The Many Ways Google Harvests Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-has-more-of-your-personal-data-than-facebook-try-google-1524398401 <comment><USER2> 44 blocked scripts loading the article - nearly half of which was tracking related. Surely the irony of that isn't lost on people? Google's ability to track users is 99% entirely due to companies like the WSJ using them for tracking users. These companies are just as much to blame, if not more, than Google itself.

E: What I mean by that is Google provides the means, but Google couldn't track nearly half of all sites if nearly half of all sites weren't complicit in the tracking.

<comment><USER3> The whole tracking thing should be outlawed in my opinion.

It's like saying that because windows are transparent, it is ok to stare into people's living rooms. It's not - irrespective of transparency or lack of curtains.

In a world where that is clearly not ok, then why is it that this kind of thing (tracking) is deemed ok?

What we need is something that does to our online privacy, what curtains did for peoples real privacy. And, although I fear that this is not technically possible, the absence of the possibility of such protections, still does not make tracking right.

<comment><USER4> _It 's like saying that because windows are transparent, it is ok to stare into people's living rooms. It's not - irrespective of transparency or lack of curtains._

Nope. When you enter someone else's place of business, you have no expectation of privacy. These websites belong to private entities. So it's more like saying that because you voluntarily walked into my store, it's ok for me to observe your behavior while you're there. Which, of course, is completely logical and acceptable to most people.

Don't want me to track your behavior while you're in my store? There's a very simple, 100% effective solution for that: don't enter my store. Because if you do enter, you have no right to complain that I'm observing you.

<comment><USER5> _Nope. When you enter someone else's place of business, you have no expectation of privacy._

That's not true at all. When I go to the hardware store to buy a box of nails, I don't have any expectation for the owner to begin following me around for the rest of the day (and in perpetuity thereafter). I also don't expect the hardware store owner to get on the phone with the grocery store owner and ask him what groceries and personal hygiene products I bought.

Also, the comment originally pertained to the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper. Are you suggesting that reading the newspaper at home grants the publisher the right to peer in through my window?

Expectations of privacy have long been enforced by social norms rather than laws. Since technology has granted corporations the means to do an end-run around social norms then we should expect the law to catch up and fill the gaps.

People may not have had a lot of privacy from their neighbours when living in small towns but they could generally count on their community to care about their well being. This is not the case with online businesses of any sort.

<comment><USER4> _Are you suggesting that reading the newspaper at home grants the publisher the right to peer in through my window?_

No, nor did I even intimate that. That's your property, not mine. That suggestion is as ridiculous as the one I was trying to refute. But when you enter my property - be it virtual or phyiscal - expect to be observed using whatever technologies and vendors I want that are legal (with a few obvious legal exceptions, such as bathroom surveillance). If, to continue with your newspaper example, you took your newspaper into my store and decided to read it there, I am fully within my rights to observe that you did that, watch you to see if you buy something while you're there, and see if others exhibit that same behavior. Depending on the results of that analysis, I might then decide to move the newspapers to the front of the store, near tables, where you can sit and read because I have determined that newspaper readers are profitable customers. There's nothing wrong with that - I've now used data obtained while you were in my store (where you have no expectation of privacy) to improve both your experience and my profitability.

<comment><USER6> People that want to move this discussion forward need to stop using analogies for things in the physical world, because the interactions between a website and a browser aren't similar enough to anything physical. Every single time someone resorts to analogy in one of these threads, it immediately and permanently devolves into an argument over the details of the analogy.

Browsers run code delivered by websites. It's generally considered impolite, at least, to provide code that mines cryptocurrency on visitors' machines. Most people wouldn't defend serving up malware, either. So there is well- established precedent for arguing that there are things a website shouldn't do to its visitors.

Extensive tracking scripts are now falling into the same category as crypto miners and malware.

The explosion of ad blockers on users' browsers is a direct result of websites pushing advertising tactics way too far and not putting enough effort into the safety of their visitors. Tracking scripts will be next. Firefox has a lot to gain from pushing browser features intended to make it look like a more privacy-conscious browser than Chrome; there are already extensions like Ghostery and Disconnect, and uBlock Origin blocks a number of other tracking scripts too.

If website developers don't accept some kind of middle ground in this discussion, they'll be relying on their access logs for all of their data before long.

<comment><USER4> _> Extensive tracking scripts are now falling into the same category as crypto miners and malware. _

That's definitely your opinion, and it is one that is not widely held. How do I know this? Because Facebook's usage - despite a deluge of recent headlines headlines that vastly overstated their privacy issues and made it the poster child for extensive tracking technologies - hasn't gone down. So, roughly 2 billion of the world's Internet users disagree with you.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't work that way, and I think you know it.

Only 26% of web users in 2016 had installed ad blockers [1]; that doesn't mean you get to say, "74% of web users don't mind advertising and malware".

Facebook announced its first net loss of North American users last quarter. They're expected to post a much larger loss during the Q1 review on Wednesday [2] as a direct result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

I guess you can stand steadfastly behind the position that "nobody cares because there are 2 billion users", and ignore the falling metrics for user engagement [3], and the protests (see the picture at the top of [2]), and the senate hearing, and the media coverage, and the millions of Ghostery and Disconnect users who've gone to the trouble of searching for and installing extensions specifically to block tracking, and Firefox's built-in tracking protection. Sure, aside from all that, nobody cares.

But this isn't an issue that's going away yet, no matter how much you want it to.

[1]: [https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-ad-blocker- change-...](https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-ad-blocker-change-web/)

[2]: [http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-users-want- revenge-a...](http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-users-want-revenge- after-cambridge-analytica-data-breach-2018-4)

[3]: [http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/31/technology/facebook- earnings...](http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/31/technology/facebook- earnings/index.html)

<comment><USER4> As for your argument that Facebook usage has dropped as a result of the recent privacy outrage, it has not - at least according to Mark Zuckerberg as of April 10, 2018 [1]. Remember that the outrage of journalists - driven by a desire for clicks - is not the same as public outrage. Other factors (such as people spending more time on Instagram, or life in general) may have contributed to a decline in engagement prior to the media-driven "scandal," but at least at this point the recent headlines have had no discernible impact.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the rest of your argument. Most of the 26% of users that have installed ad blockers (including myself) have done it not so much to thwart tracking, but to put an end to the poor user experience that many intrusive ads create on web pages. Visit any local newspaper site with your ad blocker disabled to view what I'm talking about. Many sites aren't even usable without an ad blocker these days. I am in the ad blocking-for- user-experience camp...I could care less about tracking. In fact, for the ads that I do see, I like them being highly targeted. I went for years without clicking on a single ad on the web. Only in the last year or two have I found them relevant enough to click every now and then. Since these advertisers aren't given any personally identifiable data by the ad networks, I don't feel any violation of my privacy either.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/zuckerberg-in-joint- senate-c...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/zuckerberg-in-joint-senate- committee-hearing-no-facebook-user-dropoff.html)

<comment><USER7> >I like them being highly targeted ... Since these advertisers aren't given any personally identifiable data by the ad networks

The fact that the ads are highly targeted, and the fact that they are used by many companies, means that you are probably personally identifiable by correlation. They don't need your name. They probably have your locale (to a high degree of precision), your shopping habits, your sexual preference, your education level, your family size and many other details.

