The app is designed to view your call and message logs, not just your contacts. The BJP Indian government is a hard right Hindu nationalist one. As with all hard right groups and parties, they believe in no rights or freedoms other than their own. This government has incited sectarian violence to further its political aims and has begun to undermine democracy in a serious way by going after independent media and journalists (even deploying Trump's favourite catch phrase - "fake news").
What they're trying to do here is lay the groundwork and put in place the basic infrastructure of a surveillance state, so they can monitor everyone, especially those opposed to them. Spam is just a cover for it.
Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes. Like social security numbers in the U.S. Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world. All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed
Don't forget the AppStore and Google Play apps we all install. There's zippity that prevents developers from selling or otherwise sharing whatever data they manage to harvest from our use of them.
As usual, Apple is used to getting their way thru bullying, money, popularity, legal threats, and plain 'ol 1000lb gorilla arrogance. The rules don't apply to them. Sure, they dictate extremely restrictive rules in their walled garden regarding apps, but don't you DARE place any rules on THEM.
The app is designed to view your call and message logs, not just your contacts. The BJP Indian government is a hard right Hindu nationalist one. As with all hard right groups and parties, they believe in no rights or freedoms other than their own. This government has incited sectarian violence to further its political aims and has begun to undermine democracy in a serious way by going after independent media and journalists (even deploying Trump's favourite catch phrase - "fake news").
What they're trying to do here is lay the groundwork and put in place the basic infrastructure of a surveillance state, so they can monitor everyone, especially those opposed to them. Spam is just a cover for it.
Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes. Like social security numbers in the U.S. Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world. All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed
Don't forget the AppStore and Google Play apps we all install. There's zippity that prevents developers from selling or otherwise sharing whatever data they manage to harvest from our use of them.
Ha, there you are. Took you all of 20 minutes to find this post and respond. I guess it did have the word "google" in it.... ;-)
Clearly you're right, this is a concern. And yes, on ALL platforms.
But this isn't so much of an infrastructure problem as it's a social problem. For anyone interested in privacy, quite frankly your worst enemy is probably your friends and family. Every time they enter your personal information into their mobile devices (or their internet-connected computers) and then give various apps (and 3rd parties, most of which they don't even know exist, like baked-in analytics libraries, etc.) access to their Contacts, they are spewing your personal data all over the internet, to be packaged, sold, resold, analyzed and archived.
If a retail cashier asked each of their customers to please hand over the names and addresses and phone numbers and work titles and nicknames of all (or even just a couple) of their friends, most people wouldn't dream of doing so, even for a free coffee or raffle ticket or whatever. And yet, when various mobile apps as for this permission people don't give it a second thought, and it's basically the same thing. Worse even.
People need to be educated (and slapped around repeatedly, I think) not to give out other people's personal information without explicit permission. On a mobile device that means not giving ANY third party apps permission to access your Contacts. It's convenient, but terribly invasive and generally not even very transparent because of 4th party embedded libraries.
The app is designed to view your call and message logs, not just your contacts. The BJP Indian government is a hard right Hindu nationalist one. As with all hard right groups and parties, they believe in no rights or freedoms other than their own. This government has incited sectarian violence to further its political aims and has begun to undermine democracy in a serious way by going after independent media and journalists (even deploying Trump's favourite catch phrase - "fake news").
What they're trying to do here is lay the groundwork and put in place the basic infrastructure of a surveillance state, so they can monitor everyone, especially those opposed to them. Spam is just a cover for it.
Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes. Like social security numbers in the U.S. Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world. All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed
Don't forget the AppStore and Google Play apps we all install. There's zippity that prevents developers from selling or otherwise sharing whatever data they manage to harvest from our use of them.
Ha, there you are...
Clearly you're right, this is a concern. And yes, on ALL platforms.
Kudos to you too for moving far beyond *All Eyez on Google*
I remember a couple of years ago when Google was the only one you ever mentioned. We all had to watch them with eagle eyes. You seemingly thought no one else was worthy of discussion when it came to privacy.
