Degoogling my life

Privacy is a human right, when so much of our life is lived online. In my opinion, the two most evil companies on the planet with a blatant disregard for privacy because it is so fundamental to their business model are: Facebook (and by extension, WhatsApp and Instagram) and Google. A common argument against the need for privacy that I have definitely heard in my family is “but I have nothing to hide”. Well, neither do I and yet so does everyone. Does anyone really appreciate searching on Google for a vacuum cleaner and then seeing photos of vacuum cleaners follow them around all over the web for months afterwards? But I digress: I made a conscious decision to gradually rid myself of Google (Facebook was easier: just delete the app.) to the extant possible.

I spent quite some time researching alternatives to each of Google services, and the list below tabulates what I have settled on. Importantly, I have reached the conclusion that viable (and often superior) alternatives exist. Nothing in life is free: one can pay with one’s privacy or with cash. It is no surprise this that most of these below are paid services. Personally, I am more than happy to support businesses where I know what I am paying for and my data is not being pilfered to create some Frankensteinian advertising profile on me.

https://thefiringneuron.com/2021/01/17/degoogling-my-life/

#degoogling #google #DeleteGoogle #privacy #thinkabout
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How to leave Google and why

You should already know how big tech companies like Google or Facebook are using your private data to make revenue from targeted ads (and sometimes maybe sell it under the hood without your knowledge). There is no secret about data being the most valuable asset on earth now - even exceeding the oil.

Why ?

Some people say "I have nothing to hide, I don't care" which is essentialy ignoring basic human right and making this right worthless to you and very precious to others. We are already living in Cyberpunk era and the world is starting to be led by big organizations rather than governments so let's try to prepare ourselves and start to care about our data.

I think Google and Facebook are particulary bad when it comes to the data - we all heard about Cambridge Analytica and lately about Whatsapp scandal. Removing Facebook account is slightly easier than moving away from your Google account. It's impossible to just toggle some settings and let go your gmail address, google search, photos, youtube - pretty much your entire digital life.

Recently Google changed their policy for storing photos. Starting from July 2021 you won't have unlimited High Quality storage as before rather than 15GB limit. This is still okay in terms of space but the politics behind it is just disgusting. Google was effectively feeding it's photo AI algorithms for face detection and tagging for years now using user data obtained by giving up the service for free. Now when these algorithms got so good and it's almost impossible to make them better and Google don't need users anymore they switched to make some money from the service.

https://jach.me/how-to-leave-google

💡 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46618582

💡 https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/06/the-worlds-most-valuable-resource-is-no-longer-oil-but-data

💡 https://www.wired.com/story/google-tracks-you-privacy/

💡 Degoogling my life
https://t.me/BlackBox_Archiv/1640

#degoogling #google #DeleteGoogle #privacy #thinkabout #why
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Google employees around the world have formed a new international union alliance called Alpha Global

Google employees have banded together to form an international union alliance, weeks after the formation of the minority Alphabet Workers Union in the US.

This new international entity, called Alpha Global, has been formed with the UNI Global Union, a movement representing more than 20 million workers worldwide, and which is active in 10 countries, including the US, Germany, Sweden, and the UK.

It isn't clear how many temporary or contract workers with Google have joined Alpha Global, and it is likely to be a small fraction of the company's workforce at this stage. The Verge, which first reported the new union alliance, reports that the new entity won't have any legal bargaining power with Google.

Similarly in the US, the Alphabet Workers Union is a minority union meaning it cannot bargain with management and is not recognized by the US National Labor Relations board. It has more than 600 members, out of Google's estimated 130,000 contractors and temp workers.

Still, the emergence of Alpha Global indicates that white-collar workers at big tech firms are looking to cement an emerging wave of organization.

In a joint statement published on Monday, Alpha Global's officials said: "[Many] Alphabet workers have started on a path to unionization and collective bargaining. Workers are building democratic organizations to represent their interests, to struggle collectively, to create a structural counterbalance to corporate power, and to build a movement of tech workers across the industry."

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-union-technology-alphabet-workers-alpha-global-2021-1

#google #DeleteGoogle #alphabet #workers #union #global #AlphaGlobal #thinkabout #why
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Google couldn't sign me in, so I signed out, indefinitely

I saw the above warning using Vivaldi: a successful and powerful Chromium based browser. There's nothing insecure about it. I tried to fix the problem by disabling all extensions, clearing all browser data, and enabling “less secure app access” in the Google account settings. Alas. The only solution I found was reinstalling the browser. But after having done so—five times—each time when clearing the cookies, or enabling a VPN, it wouldn't let me sign in again. Then the following email found my inbox.

“Someone knows the password to your linked Google Account”… Me. It was me! Obviously I know the password to my linked Google account. Forced to change my password I was duly annoyed. I realized how dependent I was. If Google unpredictably revokes access to your account, you can't log into anything else of their services: YouTube, Gmail, Play Store, Docs, Drive, Calendar, etc. Fortunately I already did a partial Google and social media exodus. Nevertheless, even when only using YouTube and Google Play, losing access startled me. Therefore, because I don't want to be put in this position again, I completed the exodus: discarding the need for a Google account.

A quick aside, I have nothing against monopolies as a general rule. Usually they grow so big because of a significantly superior service (1). But as convenient as they may be—even though their products aren't superior anymore—if their power goes to their head and they start pulling insidious shenanigans, like using false claims to deter people from browsers other than Chrome, then I'm out.