<comment><USER4> And what exactly is wrong with that? So some marketers know that someone in the world likes to do X, lives in a certain place, likes to buy things, etc. It's not tied to your specific identity - it's just a collection of data. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.

<comment><USER6> In the first place, your repeated assertion that you are anonymous in the data is wrong. A combination of zip code, date of birth, and gender will uniquely identify 87% of the people in the country [1], and I assure you advertisers have far more detailed information than that. In some cases, they have your DNA. [2]

Secondly, that information is used to influence you. Cambridge Analytica still proudly proclaims, on their home page, that they "[use] data to change audience behavior." Ads on Facebook are being used by different groups to inflame political tensions [3]. The tracking widgets used on nearly every site you visit now means that some company, somewhere, knows everything you're interested in. They are in the business of using that information against you, to their benefit, whether it's in crafting sensational stories with clickbait headlines to get more of your attention, or selling you products you don't need by preying on your insecurities, or just trading it for money to other companies who will use it in new and creative ways -- like CA, who specialize in tilting voting behavior. [4]

Thirdly, you're counting on advertising firms having perfect security and never accidentally giving your information away to people who shouldn't have it. Advertising companies just don't have good history when it comes to data security [5] [6] [7].

People seem happy to ignore the ramifications of all of this, because it's not like they're feeling physical pain or discomfort or noticing any other immediate negative effect when more tracking data is collected or they see another ad. But this is a form of psychological warfare, and at least some of this stuff is designed to corrupt your thinking, to get more of your attention and change your opinions about things and convince you that it's all very harmless.

We've strayed away from tracking data and into advertising, but they are two sides of the same coin.

[1]: [http://latanyasweeney.org/work/identifiability.html](http://latanyasweeney.org/work/identifiability.html)

[2]: [https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2015/09/07/ancestry-com-can- us...](https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2015/09/07/ancestry-com-can-use-your-dna- to-target-ads/)

[3]: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-ads/majority- of-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-ads/majority-of-divisive- facebook-ads-bought-by-suspicious-groups-study-idUSKBN1HN2KV)

[4]: [http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/20/technology/what-is- cambridge...](http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/20/technology/what-is-cambridge- analytica/index.html)

[5]: [https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/08/you-say-advertising-i- sa...](https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/08/you-say-advertising-i-say-block- that-malware/)

[6]: [https://pagefair.com/blog/2015/halloween-security- breach/](https://pagefair.com/blog/2015/halloween-security-breach/)

[7]: [https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/16/10/09/208249/a-s...](https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/16/10/09/208249/a-spotify- ad-slipped-malware-onto-pcs-and-macs)

<comment><USER4> You obviously feel very passionate about this subject, so there is no point in attempting to convincing you to change your opinion, other than to reiterate that it is not a commonly held opinion.

I did want to respond directly to one of your points that is dead wrong. With regard to this statement:

 _> Secondly, that information is used to influence you. Cambridge Analytica still proudly proclaims, on their home page, that they "[use] data to change audience behavior." Ads on Facebook are being used by different groups to inflame political tensions_

There has been no scientific evidence that CA, the Russians, or anyone else was actually successful in their efforts to use Facebook to influence the election or _" inflate political tensions"_. In fact, CA's own customers say that it didn't work [1]. This whole thing was a manufactured controversy.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica- facebook-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-facebook- scandal-trump-cruz-operatives-2018-3)

<comment><USER6> You confused my statements regarding CA with a separate issue regarding political ads on Facebook, covered in the Reuters article I cited (which didn't mention CA at all).

If CA were a "manufactured controversy", I think HN would've cottoned on to that quite a while ago, rather than the various comments (among thousands on the topic now) expressing surprise that people are suddenly paying attention to this:

50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16606924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16606924)

Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16641550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16641550)

How Cambridge Analytica's Facebook targeting model really worked: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16719403](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16719403)

Leaked email shows how Cambridge Analytica and Facebook first responded in 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16667805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16667805)

The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn't a scandal: this is how Facebook works: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16621885](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16621885) (solid top comment on that thread)

Palantir worked with Cambridge Analytica on the Facebook data it acquired: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16690721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16690721)

Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16644067](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16644067)

I'm not, by the way, providing any of these links in my comments to try to change your mind. I realized several comments ago that you've got an entrenched and unmovable opinion that pervasive user tracking on the internet is no big deal. I've been providing these links for anyone else reading who might be interested in the topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just some of the ways Google collects data [1]:

Google Search, Google Fiber, Google Recaptcha, Google Translate, Google Adsense, Google Chrome (Safe Browsing checks etc.), Google DNS (220.127.116.11 etc.), Google Mail, Android Integrations, Google GSuite (Sheets, Docs, etc.), Google Drive, Google Analytics, Google AMP, YouTube

So on and so forth. Of course, Google keeps most of this data to themselves to improve products and sell ads, but it's scary how much they have especially since they broke down the firewall between services. [2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products)

[2] [https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/updating-our- privacy...](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/updating-our-privacy- policies-and-terms.html)

<comment><USER9> A more egregious way Google collects data on internet users is through their hosted libraries service. You visit some completely unaffiliated site which happens to use jquery or some other library and instead of hosting it themselves they have a script tag with a src=ajax.googleapis.com/...

<comment><USER10> For that, see [https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/terms](https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/terms)

That stuff is kept separate from all account data (like with Google DNS[0] and fonts[1], too): no common cookies, "unauthenticated" (ie. no cross-referencing with Google accounts), logs retain no referrers

[0] [https://developers.google.com/speed/public- dns/privacy](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy) [1] [https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#what_does_using_the_...](https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#what_does_using_the_google_fonts_api_mean_for_the_privacy_of_my_users)

<comment><USER11> I don't read it as stating that the data is kept entirely separate. In fact it references the general privacy policy making it quite clear that whatever data is collected is governed by the same rules as everything else.