I also remember lwhen you once upon a time downplayed the dangers of the data aggregators who sell our personal information for profit, some of whom have since then leaked hundreds of millions of personal accounts on the web. Probably yours too. I think you were seriously underestimating them. Ask yourself how a relatively unknown company operating out of offices in Palm Coast Florida was able to amass personal dossiers on hundreds of millions of unique people, selling your data and mine that includes "entries that go far beyond contact information and public records to include more than 400 variables on a vast range of specific characteristics: whether the person smokes, their religion, whether they have dogs or cats, and interests as varied as scuba diving and plus-size apparel".... and then leaking it all on the internet! Thanks Exactis.
You never used to mention the insurers and the health marketers and the financial institutions and other industry groups that maintain their own databases filled with our personal information to share amongst themselves.
And now you're making note of of the apps we're all installing on our phones and using day after day after day while the developers of some of them harvest, package, and sell what they learn about us to those data aggregators an industry databases who in my opinion are a far greater threat and make more of a financial impact on our lives than an advertising company who might not know you by anything other than an advertising ID number to begin with.
I think our conversations have been very beneficial
The app is designed to view your call and message logs, not just your contacts. The BJP Indian government is a hard right Hindu nationalist one. As with all hard right groups and parties, they believe in no rights or freedoms other than their own. This government has incited sectarian violence to further its political aims and has begun to undermine democracy in a serious way by going after independent media and journalists (even deploying Trump's favourite catch phrase - "fake news").
What they're trying to do here is lay the groundwork and put in place the basic infrastructure of a surveillance state, so they can monitor everyone, especially those opposed to them. Spam is just a cover for it.
Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes. Like social security numbers in the U.S. Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world. All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed
Don't forget the AppStore and Google Play apps we all install. There's zippity that prevents developers from selling or otherwise sharing whatever data they manage to harvest from our use of them.
Ha, there you are...
Clearly you're right, this is a concern. And yes, on ALL platforms.
Kudos to you too for moving far beyond *All Eyez on Google*
I remember a couple of years ago when Google was the only one you ever mentioned. We all had to watch them with eagle eyes. You seemingly thought no one else was worthy of discussion when it came to privacy.
I also remember lwhen you once upon a time downplayed the dangers of the data aggregators who sell our personal information for profit, some of whom have since then leaked hundreds of millions of personal accounts on the web. Probably yours too. I think you were seriously underestimating them. Ask yourself how a relatively unknown company operating out of offices in Palm Coast Florida was able to amass personal dossiers on hundreds of millions of unique people, selling your data and mine that includes "entries that go far beyond contact information and public records to include more than 400 variables on a vast range of specific characteristics: whether the person smokes, their religion, whether they have dogs or cats, and interests as varied as scuba diving and plus-size apparel".... and then leaking it all on the internet! Thanks Exactis.
You never used to mention the insurers and the health marketers and the financial institutions and other industry groups that maintain their own databases filled with our personal information to share amongst themselves.
And now you're making note of of the apps we're all installing on our phones and using day after day after day while the developers of some of them harvest, package, and sell what they learn about us to those data aggregators an industry databases who in my opinion are a far greater threat and make more of a financial impact on our lives than an advertising company who might not know you by anything other than an advertising ID number to begin with.
I think our conversations have been very beneficial
So many words, and written in a sideways-complimentary fashion, and yet so disingenuous. I bet you were the star of your debate club in high school. But it's ridiculously transparent to me.
I have NOT changed my view, or "moved beyond", or altered my thinking or behavior at all. I am consistent in both my views AND BEHAVIOR, unlike almost everyone I know, whether here or offline.
google has *never* been the only bad guy on the block, and they're probably not the most "evil" either. But they are still a huge problem, and you not only refuse to acknowledge this, but go to great lengths to paint them in a positive light whenever any mention of them comes up in a negative light. That's not just weird, it's creepy.
