With Google Takeout, you can download your data from Google apps as a backup or for use with another service. Unfortunately, a brief issue with the tool last November saw your videos in Google Photos possibly get exported to strangers’ archives.
How does this even happen? Too bad companies like this have armies of lawyers and obtuse terms of service to hide behind – since software is a special little butterfly that isn’t held to the same standards as any other product we use – so nobody will ever be held accountable for this.
It’s not the armies of lawyers, though those certainly don’t help the situation. The bottom line, unfortunately, is that most people simply don’t care. They’ll moan, cry, complain, and even scream. They might even file a class action. But you know what they’ll do in the end? That’s right, they’ll keep using Google. And as long as that’s the case, you will never see a change in these companies’ behavior. How many people left Amazon over a similar incident with their Alexa devices?
You can use Google’s services without actually provide them with your persona data. You know, like using it logged off. It works, I assure you. Otherwise, could you point us an alternative to Google’s services ? Bing ?
Kochise,
On what basis can you assure people of that?
On the web, google’s tracking cookies continue to track us whether we’re logged in or not. For example, navigating to youtube or visiting an adsence or google analytics website without logging in will still leave a trail for those who haven’t installed some kind of blocker. And even those who do are still tracked by IP.
On android, google tracks us with an advertising ID ‘cookie’ in 3rd party apps and also collects wifi/gps location data to continually monitor locaction data even for users who explicitly opted out!
https://apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb
Also google notoriously buys private data from banks and other vendors.
http://www.osnews.com/story/131252/avast-sells-user-data-collected-by-its-antivirus-software/
At least in the US, consumers have very few legal protections against private data being sold and companies don’t even need explicit consent…a clause in their terms and conditions covers their ass in court.
Just being logged off isn’t really sufficient to stop google’s user tracking activities, even if you do use other services.
Sadly, even the protections outlaid in the post above are likely not enough. Super cookies, device fingerprinting techniques. Even typing speed, syntax, mouse movements, etc can be used to identify users. Its very, very difficult to be anonymous while still using google.
Regarding the swapped backup data, it’d be interesting to hear the story behind this mixup, but we probably never will.
In principal, many of these kinds of data leaks off of vulnerable or buggy servers could be avoided by only storing data in encrypted form on the servers. This may or may not be viable depending on what needs to be done with the data, but assuming the data can be decrypted at the user’s machine rather than at google, then the risk of google leaking the unencrypted data is virtually eliminated as google itself wouldn’t have the unencrypted data. For better or worse most service providers stop short of committing to encrypting user data such that only the user can decrypt it.
‘How many people left Amazon over a similar incident with their Alexa devices?’
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I for one *DON’T* have a Alexa device. Never saw and still don’t see any reason to get one.
Then you weren’t the target demographic of my question.
“2020-02-05 4:42 am
Kochise
You can use Google’s services without actually provide them with your persona data. You know, like using it logged off. It works, I assure you. Otherwise, could you point us an alternative to Google’s services ? Bing ?”
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But this would require people to pay attention to what they were doing online and you know we can’t have that in this day-in-age concerning people’s computers and other devices and the information that’s contained on them.
Far easier to run around blaming Google and the rest for being bad actors than admitting their stupidity for letting Google and the rest to have any sort of acess to the information and files to begin with.
yoko-t,
In the context of this article user data got leaked when users didn’t do anything wrong, the company did. Are you saying that it’s always user stupidity when the company screws up and experiences a data breach? In your opinion, do companies ever deserve blame over personal data breaches?
Speaking more generally, maybe you think users should never place trust in a company like google, but even then google still collects data on people without their knowledge or concent. I provided some examples earlier, including bank transactions, GPS data, analytics built into 3rd party software. And it’s virtually impossible to know all of google’s source until someone reveals it. Google is not respecting user choices…
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/17/google-admits-tracking-safari-users
At some point you should concede that it’s not all end user stupidity, google itself is in the wrong and deserves criticism. However I tend to agree with darknexus that ultimately none of the criticism ever makes a difference. I think the only path that would make a difference is regulation. For better or worse, we’re living in an era of deregulation and putting faith in corporations to do as they please. In the US congress has become a corrupt proxy for corporate interests through unlimited lobbying where money buys favorable laws. The EU seems to do a better job being a voice for consumers. YMMV.
‘In the context of this article user data got leaked when users didn’t do anything wrong, the company did. Are you saying that it’s always user stupidity’
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Blah,blah,blah.
Yes, it *IS* User Stupidity to blindly give out credit card,bank account and other information in the fashion that’s seen today.
Yes it *IS* User Stupidity to have devices sitting around recording conversations and videos that you’re unaware of *IN YOUR OWN HOME* and then allowing those files to be transmitted to who knows and then whine about the fact.
ECt,ECT,ECT.
yoko-t,
Honestly I was expecting a more thoughtful response. I specifically said in the context of this article, which you even quoted in your reply, yet you are calling users stupid over things that are completely unrelated to the article. So no, you did not answer the question.
So I ask again… In the context of this article user data got leaked when users didn’t do anything wrong, the company did. Are you saying that it’s always user stupidity when the company screws up and experiences a data breach? In your opinion, do companies ever deserve blame over personal data breaches?
Do you have anything more insightful to say or are you content with your blah blah blah answer above? If that’s the extent of your rebuttal, I guess it’ll have to do, but I gotta say your argument for not blaming google or other companies for their data breaches isn’t convincing. People can and do get affected by breaches through no fault of their own, at the very least would you amend your response to concede this fact?
Well there is the ‘you basically don’t currently have a choice but to buy a device that has SOME sort of digital assistant capability on it.’
I mean I bought some HEADPHONES that have either Google Assistant or Alexa depending on how I want to configure it. But I’ve NEVER configured any of them, and only accidentally enabled Bixby at one point on my watch / phone.
That got rectified. Though it was fun kind of being able to change the activation words for the watch, so I used [EXPLETIVE DELETED] but sadly, I still said it often enough in normal conversation that it’d still activate…