<comment><USER12> What data is collected?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think Google is a lot less creepy than Facebook. Yes, they vacuum a lot of data, but I do get directly related benefits from it, as well as controls that I trust.

Example: Location history. It is turned off by default. I chose to turn it on, so I can know places I've been to previously (if I forget the name). It's like a journal that writes itself.

Google has its privacy issues, but on a whole I voluntarily choose to give them permission to collect my data, because I get direct value from it.

<comment><USER14> > _controls that I trust._

I think this trust might be misplaced.

> _Example: Location history. It is turned off by default._

Displaying your location history to you is turned off by default. Google's own recording of your location, for their purposes, cannot be turned off.

<comment><USER15> > Google's own recording of your location, for their purposes, cannot be > turned off.

Citation needed. Android even lets you turn off AGPS, which collects anonymous location data to update itself. As far as I know, this is not even possible on iOS.

<comment><USER16> I'll copy an earlier post of what I found:

On Android, I noted before that when I turned on and off location services, the GPS lock was near instantaneous (i.e. when I turned on location, Google Maps located me with GPS precision immediately. There could be other ways of how this happens, it was noted in another post of mine, but that had still had me a bit suspicious. I replaced Google Play Services with microG recently ([https://lineage.microg.org/](https://lineage.microg.org/)). I then saw that it was MicroG, NOT the OS, that had control over my location, and MicroG still tracks my location when Location is off([https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki...](https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki...)).

While none of this conclusively points to Google Play Services tracking me when it is off, the way that Android is set up makes me very strongly suspect that's what they did.

<comment><USER17> By tracking, do you mean the phone keeping track of its own location, or it sending location data back to Google?

Google maintains a database of wifi networks and their locations (I don't know the ways this data is acquired) to help triangulate the position: [https://www.quora.com/How-does-android-use-WiFi-to-get- your-...](https://www.quora.com/How-does-android-use-WiFi-to-get-your-current- location-so-accurately)

<comment><USER16> By tracking, I mean MicroG/Google Play Services controls location services, not Android OS.

<comment><USER17> .. but does the location leave the device?

<comment><USER16> That's a great question. I cannot conclusively say that Google Play Services does that, but I cannot think of another reason for why Android would be set up that way.

I welcome any alternative conclusions though.

<comment><USER17> Quite possibly for sensor fusion. E.g., combine with WiFi triangulation, accelerometer deltas from last fix, etc.

Play Services has a lot of stuff in it because it's easy for Google to upgrade it without going through phone vendors or carriers. It was a way to counteract the effects of many phones being on old versions of Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why is Apple given a pass?

They gave all their China user data to the China government so they could stay in China to make a buck. Is that not selling users data?

Versus Google chose to leave China instead of handing over the data.

[https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple- privacy...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy- betrayal-for-chinese-icloud-users/) Campaign targets Apple over privacy betrayal for Chinese iCloud ...

<comment><USER19> They make an effort to design their products and services with privacy and security in mind, and are much more transparent about what data is collected and how it's used.

The iCloud-China situation is unfortunate. The situation is very different from Google, both in the opportunity costs, and the fact Apple's products are dependent on China to be manufactured.

Additionally, if you forego iCloud services (namely iCloud backup), then the data that the CCP can access is actually quite limited. All of their phones since the 5s in 2013 have been leaders in security, and if you use a passphrase or 10-digit pin as a passcode then not even the most recent iPhone cracking tools could brute-force your phone (within a dozen years, within a century for 11-digits).

I'm miffed about China, but I still believe Apple is the best option because I don't think there's much that can be done in their position and the impact is limited. For me that would change the instant an actual iOS backdoor is made for any gov't.

<comment><USER18> Not following. There were billions to be made by Google in China and they decided giving up their user data was a bridge too far. So basically chose to not sell their user data.

Versus Apple handed over all there user data to make a buck. Plus this is actual data not a targeted ad.

Do I have this correct?

<comment><USER20> You're missing facts that change the whole picture.

Cloud services are _required_ to use Google services & devices. G had to choose between giving China everything or withdrawing from the market.

Cloud services are an add-on to Apple's products. The iPhone is still useful without enabling anything from iCloud. Cloud services are _optional_ with the iPhone.

<comment><USER18> Cloud is not required with Google. What are you talking about?

<comment><USER21> What are _you_ talking about? 90+% of Google's services are online. Apple has a substantial hardware business, so I don't see how you are conflating the two.

<comment><USER18> You can buy an Android phone and never use the cloud if you want just like an iPhone.

The two are actually very similar.

Google services do not matter if you have an Android phone or an iPhone. Suspect there is actually more consumption of Google services on the iPhone then even Android but do not have numbers handy to support.

<comment><USER22> Huawei selling customized AOSP with WeChat doesn't represent Google's participation in the Chinese market. Chinese Android users aren't Google users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> i find it interesting that no one points out how much data AT&T and Verizon have collected ... they know the location of your phone, which cell tower you are connected to, which stores you've been in and when, who you've called, who has called you, all of which can be cross referenced ... and there is no reason to think they don't where the IP they supplied you has been, to which websites you've visited, etc ... same with Comcast for broadband ... and the GOP last year repealed what privacy was in place on this ... if you combine that with the media properties they own, they also get a pretty good picture, across android, iOS and your desktop, of what a person does ... they also have payment data, a credit profile, possibly health info, possibly data on your kids, etc,

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet- trump/trump-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-trump/trump- signs-repeal-of-u-s-broadband-privacy-rules-idUSKBN1752PR)

<comment><USER24> ISPs present a tiny footprint compared to the global tech behemoths (they're regional), and they already actually are significantly regulated even with the loosening of various restrictions over the past year or so. Contrary to popular belief, ISPs can't sell your browsing history legally, whereas tech companies generally can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I guess it's cheaper to try and extend this whole facebook/cambridge analytica story than to do actual journalism. What's more you get to attack a business rival (doubly true for wsj v google).

<comment><USER26> Also when writing about facebook/cambridge analytica story, you can easily add a few lines about the election, which makes the story more shared, generating more clicks (~engagement), so the story is much more talked about.

If the cambridge analytica story was about selling cars or home appliance, it would have been forgotten in a few days.

Edit: And perhaps it's a good thing that it was about the elections? It would mean that it might force a change on first Facebook, then maybe other internet companies

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> On one hand, I'm glad to see popular concern for (or at least media coverage of) personal data privacy issues. On the other hand, I can't imagine this is news to anyone at HN, or anyone who's been following such issues for years.

