It's rare if some random webpage doesn't talk to Google servers, be it analytics, fonts, CAPTCHAs, "sign in with Google" buttons or whatever. And they're in every other smartphone. And they handle lots of payments. And so on.
Facebook, on the contrary, rarely shows up. Sometimes there are like buttons, but I'd say they're rare. Or maybe I'm visiting the kind of sites where they're rare.
They may try to spam me (usually with some "you have new friend suggestion" with another person I've never ever met) but not like my mail filters care about that. And I occasionally log in there to check if someone had posted something (usually nope). I fed it some public information, never ever fed it anything non-public (not just private but non-public - even though I tag some public stuff as "private" there is no harm if that becomes public), and don't post anything there myself.
I'm going to say a heresy but... that's feels basically harmless (and absolutely useless) to me.
And while Google is much more omnipresent (no argument there!), at least their tactics involve letting the users do what they would normally do, even if they're spying in on it. Google might be watching, but at least they aren't controlling.
Yeah, I guess you're right - Facebook is insistent on suggesting their way of doing things, constantly trying to tell me what to read and what to do.
---
In my personal experiences they have failed, though.
All their suggestions were way off and totally useless. So I just auto-ignore their mails, dismiss the notifications just by type without checking and whatever and use only what I want to use (they have some good uses).
Heck, even their Android apps are so awful, so even though I wanted some of features they sort of forced me to not install any apps and just use a browser. ;)
How is this even remotely possible given the advertising duopoly?
I really always thought it's monopoly - just Google. With some small or local vendors (e.g. Yandex ads are huge on Russian-language resources) here and there, but mostly just Google.
See this:
https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/01/09/amazon-ad-tech-laun...
and:
https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-alexa-development-kit/
> they've created a new division called Alexa Voice Services, which builds hardware and software with the aim of making it stupendously easy to add Alexa into whatever ceiling fan, lightbulb, refrigerator, or car someone might be working on. "You should be able to talk to Alexa no matter where you're located or what device you're talking to," says Priya Abani, Amazon's director of AVS enablement. "We basically envision a world where Alexa is everywhere."
And even then, it's only reaching into the IoT crowd and leaving the rest untouched; compare to Google with Gmail and Calendar, that are trying to get the entirety of internet users.
That might change; that probably will change, but at least for now their given ends seem to be in harmony with their business model. That's why I still don't trust them, and personally I avoid using them almost entirely (I aim to keep only to Amazon Video, since its provides competition to Netflix).
This is better, people are paying to buy the device that'll profile them in their home.
? Microsoft ?
Apple is a hardware and cloud company. Their incentive is to get you to buy phones and computers and lock you into their ecosystem. Some shameful behavior, but nothing that's not to be expected. Trustworthy, but in need of the occasional reprimanding.
Amazon is a middle man company. They connect sellers to buyers and interact with you to get you to use their platform. Over the past ten years they've dipped into a bunch of other markets as well, but I don't think it's affected why they collect information so far. Untrustworthy, minorly invasive, but not malicious. Yet.
Google wants to know everything about you so they can profit from your data when selling advertisements, and do so by inserting themselves into everything you do. Your calendar, your email, your browser; any place where they can squeeze in a call to their servers. Untrustworthy and highly invasive, but not malicious.
Facebook, like Google, wants to know everything about you so they can sell that data to advertisers. But whereas Google attempts to integrate itself into your natural flow of life, Facebook tries to change your behavior so that you interact with it more often. Facebook actually wants to control you. Untrustworthy, highly invasive, and malicious.
Microsoft is in the process of reinventing itself and it's too early to tell what sort of trust it will deserve, if any. But I don't think anyone is preaching optimism.