New privacy tools and policies to help you stay safe and in control online(blog.google)
blog.google
New privacy tools and policies to help you stay safe and in control online
https://blog.google/products/search/new-privacy-tools/
74 comments
Because it might be on a public website not blocked by an appropriate robots.txt
It sounds like it is a worthwhile step to make it Google and friends problem to not store that information. Similar to how they blur faces in Google Maps.
I don't think it's unreasonable, Google knows and we all know that private information ends up online without our permission, but Google is the only one in the conversation hoovering that data up and showing it to anyone who asks nicely.
I don't get to do that, laws apply to me that say I can't even collect that information without consent let alone display it.
I don't think it's unreasonable, Google knows and we all know that private information ends up online without our permission, but Google is the only one in the conversation hoovering that data up and showing it to anyone who asks nicely.
I don't get to do that, laws apply to me that say I can't even collect that information without consent let alone display it.
It typically isn't private information. Things like names or addresses are public information.
Wouldn't it be more straightforward to make those sites that display personal information illegal themselves, rather than make it illegal for Google to index them?
Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on anything related to this.
Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on anything related to this.
Since the internet is global, it is very challenging to enforce something like that to a degree where it would be effective. Given a lot of directory sites are themselves low effort scrapers, and automated SEO/adsense plays, it would be a wack-a-mole.
That does put Google in a position of power though. Make that kind of site not allowed to participate in adsense and watch them vanish overnight.
That does put Google in a position of power though. Make that kind of site not allowed to participate in adsense and watch them vanish overnight.
I agree it would be hard to enforce. That doesn't mean we shouldn't make it illegal to host the content though. We could make it illegal to host the content and ask Google to delist it. Asking Google to delist it without making the content illegal doesn't make that much sense to me.
> Since the internet is global, it is very challenging to enforce something like that to a degree where it would be effective.
Is it? There is a solution: bad actors get kicked off the Internet. Russia doesn't do shit about cybercriminals? Block their networks until they comply. China gets caught again and again and again hacking into governments or companies? Just the same. India doesn't rein in their scam callcenters (just watch one of the recent Jim Browning videos)? Kick them off the net, and the same punishment for their VoIP providers that act as accomplices. Domestic providers ignoring countless abuse reports against people who had their routers compromised? Disconnect them until they've cleaned up their act and don't pose a threat any more.
The official blathering why this isn't done against other nations is "their population depends on access to the free flow of information" or "it would cost our companies too much money", and that's bullshit. Our enemies don't even need Trojan horses, we directly invite them into our homes. And domestic bad actors hide behind laws limiting their liability. Enough with that. Time to hold malicious, incompetent or greedy actors accountable instead of forcing people to drop unknown calls due to an onslaught of spam or companies to hide behind the protection rackets commonly known as "CDNs" and "botnet protection services".
Is it? There is a solution: bad actors get kicked off the Internet. Russia doesn't do shit about cybercriminals? Block their networks until they comply. China gets caught again and again and again hacking into governments or companies? Just the same. India doesn't rein in their scam callcenters (just watch one of the recent Jim Browning videos)? Kick them off the net, and the same punishment for their VoIP providers that act as accomplices. Domestic providers ignoring countless abuse reports against people who had their routers compromised? Disconnect them until they've cleaned up their act and don't pose a threat any more.
The official blathering why this isn't done against other nations is "their population depends on access to the free flow of information" or "it would cost our companies too much money", and that's bullshit. Our enemies don't even need Trojan horses, we directly invite them into our homes. And domestic bad actors hide behind laws limiting their liability. Enough with that. Time to hold malicious, incompetent or greedy actors accountable instead of forcing people to drop unknown calls due to an onslaught of spam or companies to hide behind the protection rackets commonly known as "CDNs" and "botnet protection services".
Hmm. It is a lot to think about frankly, a very large topic. My gut reaction is no, being a global net is what makes it robust and enables so many positive outcomes. I would say more positive than negative. I also feel as though the expectation that the internet is global is what protects it from nation states themselves. It would start with an obvious win, like banning a country due to cyberattacks, but would it stop there? Would we eventually start disconnecting outselves into dozens of small nets, little bubbles of thought compliant citizens happy on our protected nets, unable to share information across borders except through sanctioned channels?