Ok ok, maybe the mass public is finally becoming more aware of these issues, but they're also even more heavily invested in the services Google/FB provide than when these revelations were first known to a more niche online community.

I find it hard to believe that all this media attention is anything _other than_ too little too late.

<comment><USER28> I'm of an opposite mind. The tech world has known about these issues for years and _nothing_ has happened. When the Verge or Wired write about these privacy issues the outside world really is not of much concern. But when the NYT and WaPo write about it, and when there are Congressional hearings about it changes is much more likely to occur.

<comment><USER29> Because many of us are employed to take advantage of the current situation of data proliferation. I am. I take your information and I pass it along to our marketing partners. I am a professional spammer. Your data is worth a couple bucks to us. We provide no real value (working on fixing this, atm). I get to feed my kids and take vacations as a result. I guess I will continue to float the moral line until actual harm comes out of this. We take data security seriously. We've straight up refused to partner with people who don't, even if it meant passing a lucrative deal. I have hope that as long as there are people like me out there, it will be OK, but I think the worst thing we can do is not talk about it / shame those that do make a living on ad tech to flee the work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Recent controversy over Facebook Inc.'s hunger for personal data has surfaced _the notion that the online advertising industry could be hazardous to our privacy and well-being._ "

The NYT can publish stories centering on this notion despite being ??% reliant on said online advertising in order to stay in business.

Would Google (or Facebook) publish similar warnings against the annoyances and harms of online advertising despite being 98% reliant on said online advertising in order to stay in business?

How strong an argument is "Newspapers use trackers in their online editions therefore any news they publish about tracking has no educational value." (or is somehow compromised in some way)

Did newspapers have a choice in whether they chose to participate in the www as we see it today (overrun with advertising and fraudulent, insidious tactics)?

If yes, what was the choice?

What would happen to these newspapers if they failed to "cooperate" with Google?

<comment><USER31> They'd lose massive amounts of revenue and cease to exist. Even with digital advertising most newspapers are dead or barely staying afloat. They all struggled to convert to digital and tracking-based advertising was just one of many life boats they tried to save themselves with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't see Google getting the same kind of backlash as Facebook even though Google probably knows far more about me. For most people Google has real utility while Facebook is an indulgence.

</comment><comment><USER33> Didn't read the article, but does anyone see some media narrative happening here? One part of me would like to think that they are just publishing what readers want. But another part says there is an underlying narrative. I can almost predict the news cycle wrt tech, data collection, privacy, etc. Does anyone stop to think, why now? I fear this is a rolling snowball started during the election and it won't end until those with pitchforks get the laws the rest who are quieter may not want. This media-built furor, while it may have legitimate roots, has me seeing deja vu. I fear the internet equivalent of the patriot act.

Just know when we get things like the cloud act, the next sopa, or the next government-over-tech bill, we asked for it by building this furor. Seems quite unbalanced to me. I wonder how I or others can stop feeding this growing furor.

<comment><USER34> > but does anyone see some media narrative happening here?

WSJ is owned by Murdoch's News Corp. He has been in a anti-Google crusade for a while.

2009: [https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2009/11/murdoch_vs_google...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2009/11/murdoch_vs_google.html)

2014: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/18/rupert_murdoch_says...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/18/rupert_murdoch_says_google_is_worse_than_the_nsa/)

<comment><USER24> Why is it that no one ever suggests articles about Facebook's privacy violations are part of some anti-Facebook conspiracy?

<comment><USER35> Because there are very specific reasons to be suspicious of Fox or WSJ articles and if this anti-Google article had appeared in the NYT it would have been better and free of suspicion.

Anti-Tesla articles are another example of places to be suspicious of the source because a) day traders trying to short the stock have deliberately tried to spread damaging information and b) fossil fuel companies and regular car manufacturers have a vested interest.

That's not to say all anti-Tesla articles are wrong, just one should be careful that you aren't being a rube to propaganda.

Also, Facebook wasn't dinged for collecting data, they were dinged for allowing a third party to scrape it.

The people using Facebook are quite aware of all of the stuff they're telling FB interests, likes, groups they join, what they don't want is third parties who shouldn't know, to know.

I don't care that Facebook knows what articles I liked. But I don't want Cambridge Analytica to know in an individually identifiable manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Haven't read the article because it is behind paywall, but it is not that hard to stay away from Google if you really care for it.

Search - Use DuckDuckGo or startpage.

Use Fastmail or any other email provider that is not Google.

Watch Youtube videos without creating an account and clear out cookies regularly.

Use Vimeo or some other service to host your videos for private use.

Use Google Translate without a Google Account, and make sure you're not logged into a Google account in another tab or even the same browser.

Use Firefox instead of Google Chrome.

Google Adsense - Block ads using adblocker, Ghostery, and if you're up for it, use Adnauseum. Again, make sure to not leave a trace of a Google account in that browser.

Google DNS - Use your carrier's DNS or even better something like Quad9 instead. Keep changing it among the open ones if you dont want a single DNS provider getting all your history.

Android Integrations - Use iPhone :-) But, if you have something against Apple or dont like it, Use as plain Android as possible. Check if you can live without the Play store. Rooting?

GSuite - Use local Office programs with files living in Nextcloud or something.

Google Drive - Use Nextcloud instead.

Google Analytics - Adblock/Ghostery it.

Google AMP - Note sure what you reveal if you can avoid a Google account. Clear out cookies frequently.

The point being, do NOT use a Google account in the browser, clear out cookies as often as reasonable.

<comment><USER37> You might be able to dislodge yourself from certain datasets, but good luck getting out of all of them. For example: [https://www.inc.com/emily- canal/google-credit-card-purchases...](https://www.inc.com/emily-canal/google- credit-card-purchases-track-online-ads.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> (Disclaimer: I work at Google, though on unrelated things. Opinions my own, yada, yada)

Worked at a privacy obsessed place before (Mozilla) where I worked on building privacy-preserving ad infrastructure.

I think we've more to fear about the other data brokers (so-called DMP's and their sources of data, e.g. your bank) than Google. At the very least, we have some assurance Google is competent with handling the data.

Google is a big well-known target and definitely poses a central point of failure for our data, but this piece could've been more than a dig at Google and rather, could have explored how private information is handled in the Ad industry in general.

</comment><comment><USER39> and yet most ads I see on the internet are almost less targeted then tv ads. what are they doing with all this data i wonder. to be fair though i dont even know myself what i might be interested in.

</comment><comment><USER40> Solution: Ban Lobbying?

