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As we guessed, it seems that despite Google saying they were not making recordings of people's voices and mining them for advertisers, they were doing exactly that.
If it was a colleague caught wiretapping the workplace, we'd have them sacked and never speak to nor trust them again. In the case of Google, it's even more personal.
No Google service is free. We are the terrain they extract from. We always pay.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-voice-assistant-lawsuit-settlement-68-million/
"The lawsuit alleges that the software sometimes mistook background speech or ambient sounds for the activation phrase, leading to recordings of conversations users believed were private."
@JulianOliver No, they've not been found to do exactly that.
"Users allege that the assistant sometimes activates unintentionally"
"Google denied the allegations as part of the settlement process and said it agreed to resolve the case to avoid the cost and uncertainty of continued litigation."
Facts matter.
@troed Indeed it "seems" they have been doing this. Their veritable army of lawyers were unable to present any viable evidence to the contrary.
From greenwashing big oil to tax avoidance, numerous cases of patent infringement & antitrust, censorship, working with IDF to help target Palestinians (Project Nimbus), their key role in the NSA's PRISM programme++ this is a company with a prolific history of lying, deceit & gaslighting.
I would not give them benefit of the doubt on this one, either.
@JulianOliver "we are the terrain they extract from". damn. that's a phrase.
@JulianOliver @nicklockwood There is no confirmation in this article that Google was actually doing this.
My guess is that Google did not want to enter the discovery phase which is costly and can end up revealing embarrassing stuff not even related to the case. It is pretty common for companies to settle to avoid getting to that point.
@JulianOliver It should be noted that at Infomaniak we also offers collaborative solutions comparable to those of Google (Mail, Drive, Calendar, Video, etc.), all without advertising, without reselling data, and based in Europe.
@JulianOliver Imagine speeding at 100 km/h in a 30 km/h residential zone and being fined €0.01 for the offence.
@JulianOliver @lennart The crazy thing is that there are plenty of alternatives to Google.
The only Google service I still use is YouTube and I know they are mining and likely selling information about my viewing habits. But at least they're not stealing my content, eavesdropping on conversation conversations, or selling my search history to third parties. And I'm not constantly reminded about how they're snooping on me by having ads for things I've searched for show up on other websites.
@JulianOliver and yet Google STILL fails to let me know when the new tensuke market opened in Arlington heights
Let’s see.
According to what I could find combined with a quick calculation, Google’s (Alphabet) profit over 2025 would be about $433970 per minute.
68000000/433970=156,693
So Google can pay this off about slightly more than two and a half hours after they got the fine.
FROM THEIR PROFITS.
👀
This is dystopian.
Google to pay $68 million over allegations its voice assistant eavesdropped on users.
Android phones are everywhere.
@JulianOliver People absolutely need to open their eyes; this is a major alert! Are they aware that their voices are being recorded and harvested for advertisers? Get off Google!
@JulianOliver Ugh.. Fines like this are just the cost of doing business for corporations like Google. Just think how much they profited from that data. We need some better way of holding them accountable.
@JulianOliver Trump/Epstein, Google/Meta are the symptoms of societies in moral decay. Broken financial/political systems enriching and empowering the most corrupt. Rapacious elites violating all social contracts with impunity.
It is a dystopic black hole but somehow we must summon the best in human nature to tunnel through and reclaim a bare minimum of decency, agency, fairness, democracy, accountability...
And the diverse #opensource communities have an existentially important role to play.
@JulianOliver If you ever needed a reason to stop using Google Chrome, this would be it.
There are better and open source options out there!
@JulianOliver
Corporations are lying? Really? Who would have thought of that? That means, they maybe could have lied about smoking and cancer? Or the ozone layer? Or climate change?
@JulianOliver If this were justice, it would go to the American people and not the government itself.
@JulianOliver If we don't pay with money, we pay with our privacy.
@JulianOliver
It seemed pretty obvious, but unproven, over the years. It's nice to finally have proof.
@JulianOliver what's actually left for captain Gemini to extort from everyone once it takes over from the copilot...
@htpcnz An interesting take
@JulianOliver Google just lie about everything. They are in that regard identical to Facebook, Microsoft and Apple.
@JulianOliver doesn't this mean they eavesdropped on business as well? There should be grounds for huge lawsuits for industrial espionage...
@lindegardxyz I don't know. But if Google doesn't want it to escalate to that scale, perhaps even to the public sector (incl of other nation states), their gigantic legal team will need to present some form of evidence they have not been eavesdropping. As yet they have not, while the civil lawsuit seems to contain enough material to convince juries that the 'false accepts' (queries passed outside of defined 'hot words') have been happening frequently.
@JulianOliver lo peor es que nos obligan usar esta plataforma en el trabajo.
@JulianOliver I'm curious how this applies in places where it's illegal to record a person without their consent? Not that I'd expect anyone at google to face any real consequences
@JulianOliver that's a settlement, not a statement of fact. I'd be cautious about language when commenting on the story. There's no finding of guilt here. It may feel implied of course.
@mikebabcock Fair. Hence I used "seems". However they have not contested it with evidence, despite having hundreds of lawyers. Just simply denied wrongdoing.
I would not give them the benefit of the doubt. They're a mining company.
@JulianOliver @mikebabcock I wouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt either. But I can't help wondering if they're settling this to avoid being forced to explain how it *really* works.
@JulianOliver Just think of all the valuable data they collected for a measly $68 million. That's pocket change to them.
@analogfusion 100%. They would have put it aside. Nothing a barrage of marketing, of smiling homes and workplaces living their best possible lives through Google, can't fix. It's dark.
@analogfusion The only way forward is ground-up, community led and supported, migration off their platform surface and onto ethical alternatives.
(Based on your profile, I see you know this, just sounding it out for the thread)
Yes, we're the mine they extract from !
They excavate us. Every click is ore refined into billions. Isn't it wealth extraction colonialism in a UI?
Their "useful free tools" are oil pit infrastructure.
We're the redeemed dopamine hits!
Our stupefied inertia is their moat.
Yep, the exit strategy is to tear down enclosures, and reclaim the commons.
Open protocols over open-air prisons (despite their nice landscaping) !
why do you think no feasible alternatives have emerged?
by feasibly I also mean solutions that work for non-technical normal people.
@rzeta0 @analogfusion Feasible alternatives to Google platforms? Many have emerged, & are increasingly used by non-technical sorts. BigBlueButton easily replaces GG Meet (I have migrated many off Zoom and GG Meet to this platform), Nextcloud replaces GG Drive and so far as many needs GG Docs (as above), Cryptpad likewise (albeit a little more geeky), GMail has many self-hosted alternatives (have moved many to Roundcube or SnappyMail) alongside click & go third party alts like Tutanota, ++ (1/2)
@rzeta0 @analogfusion What there is not however is a single unified platform 'workspace', that people have grown accustomed to like, integrating auth flow with devices & application layer & across the platform space.
Nextcloud, to some degree, have made headway in this regard, at least so far as the sync, drive, calendar, docs, conferencing needs cluster.
Implementing high-reputation & sovereign mail transport with secure webmail atop is especially tricky, which is why I teach it. 2/2
@JulianOliver @rzeta0 @analogfusion #Proton will be there when Proton Meet comes out of beta. It is full suite (well, only dice and sheets ATM but mail, calendar, drive, password manager, authenticator, VPN) and all #e2ee. And easy import from Google.
Only catch is that it is freemium and most people think technology should be free.
@protonprivacy
