Google Trying to Rebrand as Privacy Oriented Company That Gives Users More Power Over Personal Data

(Starts at 37:25, right into the “privacy by design” bit.)

Google is now saying that “privacy by design” is one of their core principles.

If you believe that, then you may also be interested in the new Smart Bridge that Google is selling.

The Guardian:

Google is attempting a rebrand with a suite of new privacy controls that give people more power over their personal data – but the move may conflict with its core business of online search advertising.

Being able to target people based on data collected by Google about their interests or demographics has been immensely valuable for advertisers, but a growing number of people are becoming more privacy-conscious and there is pushback from regulators and rivals such as Apple.

As a result of the pressure, the company is now seeking to shift to a “privacy by design” approach to many of its products.

At Google’s I/O developer conference on Tuesday, the company announced new privacy measures including the ability for people to quickly delete the last 15 minutes of their search history, a new photos folder that is locked with password protection on Pixel and other Android devices and reminders on location tracking in Google Maps.

There will also be an improved password manager designed to be used across devices, and will alert users when a password they use is found in a data breach. This is something other password managers had been doing, but it is now integrated into Chrome.

New privacy controls on Android include keeping a history of which apps access the camera, microphone or location, as well as the ability to block some apps’ access to those functions, and only provide an approximate location to apps.

Last month Apple introduced new app tracking transparency controls, which now allow iPhone users to opt out of their actions being tracked across apps. According to data gathered on the change, only around 3% of users were opting in to being tracked by apps.

Google has previously said such a change could have a “significant impact” on ad revenue, and the company hasn’t announced anything similar for Android, as of yet. It said it was working on its “federated learning” model for determining how to target groups with specific interests, rather than individuals.

Telsyte principal analyst Foad Fadaghi said Google’s motives might be about heading off any potential future regulation.

The YouTube channel “Google Chrome Developers” has a video featuring Maud Nalpas, a Developer Relations Engineer, going into Google’s upcoming changes in more detail.

This is all a hoax.

Avoiding regulation and managing the public image are part of the same agenda. The government attempts to put in new regulation specifically to try to manage public outcry over the rampant privacy violations performed by these companies.

Moreover, some of the European regulators are a bit more serious than the American government, and it is easier for Google if they use one system across the board.

Needless to say: stay the hell away from Google, Facebook and any of these other data collection companies.

Google’s search engine is virtually completely worthless at this point anyway. They’ve engaged in such extreme censorship that they’ve broken the algorithm.

For a long time they held out on censoring the main search, because they knew if they started messing with it, it would break the entire thing. But they’ve done that now, and it’s just useless. Even the most non-political thing you can think of can’t be efficiently researched using Google.

Alternative search engines include DuckDuckGo and Yandex.

Yandex also has email. I doubt it’s very secure, but it’s better than Google.

YouTube is of course also totally worthless. But BitChute is getting better every day. (The site still looks like garbage of course, but I’m shocked at how well it works now. Anyway, you don’t need a site to look good when all you’re doing is clicking videos.)