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A comment on Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B. Parent comment

Re:Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B by pbhjpbhj on Friday November 01, 2019 @01:06PM (#21421124)
If you're actually a new engineer you might want to check your company policy on communicating details of internal systems in public; your external communications people probably don't allow you to speak about such things ... on the other hand, if you are allowed to talk about such things then you're probably just a persona adopted by someone in external comms.

Take care!

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Re:Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B by onlyrealcuzzo on Friday November 01, 2019 @01:14PM (#21421248)
It's not a trade secret that we store data. I'm not giving away anything that isn't already public information. This is literally me giving a summary of our Terms of Use.

As far as I know, I'm allowed to say that: people I work with tend to be liberal. As far I know, I'm also allowed to say that: people I work with tend to view data as a liability not an asset. It's also public information that Google receives billions of requests per day. For me to extrapolate on that and say that even storing a single bit of data on those logs starts to add up and cost a lot of money isn't a trade secret either. It's common sense.

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Re:Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B by pbhjpbhj on Friday November 01, 2019 @01:39PM (#21421595)
Upthread you appeared to be making definite statements about exactly what information Google shares, you also mention working for the company which suggests you're speaking authoritatively and in a way that is endorsed by the company (and that's why external comms people don't like it).

A couple of actionable statements

- you don't store anything for more than 30 days (that doesn't mesh with analytics data which might be de-anonymisable IMO).

- you don't do any facial tracking. Which doesn't surprise me too much but I can imagine a future trial where a barrister is saying "your engineers claimed in public you didn't do this sort of tracking" and that providing extras jeopardy for damages.

It's not my area, however, I appreciate the openness. Thanks for sharing.

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