"who might not know you by anything other than an advertising ID number" made me laugh out loud. Your arguments are transparent in their motive, but this was surprising to read from you, because it's complete bullshit. Adding "might" makes it technically not a lie, but it's pure legal-speak. For all I know, you "might" be Donald Trump. See how I did that? They may not "sell" that information, but they most certainly have it in-house.
I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but the reason I poke at google and fb in particular isn't because they're necessarily worse actors than the data broker industry. In fact, I do call out companies like Acxiom in my many, many discussions and lectures on the topic. But g/fb are probably the two biggest reasons why people's behavior has been radically altered over the past 15 or so years. They have literally normalized sharing online and "trusting" 3rd parties with private communications and personal information.
At this point fb has lost a lot of the public trust, but they are so deeply ingrained in people's daily lives that it's hard for people to cut those ties. I've spoken with many people that say they don't trust fb, but they somehow feel they can't use any other means of communication with their friends and family. That's a sick amount of power.
And to reiterate the point above,
Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS*
undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of
unintended purposes. Like social security numbers in the U.S. Like the
data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world. All large scale
personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be
repurposed
You're still trying to make it seem like this doesn't apply to google, but it applies to EVERY company, EVERY agency, everywhere in the world. The bigger the database, the more inclusive, the better the "quality", the more dangerous it becomes over time. And google has one of the most comprehensive, best quality databases of human behavior and psychology in the history of our planet.
The data broker industry is shadowy and evil, but the googles and facebooks of the world are guilty of altering human behavior and normalizing database gathering-friendly behavior. Eventually laws can be created to rein in the data brokers (if we have the will), but it's going to be very, very difficult (maybe impossible) to roll back the changes to human psychology and behavior. That damage runs deep, to the core.
The app is designed to view your call and message logs, not just your contacts. The BJP Indian government is a hard right Hindu nationalist one. As with all hard right groups and parties, they believe in no rights or freedoms other than their own. This government has incited sectarian violence to further its political aims and has begun to undermine democracy in a serious way by going after independent media and journalists (even deploying Trump's favourite catch phrase - "fake news").
What they're trying to do here is lay the groundwork and put in place the basic infrastructure of a surveillance state, so they can monitor everyone, especially those opposed to them. Spam is just a cover for it.
Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes. Like social security numbers in the U.S. Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world. All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed
Don't forget the AppStore and Google Play apps we all install. There's zippity that prevents developers from selling or otherwise sharing whatever data they manage to harvest from our use of them.
Ha, there you are...
Clearly you're right, this is a concern. And yes, on ALL platforms.
Kudos to you too for moving far beyond *All Eyez on Google*
I remember a couple of years ago when Google was the only one you ever mentioned. We all had to watch them with eagle eyes. You seemingly thought no one else was worthy of discussion when it came to privacy.
I also remember lwhen you once upon a time downplayed the dangers of the data aggregators who sell our personal information for profit, some of whom have since then leaked hundreds of millions of personal accounts on the web. Probably yours too. I think you were seriously underestimating them. Ask yourself how a relatively unknown company operating out of offices in Palm Coast Florida was able to amass personal dossiers on hundreds of millions of unique people, selling your data and mine that includes "entries that go far beyond contact information and public records to include more than 400 variables on a vast range of specific characteristics: whether the person smokes, their religion, whether they have dogs or cats, and interests as varied as scuba diving and plus-size apparel".... and then leaking it all on the internet! Thanks Exactis.
You never used to mention the insurers and the health marketers and the financial institutions and other industry groups that maintain their own databases filled with our personal information to share amongst themselves.
And now you're making note of of the apps we're all installing on our phones and using day after day after day while the developers of some of them harvest, package, and sell what they learn about us to those data aggregators an industry databases who in my opinion are a far greater threat and make more of a financial impact on our lives than an advertising company who might not know you by anything other than an advertising ID number to begin with.