</comment><comment><USER41> This is disappointing from WSJ. Google's data collection is a good story but pulling Facebook in and then devolving into what-about-ism is not. This is toeing the what-about-Google/twitter stance Facebook took in it's release.

> Google gathers more personal data than Facebook does, by almost every > measure—so why aren't we talking about it?

Because one problem at a time. If we are going down this path, how about,

> _Many people die of hunger every year_ more than Facebook, by almost every > measure—so why aren't we talking about it?

<comment><USER42> I think your getting the "what-about-ism" argument backwards. This isn't avoiding talking about Google by saying "What about Facebook". This is comparing the two to _highlight_ it's point about Google, the subject of the article.

<comment><USER41> Maybe I have it wrong but what-about-ism isn't only about avoidance. It is also about drawing an equivalence saying - "Yes, X is bad but what about Y?" The idea being if everyone does it then X hasn't done anything wrong.

<comment><USER24> Noone is saying Facebook hasn't done anything wrong. We just don't want Google to get away with it.

Whataboutism would be if we were to suggest Facebook isn't that bad because Google does it too. But articles like this are trying to point out that _both_ companies are doing bad things: We should be going after both of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> [https://duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com) [https://protonmail.com](https://protonmail.com) [https://apple.com](https://apple.com)

<comment><USER44> One of these things is not like the other. DuckDuckGo and Proton were founded on the basis of protecting privacy and not sharing personal data. The other is part of the cabal.

<comment><USER45> Exactly. Apple is also one of the participants in the NSA's PRISM [1] domestic surveillance program. Their participation shows at least some disregard for the privacy of their customers in and of itself, but more tellingly it's also indicative of the NSA's appreciation for the amount and quality of unique and identifiable data that Apple has or can readily obtain on their users.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%29)

<comment><USER15> > Their participation shows at least some disregard for the privacy of their > customers in and of itself

Why? Apple is legally required to hand over the court ordered data whether or not they participate in the FBI's data integration program. By implementing a proper data integration system, Apple can standardize audits and alerts and make sure the FBI gets only what is required and not somebody else's data by accident as might happen if the data were sent by hand each time.

<comment><USER45> I'd recommend checking out the article and other reading on PRISM. PRISM is operated by the NSA and involves egregious breaches of personal privacy including bulk collection of loosely targeted data, warrantless data retrieval in some instances, the collection and use of "inadvertently collected data" and more. This entire period of extreme surveillance and secret courts, which are in effect kangaroo courts, will likely be looked at in the history books similar to how you look at things like the Stasi. Keep in mind that the Stasi was founded in 1950 and prosecutions only began once East Germany fell, some 40 years later.

<comment><USER15> > PRISM is operated by the NSA and involves egregious breaches of personal > privacy including bulk collection of loosely targeted data, warrantless data > retrieval in some instances, the collection and use of "inadvertently > collected data" and more.

No, according to Snowden's documents, PRISM is a data processing system that consumes data sent to the FBI's Data Intercept Technology Unit following a Section 702 order for communications sent to or from a specific foreign user not in the US.

[https://medium.com/@alecmuffett/how-to-talk-about-prism- and-...](https://medium.com/@alecmuffett/how-to-talk-about-prism-and-not-get- entirely-blown-off-if-youre-an-activist-e2a79d2cd2ad)

<comment><USER45> I would avoid basing your knowledge on blogs.

The wiki page's synopsis are contradictory as usual, but the original images as well as Snowden's comments are not ambiguous. The slides show real time access to video, voice, VOIP, etc.

Snowden's synopsis was, _" In general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc. analyst has access to query raw SIGINT [signals intelligence] databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want."_

Quoting Greenwald who received the information and disclosure directly from Snowden: "...even low-level NSA analysts are allowed to search and listen to the communications of Americans and other people without court approval and supervision." Greenwald said low level Analysts can, _via systems like PRISM_ , "listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents. And it's all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst."

<comment><USER15> > The slides show real time access to video, voice, VOIP, etc.

For the specific users whose data was requested in the Section 702 request.

> Quoting Greenwald who received the information and disclosure directly from > Snowden: "...even low-level NSA analysts are allowed to search and listen to > the communications of Americans and other people without court approval and > supervision."

Funny how Snowden didn't have any evidence of this. All his documents match the description I gave you. The FBI's DITU is right there in the system diagram slide. This is just a misunderstanding of the documents by a low-level sysadmin who never actually saw the programs and a credulous reporter who didn't even try to check his facts.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla (TSLA) CEO Musk 'Most Deceptive CEO I've Ever Seen,' - <AUTHOR> https://www.thestreet.com/story/13675583/1/tesla-tsla-ceo-musk-most-deceptive-ceo-i-ve-ever-seen-stanphyl-capital-s-spiegel-told-cnbc.html<p>""Tesla has absolutely nothing sustainable propriety and yet it's losing a massive amount of money with zero direct long-range electric car competition. Starting in just a few months and into 2018 it's going to be swarmed with long-range electric car competition," Spiegel explained.<p>Speaking to this point of long-range electric car competition, Spiegel noted that Mercedes is rolling out four, Porsche (POAHF) is rolling out two, Audi's (AUDVF) rolling out two, Jaguar (JAGGF), and Bentley (BESR), are rolling out one each. On the mass market, Ford (F) is rolling out two, Volkswagen (VLKAY) is rolling out five, Hyundai (HYMLF) is rolling out two, and that's all in 2018-2019." <comment><USER2> You should post the link to the article, and comment in the comments section, that way the same article doesn't get linked multiple times.

though I see you're not new to HN, so maybe you like doing it this way for some reason.</comment>


Ask HN: How did Face.com not get sued by Facebook? - <AUTHOR>

I understand Facebook has a trademark on the word "face". So how did face.com manage to avoid getting a cease and desist.<p>And if I were to create a new startup simply called "Face" would I be able to operate without troubles? <comment><USER2> From the Face.com website: "Face.com Inc. has been acquired by Facebook, and as part of this process, we need to close up existing products and services so we can focus on new products at Facebook."

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, but before they were acquired...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2100175></comment>


Do Cheaters Ever Prosper? A Lesson from N.Y. Student Tests – Real Time Economics - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/04/12/do-cheaters-ever-prosper-a-lesson-from-n-y-student-tests/ <comment><USER2> What a whole load of excusing bad behaviour.

