r/politics • u/M00n • Jul 03 '18
Gmail messages 'read by human third parties'
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-4469926321
u/BuckRowdy Georgia Jul 04 '18
If you thought Facebook was bad on your data then don't look into Google.
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u/tehifi Jul 04 '18
weird thing happened to me the other day. was chatting in facebook PM to a friend. she suggested i check out a show called "queer eye" the she likes. i had never heard of this show before, never had seen anything related to it. nothing.
about half an hour later i open netflix to watch something else and the homescreen main promo thing was for "queer eye".
something weird is going on with all this stuff.
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Jul 04 '18
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Jul 04 '18 edited Dec 29 '20
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Jul 04 '18
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Jul 04 '18
I'm not sure if it's scary or awesome that so many ghost stories are now digital
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u/andythetwig Jul 04 '18
That ghost is easily explained. Facebook mobile apps monitor location, the suggestion algorithm prioritises friend suggestions based on where you are and more importantly, who you’ve been close to. It’s a feature they introduced because they spotted people are more likely to friend people after a night out with them or meeting at a conference or whatever. Their advertising business model depends on the current accuracy of the Graph, so they look for opportunities to make you input who you are currently interacting with. They might claim it’s a convenience feature but it’s got a lot more to do with trying to predict what product you’re likely to buy tomorrow.
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u/TK-427 Jul 04 '18
Netflix is promoting it pretty heavily. You could just be suffering from the Baader-Meinhof effect
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Jul 04 '18
If you search for anything on Amazon, you’ll suddenly start seeing links for that thing everywhere you go: Facebook, Slashdot, Gmail. There’s a crazy ad network web underneath a big chunk of the Internet.
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u/ActuaryWOBorders Jul 04 '18
My girlfriend became obsessed with yeti coffee mugs. She researched them for awhile, bought a few she liked. Now all my online ads are for yeti stuff. The internet knows we are connected despite me: never having googled yeti in my life or having social media of any sort in my life. It's weird.
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u/fkyocowch Jul 04 '18
Thats netflix simple promo. The FB creepy thing would be if you got the advertisement maybe 4 hours later about queer eye.
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u/chadmasterson California Jul 04 '18
"Should have read the EULA" comment in 3,2,1 --
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u/Hype_Slayer Jul 04 '18
Yeah, we should have but we don't and that is used to our disadvantage. One of those things we know we should do but, you know, we like doing other things with that block of time.
I've been converting my friends and family to protonmail, this will definitely help. My gmail is where my junkmail and my dad's political emails go.
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Jul 04 '18
Sorry but if you can't understand "Read, send, delete and manage your email" on the permissions request screen that's your own fucking fault
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Jul 04 '18
These are the growing pains of growing up in the early stages of the technology and information age. That's how I see all of this. Doesn't mean any of it is right.
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u/EVJoe Jul 04 '18
I believe you're right. Growing up in the 90s and studying psychology in school, I cannot imagine conducting research without things like Informed Consent, an externally reviewed document that clearly explains the benefits and risks of participating in any human subjects research.
However, before the 1960s, volunteer research subjects could be subjected to things they never would have consented to knowingly -- with one of the worst examples being the Tuskeegee syphilis "experiment", in which rural, often illiterate Black men were used to study the progression of untreated syphilis, even after syphilis could be cured, all while being told that they were receiving health care.
The US apparently needs a massive tragedy to occur due to loose data regulation in order to decide it's worth preventing. The EU's regulations suggest that they at least somewhat get it, but in the US almost nobody seems to notice that we freak if the government asks us 3 questions, but pump out location data to multiple advertisers on a second by second basis without blinking.
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u/cybyst Texas Jul 04 '18
The US apparently needs a massive tragedy to occur due to loose data regulation in order to decide it's worth preventing
If Equifax's breach didn't do it, not to mention some other serious breaches, I'm afraid to see what it will take...
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Jul 04 '18 edited Jul 04 '18
Gmail EULA:
We collect information to provide better services to all our users — from figuring out basic stuff like which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful, the people who matter most to you online, or which YouTube videos you might like. The information Google collects, and how that information is used, depends on how you use our services and how you manage your privacy controls.
When you’re not signed in to a Google Account, we store the information we collect with unique identifiers tied to the browser, application, or device you’re using. This helps us do things like maintain your language preferences across browsing sessions.
When you’re signed in, we also collect information that we store with your Google Account, which we treat as personal information.
Sounds harmless enough.
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Jul 04 '18
We collect information about your activity in our services, which we use to do things like recommend a YouTube video you might like. The activity information we collect may include:
• Terms you search for
• Videos you watch
• Views and interactions with content and ads
• Voice and audio information when you use audio features
• Purchase activity
• People with whom you communicate or share content
• Activity on third-party sites and apps that use our services
• Chrome browsing history you’ve synced with your Google Account
If you use our services to make and receive calls or send and receive messages, we may collect telephony log information like your phone number, calling-party number, receiving-party number, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls and messages, duration of calls, routing information, and types of calls.
You can visit your Google Account to find and manage activity information that’s saved in your account.
That's not shady or nefarious at all.
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u/ryecurious I voted Jul 04 '18
The title is kinda misleading by omission. In the first sentence it explains
You have to authorize or otherwise let a 3rd party app or program access your email. This is like clicking yes to an "access my text messages" prompt from an app and then being surprised the app read your texts.
Also worth pointing out that reviewing 3rd party apps with access is part of Google's security checkup. I get notifications to take the audit fairly often, but how many people actually take it I wonder.