Google's plans usually have carefully laid out technical justifications, and are mostly kinda boringly/obviously good, like QUIC/HTTP3. That you're usually skeptical of any plan coming from Google suggests that your skepticism is miscalibrated.
Everything warrants skepticism until proven otherwise. Especially things that are being given out for free. Google might be operating on the up and up, but Google is just a large collection of people and some of them will be ethically lacking. And Google's employees have a large incentive to not see any issues with collecting all the personal information that exists.
> And Google's employees have a large incentive to not see any issues with collecting all the personal information that exists.
I can only speak from personal experience. But I would not agree.
Collection of data needs to be covered in a privacy document. You must argue why you're collecting it. There has to be a retention plan, such that data is purged when the user account is deleted, and/or the data expires over time.
You can of course get exemptions, IF there is a valid business reason. But all of this needs to be reviewed and approved by privacy people.
If you want to get things done. The paperwork is a strong incentive to avoid keeping data you don't need.
Note. privacy reviews cover more than I mentioned here. This was just a highlight.
> The paperwork is a strong incentive to avoid keeping data you don't need.
The paperwork is a modest incentive to avoid keeping data Google doesn't need. The problem is that what people need is not necessarily the same as what Google's surveillance and manipulation profit machine needs.
I don't need Google to keep a hyper-detailed record of every site I visit, but Google's business model means that they "need" to do it. So they do.
>> And Google's employees have a large incentive to not see any issues with collecting all the personal information that exists.
You see, Googlers are incentivized not to see the ethical catastrophe that is collecting the data they "need" to collect in order to implement and enhance Google's surveillance and manipulation profit machine.
Sure, if some data are irrelevant to the surveillance and manipulation profit machine, there is a modest incentive not to collect those data. The problem is that Google "needs" a great deal of highly personal, sensitive data whose aggregation poses societal risks that can hardly be overstated. But, since Google--and therefore, Googlers' salaries, bonuses, and RSU gains--"needs" those data, Googlers are incentivized to rationalize its collection, aggregation, and exploitation.
> “You can of course get exemptions, IF there is a valid business reasons.”
For an ad revenue driven business, that’s a pretty big exception.
Ad targeting / re-targeting benefits from a richer picture of the user’s personal life choices. Maybe only a couple percentage points, but every % of a billion adds up.
Your comment is 'dead' (at my time of posting) when you simply stated that you disagree and politely brought up some factual supporting points. I didn't expect such hivemind-like behavior from HN...
Internally, Google employees have quite a large incentive to NOT collect unnecessary data. It's a fundamental tenant. Don't collect any data unless it's for a specific tangible feature that benefits the user.
I think you're cherry picking. I'd say AMP and the consequent AMP for email are recent examples to the contrary. Nothing wrong with skepticism, especially directed at a company the size of Google.
It's easy to make proposals that incrementally increase user security while simultaneously increasing one's own ability to consolidate and exploit user data. Technical appeal needs to be evaluated with a simultaneous critical eye to social impact (QUIC is a perfect example -- it outcompetes TCP on an equivalent link, and falls apart over variable-latency or highly unreliable connections, like those that exist in developing nations -- but of course, Google doesn't care about those audiences).
I tend to call people out when they make claims that are not accurate.
> I care about what people _do_, not what they say in their PR blogs.
Did you read the blog? It's not just words, they are talking about products they have shipped. E.g. Files Go. You can believe what you want, but if you're going to big claims, you should back those up with credible data.
Further, we found that QUIC consumes significantly more than its fair share of bottleneck bandwidth when competing with TCP flows, which can be detrimental to a wide range of applications.
QUIC is at its essence an ARQ protocol, i.e. feedbacks are required to recover from packet losses. And this design choice then leads to inefficiencies when evaluating link conditions. And, in links where latency and losses are unstable, these limitations lead to a significant performance loss.
if you're going to big claims, you should back those up with credible data.
It does show QUIC falling apart with _out of order delivery_, however that is not something that latency or slow networks will produce. There is no reason to think that slow / third world countries have significantly more out of order delivery. The networks might be slower / have higher latencies, but packet order is likely to be the same.
That is different than dropped packets requiring retransmissions, but given QUIC and TCP both use the same congestion control algorithm (Cubic) there should be no difference on that score.
In terms of it being “unfair” when both types of streams are present that’s correct, but TCP with BBR also produces this kind of effect. It’s the algorithm used, not whether it’s QUIC or TCP, that causes this.
QUIC is not perfect, it’s still only at draft stage in the IETF. I’d be concerned that arguments like this are being made which, while seemingly well intentioned, have the effect of stifling innovation for all internet users.
You can bet that on a high latency link the fewer round-trips to set up a TLS connection with QUIC are gonna improve things.
The claim I was referencing was taking a weakness in protocol, and jumping to conclusions.
This would be the equivalent of one saying, "You don't care about the environment because you took a gas powered bus today". And then provide evidence about how busses are harmful to the environment, and provide details about busses emitting GHGs.
Likewise, you can't jump from a weakness in QUIC to big tech doesn't care about NBU.. when in reality, much of big tech pours so much engineering effort towards NBU (amongst other things). Files Go is a small example, and you can download the app here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and.... It is not vaporware.
I would love to see the evidence for this as well.
Instead of providing any you just attacked the person who questioned you?
What specifically about the transport layer in QUIC makes it perform poorly on high latency links? It’s going through the IETF now I’d be surprised if they were complicit in such a backwards move.
Forget about developing nations, there are plenty of parts of the US where mobile Internet is unreliable or altogether unavailable (I live in Utah, ask me how I know).
Google doesn't even care if you're a paying customer -- they sell phones without expandable storage with the explanation that customers should just use the cloud (i.e., Google Drive) instead.
Then buy a phone with expandable storage, that does run Google's operating system. That's the beauty of Google -- don't like their hardware? Buy one of the hundred other models.
It was just an example in support of the point made in the parent: as far as Google is concerned, the only people that matter are ones with unlimited, fast and reliable Internet access at all times without exception.
If you thought I was facing some kind of dilemma regarding whether or not to buy a phone that is useless half the time I leave my house, then thank you, but that's not the case.
Why are those plans "obviously good"?
They promote a view of the web that is all about piping a ton of content, sprinkled with ads, to passive consumers; just like TV.
I don't think I'm being generous. Google's large scale plans are mostly about making the internet and technology ecosystem faster, safer, and more widely available. Of course, this is because their revenue scales as a factor of the number of people using the internet, the number of pages each person using the internet browses, and the willingness of people to spend money on the internet. But don't let the motive distract from the plans. Consider the plans on their own merits.
Google's technical justifications are usually pathetically self-serving. My favorite example: Why have they not yet removed cookies from HTTP? There are obvious improvements to privacy if we switch to server-managed sessions chosen by user-provided identities, and get rid of cookies, but it would frustrate Google's tracking of us, so it can't happen.
