at the least) class action lawyers in USA.
"One of the reasons I left Google was because "don't be evil" got replaced by "collect and monetize information""
Notice I asked them for more info to help trace back the problems, but received little response. I wonder how for example Larry and Sergey are involved.
Get ad-blockers and grains of salt ready before clicking on News Limited Daily Tele stories.
I find this claim doubtful...
> "The Oracle experts say phone owners’ data ends up being consumed even if Google Maps is not in use or aeroplane mode is switched on."
It's called "flight mode" on my android, and I highly doubt my data is being used when flight mode is activated.
With that said, Google does get pushy and invasive. Maps is annoying how it bugs you to go online and turn location settings on just to see a map. If I already know where I am, and only need to see a map, I shouldn't need to go online. Google have reluctantly allowed "offline maps" in recent times, but in typical Google fashion, the offline maps "expire" after only 30 days.
I'm pretty sure they are confusing things. When you turn on airplane mode and turn off GPS, Google will log all the wifi access points you come across (which only requires listening on the radio, not sending), and when you turn Airplane mode back off, it will upload that data to Google who can then go back and retroactively track your location based on their access point location database.
You're presenting a hypothetical as fact. The article doesn't mention anything about logging wifi access points, that's just you throwing another theory into the mix.
When Google location services is switched off, and your account is set to not track you or record history, there is absolutely not a "gig" of "secret spying" going on in the background.
Nobody forces you to leave wi-fi and mobile data on by default and everything set to default. Don't want to be tracked by Google? Then open settings and switch things off, it's not hard.
Like I said, grain of salt for News Limited articles. They hate Google, as do Oracle. The Daily Tele can't even write an article title without errors... "research showing Google users Android", bunch of amateurs.
> Nobody forces you to leave wi-fi and mobile data on by default and everything set to default. Don't want to be tracked by Google? Then open settings and switch things off, it's not hard.
Sorry, no. Turning on WiFi is not the same as consenting to be tracked everywhere. Your whole comment is all mixed up. First, you cannot disable Google Location Services. Period. You can turn off location, but you cannot, e.g. use GPS directly without going through Google Play Services. Second, you say the parent's comment was hypothetical, and yet, then you assume it is true and then suggest that using WiFi is consent to some hypothetical practice.
> Like I said, grain of salt for News Limited articles. They hate Google, as do Oracle.
1. I can turn off location settings on my phone.
2. I can also log out of Google maps app, and still use the app.
3. I can go into google maps app settings under "google location settings" and untick the box that says "access location".
4. I can disable location history for google location services from the same place in settings.
Like I said, you can uncheck a lot of stuff and still use the app.
I don't want to be tracked when I asked not to, but I'm not convinced that's happening from a clickbait tabloid article with spelling errors in headline, and vague details.
I also would like to use GPS without anything else for maps, so I tried Maps.Me for awhile, but as most people know it can take a long time to lock on when only using GPS. sometimes several minutes depending where you are, or whether moving etc.
> And then you attack the source! Geesh.
If you're implying the Daily Telegraph source is worth defending against ridicule, perhaps spend a bit of time on that site and see if you come away with any respect for their journalism. The Mod has changed the link anyway now to the Guardian, since the "source" prior to that was clickbait rubbish.
> Nobody forces you to leave wi-fi and mobile data on by default and everything set to default. Don't want to be tracked by Google? Then open settings and switch things off, it's not hard.
They track even when wifi is turned off, they still wake the radio to receive access point ssid broadcasts, they just don't send anything via wifi when it is off.
If you opt out of Google location services entirely then it won't do it.
A quote contained within both stories: > The software company Oracle revealed Google could be harvesting a gigabyte of data from Android devices each month
Given that my data plan is 1.5 GB/month, I would notice if a gigabyte magically disappeared every month (it doesn't). Hopefully the ACCC has enough skepticism and technical knowledge to see through Oracle's FUD. OTOH what's in it for Oracle here? Purely trying to damage Google's brand? I suppose the media have run with it and it's working.