This is how corruption gets washed over, this is how bad people are able to entrench themselves in their jobs, this is how you create talking points for angry, know-nothing reactionaries.</comment>


The Myth of Human Adult Neurogenesis? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/07/27/myth-human-adult-neurogenesis/ <comment><USER2> Unfortunately this result has little meaning since we still do not have a strong understanding of how brains work.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article makes my brain hurt.</comment>


Sleep hygiene is not an effective treatment for insomnia - <AUTHOR> https://slumbercamp.co/sleep-hygiene-is-not-effective/ <comment><USER2> Standard sleep hygiene is a very mixed bag. I wouldn't expect much from it. But true darkness (no light, not low light) for precisely the same 10hr period each day does do the trick (the first three weeks are tough. You'll really want to keep the party going instead of turning off the light.) Painsomnia might still get you, but adopt natural conditions and you'll get sleep the way (and at the times) nature intended.</comment>


Chrome's requestAutocomplete() - <AUTHOR> http://blog.alexmaccaw.com/requestautocomplete <comment><USER2> Seeing a bad trend here lately, and at IO, where they continually talk about Chrome as a platform. Not the web, Chrome. I read Chromium bugs about Chrome specific APIs and never see any indication that there is intent at standardization. To be clear, I believe in browser vendors innovating with their own APIs with an eye towards eventually standardization. This is what Mozilla is doing through WebAPI, for example, but I don't hear anything like that from the Chrome team. What I see is that parts of Google are involved in web standards, of course, but particularly Chrome seems entirely focused on themselves as the platform.

<comment><USER3> A quick test would be this: are there any APIs in Stable/Release versions of Chrome that have not been submitted to any standards group?

<comment><USER4> Sure there are (some inherited from WebKit).

Though note that submitting and then completely ignoring the standards group (which has also happened) is not much better than not submitting at all. Especially if the submission doesn't actually give much more than the name of the API and a general idea of what it does.

<comment><USER5> "completely ignoring the standards group"?

Look at their off-line standard. They took it to the standardization body who changed it so completely that it was a different beast. Google did the right thing and phased out their old legacy stuff and switched to the standard. In fact IIRC they didn't even put the legacy stuff in Chrome.

<comment><USER4> Sure. There are lots of parts of Google and Chrome that play very nice with standards groups and whatnot.

And there are various other parts that don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This will be a huge boon to conversion rates.

Auto-complete has always been incredibly flaky for me. And personally I find that reaching for the credit card is the point where I think, "do I really want this?"

It's as if Google is bringing Amazon's "one-click" checkout to all Chrome users.

<comment><USER7> >It's as if Google is bringing Amazon's "one-click" checkout to all Chrome users.

Shutupshutupshutup, don't ruin this. ;) (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One- click_patent>)

<comment><USER8> Ah, but you see, it's "two-click" checkout. So we're good, right?

<comment><USER9> Or "mouse over" checkout. Imagine the conversion ratios!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh I am sure there are good uses for this but the code sample scares the pants off me. Never ever evah do the following:

        form.addEventListener('autocomplete', function(){
          form.submit();
        });

This does not give the user any time to review or update the information that the browser autocompletes.

Always show the user what information is being sent, always give them an option to change it.

<comment><USER11> It is my understanding that the "autocomplete" event being referenced here, is after you 1 - ask the browser to autocomplete, 2 - the user is shown what will be shared, and accept to share it.

That would cover it (by comparison the scenario you think of would be crazy terrible).

<comment> shock-value Well, I would expect those two actions to pre-fill the form data. I wouldn't expect them to also submit the form. I think that's the issue.

<comment><USER12> I think in that case it would be almost the same as a malicious site calling form.submit() after detecting in javascript that all of the fields have been filled out. It would have a slightly worse accuracy, though, since the user has not yet double checked that the form is correct. Does anyone know if there are laws related to this? I could definitely see it being illegal to automatically submit forms that result in financial transactions.

<comment><USER7> Look at the screenshot. The permissions dialog shows exactly what information is being submitted, and is labelled 'submit payment details'. No one should be misled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of the best use cases for this is on mobile. Conversion rates on mobile are really low because users usually don't want to dig out their credit cards when on their smartphone, let alone fill in all their details on a tiny screen. The ability to just tap a couple of times and use their existing billing information (which is synced from their desktop browser) is a huge win. And as mobile becomes the more popular way to browse the web, I think this could be a pretty big deal for online sellers.

<comment><USER14> I don't know about anybody else, but I seriously do not trust my smartphone's OS with my credit card number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The main issue I have with autocomplete is that the data can vary by site - which means stale data is possible.

I don't use autocomplete, I use 1password, which guarantees my information is as up to date as I want it to be for all sites.

Perhaps browser extensions like 1Password can also leverage this to keep your autocomplete data up to date with your main contact/credit details?

<comment><USER16> The initial implementation appears to be targeted to e-commerce sites. Your username and password are not included in the fields that this can populate.

Here are the supported fields:

* Contact: name, tel, email

* Shipping: street-address, address-line1, address-line2, locality, region, country, postal-code

* Billing: street-address, address-line1, address-line2, locality, region, country, postal-code

* Payment: cc-name, cc-number, cc-exp, cc-csc, cc-type

<comment><USER15> 1Password allows one to autofill credit card, address and other fields as well, you know. I use that almost as frequently as the passwords.

<comment><USER17> I use lastpass for the purpose. But I can imagine baking it into the browser will lead to higher conversion rates especially on mobile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Autocompleting billing details without even having a form shown seems like a terrible idea. How does someone with autocomplete enabled not suddenly find themselves missing bundles of money?

<comment><USER19> Chrome displays a permission dialog.

<comment><USER18> I missed that part, thanks. I still feel like it could be abusable.

<comment><USER20> One possible exploit I can think of would be to put up a form that doesn't have an _visible_ credit card fields, but somehow convincing the autofill code to fill it in anyhow. The user thinks they are just autofilling their email but in hidden fields are populating their credit card info. It would be easy to not fill in <input type="hidden"> fields, but field inputs that are more literally hidden (off the top of the screen, obscured by other elements, white-on-white text and elements, etc) is a harder problem. I could see a user clicking through the popup without noticing the popup mentions more info than they realize, because the user is expecting it already and doesn't carefully examine it.

<comment><USER21> That will have to be addressed by the Chrome permissions dialog ... Agreed though, I think it would be wise to make the user type-in their CVC or something before transmitting the payment info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Fun fact: Internet Explorer 6 had features called "Wallet" and "My Profile". The data you'd put there would be picked up by HTML forms that use so called "VCARD scheme".