I think our conversations have been very beneficial
google has *never* been the only bad guy on the block, and they're probably not the most "evil" either.
"who might not know you by anything other than an advertising ID number" made me laugh out loud. Your arguments are transparent in their motive, but this was surprising to read from you, because it's complete bullshit. Adding "might" makes it technically not a lie, but it's pure legal-speak.
I believe you already know better so your overly pithy response is a tad surprising IMHO...
-Don't have an account with Google. That covers most of it. No account no personal connections. No BS.
-Don't sign into your Google account if you DO have one but still seriously uncomfortable with any data collection (why have the account in the first place tho). That too covers a lot of concerns but at the same time loses the personalization that makes most of the Google services more useful to you.
Some advice too about our personal devices, the iPhones and iPads and "other OS" smart devices and even the browsers we use on 'em: -Go thru your apps and delete any that you haven't used in the past 6 months. Even if they aren't shown to be a privacy threat (yet?) they aren't currently useful and no benefit to taking up space with them. You can always reinstall if you have a need. - Look at the permissions again for the ones you ARE regularly using. Make sure they only do what they claim, all the permissions seem necessary, and that you've not overlooked any oddities. - Look at your list of browser extensions and cull those like you have your apps. App and extension ownership can change and with it the types of data they collect when you use them. -And pay particular attention when privacy policies get updated. Thanks to the EU you should be getting those notifications more regularly and you shouldn't complain "gosh I didn't know" if you couldn't be bothered to read 'em.
By the way if any of our readers want to clean up their online presence and rid themselves of various and sundry online personal accounts that may be following them around try this site. It will email any of them (or all) that you want any data they maintain about you disposed of and your account erased, advising they no longer have permission to maintain any of it. It may surprise you how many you've left lying around: https://app.deseat.me
Finally, to see if someone you trusted, or maybe had never even heard of, was doing their job protecting what they know about you visit this site: https://haveibeenpwned.com/ Change passwords at least annually, and if you find yourself on that site do so immediately.
If I knew more about Facebook I'd offer advice on them too, but I don't. All I do know from my very limited exposure to them is that between them and Google Facebook looks to be at least 10 levels beyond in what they could know about their users. Who they're dating, whose kids are at softball, the health of Granddad, mom's cancer issue, the skanky girl dating someone's former boyfriend, videos of "that party", who beat up who and who got who pregnant, and accompanied by photo evidence with everyone's name tagged. It goes on and on. Everyone's problems and successes plastered on a Facebook digital billboard.
So rather than posting inferences and supposition and vague claims about who knows what about us why not try telling others what to do about it? Lots of complainers and FUD farmers around, but finding suggestions and links to resources that can help are too rare. Avoiding the internet altogether isn't a reasonable solution for most of us, and counting on using Apple as the protection from web evils and data mining ain't.
You're welcome, and that should be enough of the thread distraction anyway.
-Don't have an account with Google. That covers most of it. No account no personal connections. No BS.
I do wish you'd stop continuing to spread this misinformation. The simplistic data that google displays to their users do not reflect the full knowledge they have about their account holders (and non-account holders).
You conveniently ignored the rest (bulk) of my comment. - I am consistent in my understanding, behaviors and teachings (and yes, I do spend a lot of time in the real world helping others avoid this crap) - ALL large-scale human data gathering is dangerous in the long run. ALL companies/organizations. - google is indeed just one of many - google (and fb) has been a huge part of human behavioral changes; the normalization of sharing personal communications and activity with corporations who profit from that data. This is probably the worst part of what tech has done over the past 15+ years.
I do wish you'd stop continuing to spread this misinformation. The simplistic data that google displays to their users do not reflect the full knowledge they have about their account holders (and non-account holders).
I wish you'd not say something disputable is totally accurate without offering some support for it as I try to do.
Perhaps you could put a bit more effort into showing that what you want us all to believe is true before claiming I'm being dishonest and posting "misinformation" and "BS".
