Re:EU launches probe into Google-Fitbit takeover
by ocdtrekkie on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @11:00AM
(#24050638)
Security also depends on your threat model: Who are you worried about accessing your data. (Privacy and security are actually two sides of the same coin.) You do not want hackers accessing your data, because they do bad things with it. I also don't want Google accessing my data, because they do bad things with it. Google uses data to harm competitors (of which I am not, thankfully) and people who speak ill of them[0] (which... yeah) so I should probably be pretty concerned about them knowing much about me.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/31/google-...
Re:EU launches probe into Google-Fitbit takeover
by wstrange on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @05:56PM
(#24054914)
The temporary removal of that app (its back now) had nothing to do with retaliation. I have a hard time believing that Google leadership would be that stupid.
See https://www.androidauthority.com/blue-mail-play-store-114347...
Re:EU launches probe into Google-Fitbit takeover
by ocdtrekkie on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @12:28AM
(#24057255)
Obviously, Google isn't going to admit that it did it out of retaliation, but an app doesn't get dropped for having "similarities to another mail app" after six years, two days after it's known they're speaking to Congress about Google's antitrust abuses. That takes an incredible stretch of the imagination.
This is called an "oops". Mozilla is well aware of how Google "accidentally" harms other companies repeatedly to gain an advantage: https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...
Re:EU launches probe into Google-Fitbit takeover
by take_a_breath on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @10:40AM
(#24050447)
Sounds like a single point of failure as opposed to distributing the risk across multiple companies.
Re:EU launches probe into Google-Fitbit takeover
by rrdharan on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @10:49PM
(#24067707)
Yep, totally. I am fine with concentrating my risk on a big company with a huge target on its back (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon) but with enough money (and enough profit to protect) that they can correspondingly afford to compete effectively in the security arms race.
There are economies of scale to security just like with anything else.
The accusations are certainly well known (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_regarding_G...).
Whether anything here constitutes misuse is a matter of both personal opinion (yours being very well known of course given your thoughts and comments about Google) as well as various laws but that doesn't make any of it a universally accepted truth or standard.
In my case I'm much more worried about security than privacy, and far more willing to trade off the privacy (more targeted ads) for the increased security - Google's infrastructure is way more likely to be properly secured vs. Joe Random wearables startup, or even Garmin, as a recent example...