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ie/ms533032%28v=vs.8...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ie/ms533032%28v=vs.85%29.aspx)

<comment><USER23> That is strangely true for many new features: They all all already been there at one point in the monopolistic Internet Explorer. e.g. CSS expressions from IE will now have a comeback, RSS was Active Channels, IE had HTML tooltips that went beyond the window, a fullscreen api (much abused), localstorage was domstorage, shadow DOM were behaviours, css filters were directxfilters...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why is this needed in the markup? The autocomplete attribute is plenty. Everything else is just how the browser handles that attribute...

<http://css-tricks.com/snippets/html/autocomplete-off/>

<comment><USER6> Autocompleted data is not available to js -- that would be a huge security issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> On other hand people use random-id to PREVENT autofill in most of payment forms which I don't understand!

</comment><comment><USER26> Excuse the common FUD trope:

1\. Embrace

2\. Extend <\-- Google Chrome just went here.

3\. Extinguish

What would people say if Microsoft implemented a new JavaScript API in their browser that only they had access to the spec for?

<comment><USER27> <http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/RequestAutocomplete> ?

<comment><USER26> That's a promising sign, at least. I was wrong, they posted at least _some_ sort of draft. That's good, and hopefully keeps them on "embrace".

<comment><USER28> Maybe next time do a cursory search before jumping to conclusions? The WHATWG spec is the first link when you search for "requestAutocomplete" on Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Biggest problem: many small shops, especially Wordpress shop themes and many self-written shops don't use the autocomplete="..." attribute to properly indicate autocompletion support...

<comment><USER30> Hi mschuster91,

I'm the other presenter from the I/O video. We hope to contribute to popular open source cart software in the near future so that vendors creating a quick shop can benefit from [autocomplete] attributes baked in by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I love the idea of being able to autofill a form on page load using the browsers own history! Also, I'm highly impressed if indeed this is being added to chrome based on something Alex asked for.

<comment><USER30> Hey intropic, requestAutocomplete() is only invokable in response to a user action (load's not considered that), so it's more likely that this would be done when you click a "checkout" button or something like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This terrifies me on a security level... I understand there is a permission dialog, but I very much would not like me credit card information available unless I type it in...

<comment><USER33> And that's perfectly fine. Disable its storage in Chrome for autocompletion. My credit cards have zero liability, so, store away Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Bad Idea? I'm a web dev and maybe some other people could weigh in here on the privacy concern I could imagine from this. Scenario below.

1\. you visit site: whatever.com

2\. I have a hidden input with a name="address"

3\. I have an onchange event listener for the hidden input

4\. Now auto complete fills in automatically and I just associated your ip with your address (assuming the the auto fill is correct).

I always think this whenever I hear about auto complete. I NEVER save form data just for this reason.

<comment><USER35> requestAutocomplete pops up a permission dialog to the user, it's not automatic on sites you haven't already granted permission to - the article mentions this.

<comment><USER36> What if I permit a site to autocomplete my email, address etc. but not my credit-card. Then, after the permission is given the form is changed to ask for a credit-card.

I'm sure this is all thought trough but I'll wait for a bit before using this.

<comment><USER34> Great point! This is why I'm always a little hesitant whenever I hear about auto complete abilities. Just the knowledge that your storing personal info (whether it's hashed and salted or not), and authorizing the browser to determine when it is convenient for you not to type.

What my privacy concern is just a javascript phishing attack (nothing too complicated that a beginner can do). Not to say this feature wouldn't be nice, just making the suggestion that there is alot of room for concern here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Hi all. I'm one of the devs who presented this at Google IO: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M50AXPd0Tg&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M50AXPd0Tg&feature=youtube_gdata)

If you have questions or feedback, you can reach out to us at email@example.com. I'll also try to answer some of the questions on this thread.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's a very interesting feature. What would be the best fit for it?

Home address would be too complex with too much variations, same thing for gender or title. Login/password would be better handled by a token cookie...

It seems to be best used for email or phone number fields, or other very standardized data only.

Addendum: the example given in the post would be bad, as for most credit card forms you would want a control code input, and generaly wouldn't want to encourage sensitive data to be autocompleted.

</comment><comment><USER39> Streamlining credit card payments is like improving CVS. It's still a skeuomorphic, Flintstones way of paying for something online. There are better solutions in the works that focus on innovating rather than renovating:

<https://payswarm.com/>

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02vX36Ntxxk>

</comment><comment><USER40> I can only see all the potential the security issues for this idea. I don't think I would have this enabled with my credit card details.

<comment><USER41> It's the same as the form autocomplete you already have, only now it can be initiated from js.</comment></comment>


Eigenmorality - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1820 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7925375](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7925375)

</comment><comment><USER3> My game theory teacher wrote a book, Global Collective Action, where he modeled global warming as a game between n countries and came out with a n-person prisoner's dilemma. the game is essentially the same.

And I think this belies the problem of global warming: it's far enough away that the actual consequences are distant, but emitting carbon is easy now, and each person's footprint is small enough. Denialism is a symptom, rather than the problem itself: a rationalization of our actions to justify the now.

So, I guess the problem with the eigendemocracy system is that it has no protection against mass self-delusion, though I think the same could be said of any system. Could the eigendemocracy also break people into completely unconnected networks, each thinking the other n networks are evil?

<comment><USER4> Did your game theory teacher have any ideas for a type of government or society that could be expected to do a better job with climate change? Climate change seems like the final boss of the public good problem, and I can't think of any society likely to do a very good job with it (without some sci-fi paradigm shift).

Functioning democracy, by which I mean a government whose policies closely match the desires of its population with each individual weighted equally, should be expected to do a bad job, because each individual accurately estimates that he or she is better off voting to _not_ solve climate change.

Dictatorships or non-functioning democracies, by which I mean governments whose policies are determined by a small group of people, should be expected to do a bad job, for the usual and obvious reasons.

<comment><USER3> He told me to not buy land near oceans.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps it would be prudent to buy land that _will_ be near oceans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds sort of like something I've been working on - Hyphaelia[0]. Users publish both respect and trust ratings for other users, and just respect ratings for content. This allows me to calculate individualized rankings of content for any user, given their direct trustees or alternatively, other specified entry-points into the network.

Anyways, pretty interesting - I'll be sure to hit up the author once i'm done, to see what he thinks.

[0] [https://github.com/kurotetsuka/hyphaelia](https://github.com/kurotetsuka/hyphaelia)

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been fascinated with the idea of applying PageRank to things. This is much deeper than I would venture, very thought provoking!

It breaks down for me however. Cooperation with others is by no means a dynamic concept of morality. PageRank is also more dynamic than he lends to in this article.

Take Socrates, he cooperated with his death sentence. Laid upon him by a majority for what? Devotion to truth?

Thought experiment: Morality Engine Optimization. Games over. It breaks down.