I am just thinking out loud, I don't have the answer and you raise a valid train of thought.
I am just thinking out loud, I don't have the answer and you raise a valid train of thought.
> Wouldn't it be more straightforward to make those sites that display personal information illegal themselves, rather than make it illegal for Google to index them?
Exactly! Same principle as why we should mandate burqas.
Just make it illegal to be identifiable in public, instead of illegal for surveillance industry to collect and track identities.
Exactly! Same principle as why we should mandate burqas.
Just make it illegal to be identifiable in public, instead of illegal for surveillance industry to collect and track identities.
I have a hard time understanding your point.
Are you saying that being a free search engine for webpages makes you part of the surveillance industry, but People Finder et. al., that charge money for the express purpose of letting you snoop on other people aren't?
My point isn't that we should make it illegal for people to be identifiable in public. My point is that instead of making it illegal for Google to index People Finder, it would be more logical to make People Finder illegal.
Are you saying that being a free search engine for webpages makes you part of the surveillance industry, but People Finder et. al., that charge money for the express purpose of letting you snoop on other people aren't?
My point isn't that we should make it illegal for people to be identifiable in public. My point is that instead of making it illegal for Google to index People Finder, it would be more logical to make People Finder illegal.
You know that phone books existed before Google, right? Your name, phone number, and address have not been considered private for most of history.
You know that in many territories, being in the phone book is/was opt in?
I'm not denying that this is theoretically possible, but I have never experienced nor heard of anyone for whom this was the case. It does not seem like it would be workable at all tbh.
Telecom companies in the UK (and possibly the rest of Europe) must opt you in.
Opt-out
In fact, City Directories were much more comprehensive, from the end of the 18th century. City Directories can contain people's exact home addresses, their occupations, and places of employment. The directories were a combined white pages-yellow pages even before the phone company got in on it.
Traditionally, in most small towns, privacy has meant something entirely different, because all the residents of a town knew everybody else's business, whether it was from open sharing, gossip, or low-tech spying. People in a small town do not have freedom of movement or freedom of anonymity. There is no crowd to blend into.
Traditionally, in most small towns, privacy has meant something entirely different, because all the residents of a town knew everybody else's business, whether it was from open sharing, gossip, or low-tech spying. People in a small town do not have freedom of movement or freedom of anonymity. There is no crowd to blend into.
Yep, surely you also know the world has changed dramatically since then too, especially in regards to information security. International automated scraping and spam, identity theft and even stalking are now international activities. People weren't under such high pressure from information threats in the ye olden days.
Name and phone numbers are Personally Identifying Information in most countries with strong privacy laws, for me I cannot store that info privately without consent let alone make it public.
Name and phone numbers are Personally Identifying Information in most countries with strong privacy laws, for me I cannot store that info privately without consent let alone make it public.
[deleted]
Think peoplefinder type websites. It's valid to question why they don't exclude this category of site.
maybe don't index peoplefinder?
Still doesn't work (since 9 months ago [1]): "Something went wrong and your request wasn't submitted. Check your internet connection and try again."
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33338188
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33338188
> Last year, we launched the Results about you tool to make it easy for you to request the removal of search results that contain your personal phone number
Might be because I'm not in the US but I'm getting a 404 there.
Might be because I'm not in the US but I'm getting a 404 there.
[deleted]
> You can access this tool in the Google app by clicking on your Google account photo and selecting “Results about you”, or by visiting goo.gle/resultsaboutyou. This tool is available in the U.S. in English to start, and we're working to bring it to new languages and locations soon.
Have to wait again
Have to wait again
There are several countries where Google is required to offer something along these lines by law rather than as a marketing stunt. Wikipedia has some info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten
I wonder if this will harm Google as a search engine even further. It's not as if they are removing the content, merely the index entry. Others will still return the result.
When the punchline of the joke is in the domain name…
The article itself includes a link [0] to yet another gTLD that I guess Google owns now, .gle . I have never seen this gTLD used before and had to double-check that the site I was looking at was indeed on the legit blog.google domain.