But ignoring for now that you've offered zero evidence for your claim beyond "you said it so it must be true", if you're correct and I'm not then the EU will shortly be advising us. Google like every other company with a European presence is now required to make available on demand whatever personally identifiable data they have connected to each of us, and offer options for controlling and/or correcting it. How do we know they'll tell us? It's open to audit by EU officials and I doubt they'll miss the chance to verify.
Personally I'm pretty confident I'm the one who has it closer to the truth.
- I am consistent in my understanding, behaviors and teachings (and yes, I do spend a lot of time in the real world helping others avoid this crap)
Then a couple of the links I gave you in my previous post should be a big assist with that effort.
One other thing to add if you're advising clients on how to avoid location tracking. For those with a Google account turning off location in settings is a great idea but does not necessarily turn off all location services, and in fairness Google does tell you that. An example would be using Google Maps. To completely turn off location logging for all Google services go to Data and Personalization>Web & App Activity on an Android device and toggle to "off".
On an iOS device go to your Google Account settings>Personal Info and Privacy>Activity Controls. Toggle Web and App Activity to "off". Now it really will be 100% off. IMO it's a bit deceptive the way companies handle some of these settings and all of them could improve. Google should start with making user settings much clearer and better grouped, and perhaps that would encourage others to do the same. As is it's not a particularly good thing the way Google currently does it.
The app is designed to view your call and message logs, not just your contacts. The BJP Indian government is a hard right Hindu nationalist one. As with all hard right groups and parties, they believe in no rights or freedoms other than their own. This government has incited sectarian violence to further its political aims and has begun to undermine democracy in a serious way by going after independent media and journalists (even deploying Trump's favourite catch phrase - "fake news").
What they're trying to do here is lay the groundwork and put in place the basic infrastructure of a surveillance state, so they can monitor everyone, especially those opposed to them. Spam is just a cover for it.
India is indeed setting up to be one of the strongest surveillance states, and their Aadhaar system clearly shows their intent. Not only is it pervasive (over 1 Billion enrollees), but it includes biometrics (fingerprints, facial scans, iris scans), name, date of birth, address. Because it is so widely used and required, data has been pushed out to many agencies, resulting in personal data actually being published by 210 different government web sites on the public internet. There's lots to read about, and lots to be worried about, not the least of which is that other countries have expressed interest in adopting Aadhaar.
Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes. Like social security numbers in the U.S. Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world. All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed, stolen, acquired by government orders or merely sold as part of changing business practices/goals. It's simply too valuable in so many ways over the long run to think otherwise.
Comments
Clearly you're right, this is a concern. And yes, on ALL platforms.
But this isn't so much of an infrastructure problem as it's a social problem. For anyone interested in privacy, quite frankly your worst enemy is probably your friends and family. Every time they enter your personal information into their mobile devices (or their internet-connected computers) and then give various apps (and 3rd parties, most of which they don't even know exist, like baked-in analytics libraries, etc.) access to their Contacts, they are spewing your personal data all over the internet, to be packaged, sold, resold, analyzed and archived.
If a retail cashier asked each of their customers to please hand over the names and addresses and phone numbers and work titles and nicknames of all (or even just a couple) of their friends, most people wouldn't dream of doing so, even for a free coffee or raffle ticket or whatever. And yet, when various mobile apps as for this permission people don't give it a second thought, and it's basically the same thing. Worse even.
People need to be educated (and slapped around repeatedly, I think) not to give out other people's personal information without explicit permission. On a mobile device that means not giving ANY third party apps permission to access your Contacts. It's convenient, but terribly invasive and generally not even very transparent because of 4th party embedded libraries.
I remember a couple of years ago when Google was the only one you ever mentioned. We all had to watch them with eagle eyes. You seemingly thought no one else was worthy of discussion when it came to privacy.