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://github.com/neyer/respect](https://github.com/neyer/respect)

<comment><USER5> You might be interested in something I've been working on - hyphaelia[0]. Users publish both respect and trust ratings for other users, and just respect ratings for content. This allows me to calculate individualized rankings of content for any user, given their direct trustees or alternatively, other specified entry-points into the network.

[0] [https://github.com/kurotetsuka/hyphaelia](https://github.com/kurotetsuka/hyphaelia)

<comment><USER7> yes, i very much am. my ultimate goal was along those lines but more complex:

[https://github.com/neyer/dewDrop](https://github.com/neyer/dewDrop)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What a great article. I have so many random comments.

> If you have a few million dollars, you can even set up your own parody of > the scientific process: your own phony experts, in their own phony think > tanks, with their own phony publications, giving each other legitimacy by > citing each other. (Of course, all this is a problem for many fields, not > just climate change. Climate is special only because there, the future of > life on earth might literally hinge on our ability to get epistemology > right.)

And yet, the author presumably believes that only (or mostly) the climate change deniers do this? How can an unbiased but completely uneducated (regarding climate science) possibly know?

> Now, would those with axes to grind try to subvert such a system the instant > it went online? Certainly. For example, I assume that millions of people > would rate Conservapedia as a more trustworthy source than Wikipedia—and > would rate other people who had done so as, themselves, trustworthy sources, > while rating as untrustworthy anyone who called Conservapedia untrustworthy.

In what sense is that "subverting," unless you're assuming that one source is "truly" more trustworthy than the other?

> But here's the thing: anyone would be able to see, with the click of a > mouse, the extent to which this parallel world had diverged from the real > one. They'd see that there was a huge, central connected component in the > trust graph—including almost all of the Nobel laureates, physicists from the > US nuclear weapons labs, military planners, actuaries, other hardheaded > people—who all accepted the reality of humans warming the planet, and only > tiny, isolated tendrils of trust reaching from that component into the > component of Rush Limbaugh and James Inhofe.

How does that help? If there's a "truly true Truth" out there, why should an unbiased uneducated person trust the broad connected graph over the smaller isolated one as the source of that Truth?

> As long as I'm fantasizing, the point would be that, once people's > individual decisions did give rise to a giant connected trust component, the > recommendations of that component could acquire the force of law.

Oh. Crap. That's terrifying.

> In other words, Google takes a link structure that already exists, > independently of its ranking algorithm, and that (as the economists would > put it) encodes people's "revealed preferences," and exploits that structure > for its own purposes.

If you like the idea of revealed preferences (I do), let's try a polycentric legal system where organizations offer services like law enforcement and dispute resolution and people can choose to pay for those services from whichever provider they like best. This largely solves the biggest problem of democracy, which is that a good legal services in a democracy are public goods and are thus likely to be underproduced. Good legal services in a polycentric legal system are not public goods, which is a good thing. Of course, it has its own problems, like what about really poor and really rich people.</comment>


Snapchat's localized AR-Art platform launches - <AUTHOR> https://art.snapchat.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Localization really brings out the best aspects of AR (vs. VR or flat experiences). It shifts the tech from being a utility to a discovery platform.</comment>


Income disparity in Silcone Valley - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=18697717

<comment><AUTHOR> This article interested me mostly because it doesn't point to any serious solutions. Welfare programs have done little to change the dynamic of income inequality or reduce poverty since LBJ's "Great Society". If the goal of the article was to complain about economic inequality and blame millionaires and billionaires of a particular state or industry as being too callous than I guess it succeeded but aside from that I don't feel it accomplishes much!

</comment><comment><USER2> Silicone != Silicon

<comment><USER3> I've often joked that the San Fernando valley is "Silicone Valley" and the Santa Clara valley is "Silicon Valley". Perhaps they meant the other one?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Drives me nuts when a site's font size is fixed and CTRL+ doesn't work!</comment>


Julian Assange Press Conference on CIA Vault - <AUTHOR> https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1ZkKzEqeDMZxv <comment><USER2> Url changed from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJdU_ahXeY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJdU_ahXeY), which points to this.

Edit: I assume people flagged this because the live stream is over and it's not clear where any actual content is.

<comment><USER3> Apparently replay has been disabled for this stream on Periscope. The recording has been uploaded here on their official channel: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se6XWhKOE2Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se6XWhKOE2Q)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anybody know about the channel which hosted the stream? "Golden State Times" doesn't have a legitimate website (the .com has an invalid SSL certificate; didn't even proceed) and some of their other videos appear more than a little biased: see their video named "VAULT 7: Obama's CIA Posed as Russian Hackers!!!"

<comment><USER5> OP's link is a presumably unaffiliated account, rebroadcasting a stream from the official Wikileaks Periscope account:

[https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1ZkKzEqeDMZxv](https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1ZkKzEqeDMZxv)

<comment><USER2> Ok, we changed to that from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJdU_ahXeY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJdU_ahXeY). Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if this has anything to do with the Farage visit [https://www.buzzfeed.com/marieleconte/wait- what?utm_term=.ri...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/marieleconte/wait- what?utm_term=.riWxL3NVK#.asv5L0k1A)

</comment><comment><USER7> Was it really him? I can't wait to see photoshop analysis to see if it was CGI'd.

<comment><USER8> Why would it be CGI?

<comment><USER9> There's a conspiracy theory going around that he was killed by The Man, who is resorting to tricks like CGI to pretend he's still alive.

I'm not sure what the motivation for killing him _and continuing to pretend that he 's alive_ would be, but then again, I don't understand most conspiracy theories.

<comment><USER10> Really? You can't imagine _any_ reason someone might want to manipulate Wikileaks and its audience?

<comment><USER9> Oh, but there are easier ways to do that. Offer to let him avoid being extradited to Sweden in exchange for not reporting on certain things, for instance.

Do you really think the Ecuadorean embassy, which had to install a shower so they could house him, is able to resist political pressure from basically all of NATO? Snowden had to flee to Russia, not even a Russian embassy, and he's not even leaking anything new. (I'm not necessarily claiming that anyone is actively manipulating WikiLeaks, just that there are a million easier ways to do it than secretly killing him and making a CGI double - and secretly killing him would require Ecuador's cooperation, anyway.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just ended.

<comment><USER11> Actually ended now. Recording will be uploaded to their channel later they said.

<comment><USER12> YouTube livestreams automatically become videos after the stream ends. So no need for a separate upload...

<comment><USER13> Sometimes I record at higher quality than what I stream. When the stream ends I upload the high quality version.</comment></comment></comment></comment>