A while back there used to be advice from security folks to use a consistent set of domains for all communication from your company, so that when attackers/scammers/spammers try to impersonate your domains, users are more suspicious. A partial list of Google's gTLDs from https://ntldstats.com/registry/Charleston-Road-Registry-Inc :
.goog .google .gle .youtube .gmail .android .chrome .gbiz
I don't know how many of these are being used to host user-facing sites like [0], but they also have used at least g.co as a URL shortening service.
When you scatter-shot official communication like this, it trains users to believe that your comms can and will come from just about anywhere.
[0] https://goo.gle/resultsaboutyou
A while back there used to be advice from security folks to use a consistent set of domains for all communication from your company, so that when attackers/scammers/spammers try to impersonate your domains, users are more suspicious. A partial list of Google's gTLDs from https://ntldstats.com/registry/Charleston-Road-Registry-Inc :
.goog .google .gle .youtube .gmail .android .chrome .gbiz
I don't know how many of these are being used to host user-facing sites like [0], but they also have used at least g.co as a URL shortening service.
When you scatter-shot official communication like this, it trains users to believe that your comms can and will come from just about anywhere.
[0] https://goo.gle/resultsaboutyou
I agree on the .goog, .gle, etc.. but not on Android, YouTube, Gmail....
If companies consolidated at that level, you'd get notified by pepsi for a recall of tostitos... Or Aquafina bottled water.
I think if the general public can identify it as a specific product line, it's fine to have that as a communication domain (and that domain should be the source of news for that product)
If companies consolidated at that level, you'd get notified by pepsi for a recall of tostitos... Or Aquafina bottled water.
I think if the general public can identify it as a specific product line, it's fine to have that as a communication domain (and that domain should be the source of news for that product)
OP should've used a link shortener to avoid the spoiler
The wolf is in the henhouse giving advice to the hens.
We don't Sell your data, we give it away for free in the ad bidding process :D
> privacy tools
> blog.google
LOL
> blog.google
LOL
Read title: sounds interesting. See it's Google blog: lol.
> All in all, a shocking 93.7% of all online trackers are either from Google, Facebook, or Microsoft
This whole thread is horrible and puts HN in a totally different light for me
Google blogs how they try to make it easier for people remove revenge porn (and other bad stuff like doxxing) about themselves from search and help kids not randomly see porn online
Yet here we have techbros complain about omg those bad trackers
I hate google's evil tech stance, especially after they gave themselves permission to scrape the entire web to train their AI (and btw HN is totally silent about it) but revenge porn and doxxing are serious life-altering traumatizing things and happen to people who often have no recourse to deal with it
The nice explanation is zero people bothered to click and read, the less nice explanation is that techbro crowd probably has not as many victims of it than perpetrators, statistically
Google blogs how they try to make it easier for people remove revenge porn (and other bad stuff like doxxing) about themselves from search and help kids not randomly see porn online
Yet here we have techbros complain about omg those bad trackers
I hate google's evil tech stance, especially after they gave themselves permission to scrape the entire web to train their AI (and btw HN is totally silent about it) but revenge porn and doxxing are serious life-altering traumatizing things and happen to people who often have no recourse to deal with it
The nice explanation is zero people bothered to click and read, the less nice explanation is that techbro crowd probably has not as many victims of it than perpetrators, statistically
Yeah as long as they get to control the narrative around how to stay "safe" online stuff like this will be swept under the rug.
Can’t upvote this enough. The doublespeak out of corporations like Google is outrageous.
that right there is what they call a conflict of interest. or what we says down here "speakin out both sides o'yer yap"
[deleted]
Thank you Google. I have your phone still and this gaslighting episode is what has helped me finally decide to get rid of Android. Meaning I will no longer be using anything from Google by choice. I hope I can browse the web with their traffic blocked.
Apple is collecting a lot of data on you, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261
I will use GrapheneOS.
Still Google Software.
By that logic it still wouldn't be Google Software.
What? By which logic?
GrapheneOS is modified Google software. Almost everything in it is original software written by Google and distributed in hundreds if millions of Android systems.
GrapheneOS is modified Google software. Almost everything in it is original software written by Google and distributed in hundreds if millions of Android systems.
But open source and not compiled by Google. Much of that was somebody else's code before Google ingested and linked to it.
I don't think it's accurate to treat Google as an indelible taint.