I also remember lwhen you once upon a time downplayed the dangers of the data aggregators who sell our personal information for profit, some of whom have since then leaked hundreds of millions of personal accounts on the web. Probably yours too. I think you were seriously underestimating them. Ask yourself how a relatively unknown company operating out of offices in Palm Coast Florida was able to amass personal dossiers on hundreds of millions of unique people, selling your data and mine that includes "entries that go far beyond contact information and public records to include more than 400 variables on a vast range of specific characteristics: whether the person smokes, their religion, whether they have dogs or cats, and interests as varied as scuba diving and plus-size apparel".... and then leaking it all on the internet! Thanks Exactis.
You never used to mention the insurers and the health marketers and the financial institutions and other industry groups that maintain their own databases filled with our personal information to share amongst themselves.
And now you're making note of of the apps we're all installing on our phones and using day after day after day while the developers of some of them harvest, package, and sell what they learn about us to those data aggregators an industry databases who in my opinion are a far greater threat and make more of a financial impact on our lives than an advertising company who might not know you by anything other than an advertising ID number to begin with.
I think our conversations have been very beneficial
I have NOT changed my view, or "moved beyond", or altered my thinking or behavior at all. I am consistent in both my views AND BEHAVIOR, unlike almost everyone I know, whether here or offline.
google has *never* been the only bad guy on the block, and they're probably not the most "evil" either. But they are still a huge problem, and you not only refuse to acknowledge this, but go to great lengths to paint them in a positive light whenever any mention of them comes up in a negative light. That's not just weird, it's creepy.
"who might not know you by anything other than an advertising ID number" made me laugh out loud. Your arguments are transparent in their motive, but this was surprising to read from you, because it's complete bullshit. Adding "might" makes it technically not a lie, but it's pure legal-speak. For all I know, you "might" be Donald Trump. See how I did that? They may not "sell" that information, but they most certainly have it in-house.
I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but the reason I poke at google and fb in particular isn't because they're necessarily worse actors than the data broker industry. In fact, I do call out companies like Acxiom in my many, many discussions and lectures on the topic. But g/fb are probably the two biggest reasons why people's behavior has been radically altered over the past 15 or so years. They have literally normalized sharing online and "trusting" 3rd parties with private communications and personal information.
At this point fb has lost a lot of the public trust, but they are so deeply ingrained in people's daily lives that it's hard for people to cut those ties. I've spoken with many people that say they don't trust fb, but they somehow feel they can't use any other means of communication with their friends and family. That's a sick amount of power.
And to reiterate the point above, You're still trying to make it seem like this doesn't apply to google, but it applies to EVERY company, EVERY agency, everywhere in the world. The bigger the database, the more inclusive, the better the "quality", the more dangerous it becomes over time. And google has one of the most comprehensive, best quality databases of human behavior and psychology in the history of our planet.
The data broker industry is shadowy and evil, but the googles and facebooks of the world are guilty of altering human behavior and normalizing database gathering-friendly behavior. Eventually laws can be created to rein in the data brokers (if we have the will), but it's going to be very, very difficult (maybe impossible) to roll back the changes to human psychology and behavior. That damage runs deep, to the core.
-Don't have an account with Google. That covers most of it. No account no personal connections. No BS.
-Don't sign into your Google account if you DO have one but still seriously uncomfortable with any data collection (why have the account in the first place tho). That too covers a lot of concerns but at the same time loses the personalization that makes most of the Google services more useful to you.
...so what if:
1. you want to use some Google service and
2. also want the added benefits of having a personal account?
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONTROLLING THE DARN THING. IT'S YOUR ACCOUNT
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/google-knows-literally-everything-about-you-heres-how-to-stop-it_uk_5abb68dde4b06409775b7d2b
Some advice too about our personal devices, the iPhones and iPads and "other OS" smart devices and even the browsers we use on 'em:
-Go thru your apps and delete any that you haven't used in the past 6 months. Even if they aren't shown to be a privacy threat (yet?) they aren't currently useful and no benefit to taking up space with them. You can always reinstall if you have a need.