So that's exactly what I did and I was pleasantly surprised by the results. Believe it or not but my phone is more responsive and the battery lasts longer. Although the former might be due to the factory reset, I assume the latter has to do with the decrease in background processes due to 1. removing my Google account 2. subsequently disabling Google Play Store 3. disabling everything in the settings tab called Google services & preferences. Digital minimalism, it's so incredibly satisfying. You should try it. Your life was perfectly fine before you had all that extra stuff to worry about (or pay for); I learnt that from my teacher, Diogenes of Sinope, 404 – 323 BC.

https://www.quitfacebook.org/file/google.html

#google #DeleteGoogle #quitgoogle #alternatives #thinkabout
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Google wants to connect everything you own to the internet

Surveilling older adults, connected helmets, wearables talking to doctors and other patents from Big Tech.

Hello and welcome back to the world of zany patents from Big Tech! While 2020 is still dragging on (I know it's 2021, but you can't tell me 2020 is over until I can go anywhere other than the grocery store), at least there are still great new patents to uncover. And there's some fascinating ones this week, including Facebook wanting to make clothes like real in games, Microsoft trying to make sports more inclusive and Google wanting to make it easier to spy on your parents. If that's something you want to do.

And remember: The big tech companies file all kinds of crazy patents for things, and though most never amount to anything, some end up defining the future.

⚠️ Alphabet - Surveilling older adults

⚠️ Making analog products digital

⚠️ Keeping your doctor in the loop

⚠️ Amazon - Autonomous avoiding

⚠️ Apple - Detecting traffic wardens

⚠️ Facebook - Simulating clothing

⚠️ Microsoft - An automatic travel diary

⚠️ Bringing sports to visually-impaired people

⚠️ Icebreakers on social media

https://www.protocol.com/google-patents-internet-everything

#google #DeleteGoogle #microsoft #amazon #DeleteAmazon #patents #bigtech #surveillance #thinkabout

Never Google (your symptoms) 😂

#google #DeleteGoogle #video

This browser extension shows what the Internet would look like without Big Tech

A web without Google, Facebook, Microsoft, or Amazon

The Economic Security Project is trying to make a point about big tech monopolies by releasing a browser plugin that will block any sites that reach out to IP addresses owned by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, or Amazon. The extension is called Big Tech Detective, and after using the internet with it for a day (or, more accurately, trying and failing to use), I’d say it drives home the point that it’s almost impossible to avoid these companies on the modern web, even if you try.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/24/22297686/browser-extension-blocks-sites-using-google-facebook-microsoft-amazon

💡 https://bigtechdetective.net/

#DeleteGoogle #delete #microsoft #amazon #browser #plugin #extension #tool
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Google says once third-party cookies are toast, Chrome won't help ad networks track individuals around the web

Notes an 'erosion of trust' – gee, wonder who could be responsible for that...

Google says it will not come up with new ways to track individual netizens as they browse the web once Chrome phases out third-party cookies, commonly used for loosely observing people's online activities.

In effect, the browser will not provide ad networks – and Google runs a very large one – alternative identifiers that can be used to follow individuals around the web, though it's not clear exactly how this will impact Google, which already has a variety of ways to shadow internet users.

Early last year, Google announced a plan to kill off third-party cookies, often used to associate you with the websites you visit so that adverts tailored to your interests can be shown on pages. Google made the move after other major browser makers decided to block third-party cookies by default because the little scraps of data can be abused to subvert privacy, and after regulators made it clear they had concerns about ad tech giants Google and Facebook.

Google aims to replace third-party cookies with its Privacy Sandbox, an umbrella term for a set of proposals from Google and other ad tech firms, to allow behavioral ad targeting to continue without individualized tracking identifiers.

Instead, the ad goliath intends to target broad groups of netizens defined by a common interest – eg, jazz fans – through a system called FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts), and at narrower groups defined by past interest-based interaction, through a scheme called FLEDGE (First "Locally-Executed Decision over Groups.")

Google plans to start testing FLoC-based cohorts publicly via origin trials in next month's release of Chrome and to make testing available for advertisers in Q2.

The idea has alarmed the ad industry, which isn't keen to give up the ability to track people and has proposed alternatives like a new identifier based on data like email addresses, normally classified as personal information.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/03/google_internet_tracking_pledge/

#google #DeleteGoogle #internet #tracking #advertising #cookies #chrome #browser #thinkabout #why
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Google advised mental health care when workers complained about racism and sexism

"I can think of 10 people that I know of in the last year that have gone on mental health leave because of the way they were treated," said one employee.

Benjamin Cruz, a former instructional designer in Google’s Cloud division, was caught off guard when a colleague told them that their skin was much darker than she expected.

Cruz, who is Mexican American and prefers to be identified by the pronouns they/them, reported the incident to human resources in 2019 where personnel told them they should “assume good intent,” Cruz recalled in an interview. Unsatisfied, Cruz asked human resources to look deeper into the incident, and an HR official said an investigation into the matter had been closed, Cruz said.

So, Cruz sought help from human resources again. The solution? Urge Cruz to take medical leave and tend to their mental health before moving to a new role in the company. Cruz went on medical leave, and hoped to take the company up on its offer for a new position, they said. But Cruz was turned down from every role they applied for, so they were forced to quit.

“After I made that complaint, my work started getting pushed out from under me, but my team acted like everything was fine. I wanted to find help,” Cruz said. “When the medical leave was recommended to me, it was like an automatic process.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-advised-mental-health-care-when-workers-complained-about-racism-n1259728

#google #DeleteGoogle #thinkabout #why

Google and Facebook Killed Free

Is the mania for subscriptions a choice, or the only path in an ad system dominated by giants?

We’re constantly being nudged to pay to subscribe.

There are all those paid streaming video and music services. News organizations, including The New York Times, want subscribers. Your favorite dating site, email service or messaging app might also ask you to pay for stuff you once got free. Paid subscriptions are nothing new, but increasingly they seem to be the future of everything.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/technology/google-and-facebook-killed-free.html

#subscriptions #google #facebook #DeleteFacebook #DeleteGoogle #thinkabout #why
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