Google's intentions are the problem, but they're fairly transparent so easy to bypass.
I don't think it's accurate to treat Google as an indelible taint.
Google's intentions are the problem, but they're fairly transparent so easy to bypass.
You didn't want to use Google software. All android distributions are Google software.
>Much of that was somebody else's code before Google ingested and linked to it.
Not really. True for certain parts, e.g. the kernel, but Android is absolutely Google made.
>I don't think it's accurate to treat Google as an indelible taint.
You didn't want to use Google software.
>Much of that was somebody else's code before Google ingested and linked to it.
Not really. True for certain parts, e.g. the kernel, but Android is absolutely Google made.
>I don't think it's accurate to treat Google as an indelible taint.
You didn't want to use Google software.
We're not zealots. Not wanting Google to have and sell my data is not the same as not wanting to touch any binary that has code from a Google engineer.
Stripping AOSP back, replacing external Google services, etc does that.
Stripping AOSP back, replacing external Google services, etc does that.
Android is modified Linux software.
No. Android is the Linux kernel with a huge amount of Java around it, which provide all the relevant services for a mobile phone.
Sure. GrapheneOS is the Android system with a huge amount of removed bullshit baked in, which provide all the meaningful privacy changes needed for a better mobile phone.
The point is to abandon Google in every way that is reasonably possible. I obviously don't see much of a difference with Apple, nor Microsoft. What options remain that are reasonable in the effort applied and remain plausible in a competitive world? My answer was GrapheneOS. Yours is?
The point is to abandon Google in every way that is reasonably possible. I obviously don't see much of a difference with Apple, nor Microsoft. What options remain that are reasonable in the effort applied and remain plausible in a competitive world? My answer was GrapheneOS. Yours is?
> What options remain that are reasonable in the effort applied and remain plausible in a competitive world?
Depends on what is reasonable for you. My answer would be GNU/Linux phones, Librem 5 and Pinephone. Their development direction is not dictated by Google.
Depends on what is reasonable for you. My answer would be GNU/Linux phones, Librem 5 and Pinephone. Their development direction is not dictated by Google.
[deleted]
The person who wrote:
"I will no longer be using anything from Google by choice. "
"I will no longer be using anything from Google by choice. "
funny, I cannot reach the site... "This site can’t be reached"
I am using quad9 DNS
I am using quad9 DNS
Since when have comments become so obnoxious on HN?
A very large portion of the population willingly and happily uses Google products. These new tools make it easier to remove unwanted data about yourself from search. That's a good thing.
Please stop it with the "Google bad" circle jerk and realize that the majority of non-nerds has a very different perspective on this.
A very large portion of the population willingly and happily uses Google products. These new tools make it easier to remove unwanted data about yourself from search. That's a good thing.
Please stop it with the "Google bad" circle jerk and realize that the majority of non-nerds has a very different perspective on this.
Circle jerk or not, Google is bad, and there's no reason why we shouldn't talk about that fact. Doesn't really matter if tons of people use Google products with whatever level of happiness they have.
Google is the perpetrator of serious privacy abuses, and we should rightly be skeptical any time they write about improving people's privacy online.
Google is the perpetrator of serious privacy abuses, and we should rightly be skeptical any time they write about improving people's privacy online.
Reasonable discussion of this would be fine. 90% of comments being snarky and adding absolutely nothing to the topic is not.
Because the blog post itself is also snarky and adds absolutely nothing to the topic either. The biggest tracking company in the world is talking about privacy controls, how else we are supposed to take that other than sarcasm?
I see your point, it's the low value posts that are the problem, which is lazy non-non-nerds not actually helping to explain why bad.
Let us have our non-non-nerd whinge about companies that are, legitimately, bad in terms of individual privacy, especially when they're publishing a blog article about protecting privacy.
You're not wrong about the non-nerds, but that's the same about anyone who doesn't possess the knowledge to know better.
If we didn't call it out, it would become normalised even faster. I can't live with that.
You're not wrong about the non-nerds, but that's the same about anyone who doesn't possess the knowledge to know better.
If we didn't call it out, it would become normalised even faster. I can't live with that.
if you missed a payment or end up at the collection agency, your private info get leaked online immediately
Why would you be indexing this information in the first place?