- Look at the permissions again for the ones you ARE regularly using. Make sure they only do what they claim, all the permissions seem necessary, and that you've not overlooked any oddities.
- Look at your list of browser extensions and cull those like you have your apps. App and extension ownership can change and with it the types of data they collect when you use them.
-And pay particular attention when privacy policies get updated. Thanks to the EU you should be getting those notifications more regularly and you shouldn't complain "gosh I didn't know" if you couldn't be bothered to read 'em.
By the way if any of our readers want to clean up their online presence and rid themselves of various and sundry online personal accounts that may be following them around try this site. It will email any of them (or all) that you want any data they maintain about you disposed of and your account erased, advising they no longer have permission to maintain any of it. It may surprise you how many you've left lying around:
https://app.deseat.me
Finally, to see if someone you trusted, or maybe had never even heard of, was doing their job protecting what they know about you visit this site:
https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Change passwords at least annually, and if you find yourself on that site do so immediately.
If I knew more about Facebook I'd offer advice on them too, but I don't. All I do know from my very limited exposure to them is that between them and Google Facebook looks to be at least 10 levels beyond in what they could know about their users. Who they're dating, whose kids are at softball, the health of Granddad, mom's cancer issue, the skanky girl dating someone's former boyfriend, videos of "that party", who beat up who and who got who pregnant, and accompanied by photo evidence with everyone's name tagged. It goes on and on. Everyone's problems and successes plastered on a Facebook digital billboard.
So rather than posting inferences and supposition and vague claims about who knows what about us why not try telling others what to do about it? Lots of complainers and FUD farmers around, but finding suggestions and links to resources that can help are too rare. Avoiding the internet altogether isn't a reasonable solution for most of us, and counting on using Apple as the protection from web evils and data mining ain't.
You're welcome,
and that should be enough of the thread distraction anyway.
You conveniently ignored the rest (bulk) of my comment.
- I am consistent in my understanding, behaviors and teachings (and yes, I do spend a lot of time in the real world helping others avoid this crap)
- ALL large-scale human data gathering is dangerous in the long run. ALL companies/organizations.
- google is indeed just one of many
- google (and fb) has been a huge part of human behavioral changes; the normalization of sharing personal communications and activity with corporations who profit from that data. This is probably the worst part of what tech has done over the past 15+ years.
Perhaps you could put a bit more effort into showing that what you want us all to believe is true before claiming I'm being dishonest and posting "misinformation" and "BS".
But ignoring for now that you've offered zero evidence for your claim beyond "you said it so it must be true", if you're correct and I'm not then the EU will shortly be advising us. Google like every other company with a European presence is now required to make available on demand whatever personally identifiable data they have connected to each of us, and offer options for controlling and/or correcting it. How do we know they'll tell us? It's open to audit by EU officials and I doubt they'll miss the chance to verify.
Personally I'm pretty confident I'm the one who has it closer to the truth.
Then a couple of the links I gave you in my previous post should be a big assist with that effort.
One other thing to add if you're advising clients on how to avoid location tracking. For those with a Google account turning off location in settings is a great idea but does not necessarily turn off all location services, and in fairness Google does tell you that. An example would be using Google Maps. To completely turn off location logging for all Google services go to Data and Personalization>Web & App Activity on an Android device and toggle to "off".
On an iOS device go to your Google Account settings>Personal Info and Privacy>Activity Controls. Toggle Web and App Activity to "off". Now it really will be 100% off. IMO it's a bit deceptive the way companies handle some of these settings and all of them could improve. Google should start with making user settings much clearer and better grouped, and perhaps that would encourage others to do the same. As is it's not a particularly good thing the way Google currently does it.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/telecom-news/coai-to-examine-implications-of-supreme-court-verdict-on-aadhaar-linkage-with-mobile-connections/articleshow/65970309.cms