Reasons not to use Google

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Reasons not to use Google

Nonfree software required

Surveillance

Terms of Service

Censorship

Miscellaneous

Nonfree software required

A nonfree program submits the users to the power of the program's developer. This is an injustice to the user. Alas, most Google services require running nonfree code.

• *Amazon, Google parent Alphabet and Microsoft are being sued over imagesused to train their facial recognition technologies.*
• In general, most Google services require running nonfree Javascript code. If you refuse to run that (for instance, by running LibreJS), you'll see that you should not use those services.
• Even making a Google account requires running nonfree Javascript software sent by the site.
• Google Groups and Google+ Communities require the use of nonfree Javascript software, so please don't host your discussions there.
• Google Docs requires nonfree Javascript code to edit a document, or even to look at one with the usual URL. IceCat comes with an add-on that permits read-only access to some documents on Google Docs.

• Around 2011, Google Maps worked without running Javascript code. Then something broke: the page worked fine except that the map did not appear.

  Nowadays, nothing whatsoever appears if Javascript is disabled.

• Youtube.com requires nonfree software (Javascript code) for normal use of the site; after changes Google made in August 2017, nothing is visible in a typical Youtube page without running its nonfree Javascript code.

  For my own freedom's sake, I do not run the nonfree Javascript software sent by Youtube. I advise you to refuse likewise; what's directly at stake is your own freedom.

  At present, there is a Firefox add-on to bypass that Javascript code. IceCat comes with that add-on by default. Youtube blocks access by Tor most of the time, but you can work around that by visiting one of the special Youtube-access sites which are offshoots of invidio.us. But we can't count on Google to let those methods continue to function.

  To avoid leading other people astray, please don't refer to videos on Youtube. Although it is true that they could bypass the problem by as described above, I expect most users would view the Youtube page in their browsers with nonfree software. Let's not encourage that.

  However, it is ok to refer to the same videos on an offshoot of invidio.us; just make sure not to choose one that is "protected" by Cloudflare, since that sends its own nonfree software. This way of referring is probably fail-safe: it may cease to work, but it will probably not start leading people to run nonfree software.

  You don't need a special "platform" to post an audio or video on the Web. You can post an audio or video file on any web site. Just put up the WebM file and link to it as if it were an ordinary page. All graphical browsers can handle that.

• Google censored installation of Samsung's ad-blocker, saying that blocking ads is "interference" with the sites that advertise (and surveil users through ads).

  The ad-blocker is proprietary software, just like the program (Google Play) that Google used to deny access to install it. I would refuse to have either of them on my computer. Using a nonfree program gives the owner power over you, and Google has exercised that power.

Surveillance

To identify yourself to a Google service is a grave error.

• Google stores a list of all purchases a user has made that in any way mention the user's a gmail account. A user can delete purchases from this list, but only one purchase at a time. Then that purchase disappears from the list that the user sees. Whether it remains in another list, we do not know, but I'd expect Google to answer that question with doubletalk.

  The article talks about what Google cites as its motive for doing this, but the motive is irrelevant — because it's not an excuse.

• Google's alarm system, "Nest Secure", turns out to have contained a microphone all along — but only recently started listening.

• Google "sanitizes" its total search logs, then publishes them; but it declines to describe the process of "sanitization", and there is evidence that users can be tracked through them.

  The article also mentions two-factor authentication, which in and of itself could be a useful technique (though I've read that crackers can now defeat it), but has the flaw of requiring a mobile phone. My rule #2 for digital security is not to have a mobile phone.

• Gmail was planned from the start as a massive surveillance system, to make psychological profiles not only of Gmail users but of everyone who sends mail to Gmail users.
• Google quietly combined its ad-tracking profiles with its browsing profiles.

• Google has found a way to track most credit card purchases in the US, even those not done through a phone, and correlate that with people's online actions.

  Google can't do either side to me, since I pay cash and don't carry a mobile phone, and it doesn't know what web sites I look at.

• Google Play sends app developers the personal details of users that install the app.

  Merely asking users' "consent" for this is not enough to legitimize it. We know that most users have given up on reading just what they are "consenting" to, and the reason is that they are accustomed to being told, "If you want to use this service, you must consent to blah blah blah."

  To truly protect people's privacy, we must stop Google from getting this personal information in the first place!

• Google stores a huge amount of data on each user. This can include, in addition to the user's search history and advertising profile:

  • A timeline of the user's location throughout each day
  • Data on the usage of non-Google phone apps
  • 'Deleted' emails and files uploaded to Google Drive

• Facebook and Google joined with ISPs to defeat a privacy initiative in California.

• Collecting the many ways Google is involved with US government surveillance, abroad and in the US, amounts to quite a package.

• Google invites people to let Google monitor their phone use, and all internet use in their homes, for an extravagant payment of $20.

  This is not a malicious functionality of a program with some other purpose; this is the software's sole purpose, and Google says so. But Google says it in a way that encourages most people to ignore the details and remain unaware of the extent of the spying. Anyway, mere consent does not legitimize massive surveillance.

• Amazon and Google want "smart" gadgets to report all activity to them.

  In other words, if you have a "smart" (read "spy") lightbulb with that proposed feature, and tell an Amazon or Google listening device about it, thenceforth any time you switched it on or off no matter how, it would send a report to Amazon or Google.

  Even today, the only way to make "smart" products safe is to ensure they cannot connect to anyone else's systems.

• Another piece of Google's surveillance capitalism: when stores mail receipts to a gmail.com account, Google figures out and records who bought what.

  I think that the store itself should not get this information, which is why I always pay cash and never give my name.

• *Google faces lawsuit over tracking in apps even when users opted out.*

Terms of Service

• Google cuts off accounts for users that resell Pixel phones. They lose access to all of their mail and documents stored in Google servers under that account.

  It should be illegal to put any "terms of service" on a physical product. It should also be illegal to close an account on a service without letting the user download whatever was stored there.

  These events provide another reason why schools must never ask a student to use a service account linked to the student's name.

Censorship

• Amazon and Google have cut off domain-fronting, a feature used to enable people in tyrannical countries to reach communication systems that are banned there.
• French blogger Claims YouTube Tried to Censor Juncker Interview.
• Google has agreed to perform special censorship of Youtube for the government of Pakistan, deleting views that the state opposes.

  This will help the illiberal Pakistani state suppress dissent.

• Youtube's "content ID" automatically deletes posted videos in a way copyright law does not require.
• YouTube has made private deals with the copyright industry to censor works that are fair use.

  More information.

• Google shut off Alexa O'Brien's Google Drive account, denying her access to it, because her reporting on Chelsea Manning's trial included copies of al-Qa'ida propaganda that was presented as evidence.

• Google is deleting porn artists' porn videos from their own private accounts, quietly and mysteriously.

  Never trust a remote storage company to keep anything but a spare backup copy. When you store that, put your files into an archive and encrypt it so that the company can't tell what's in them — not even their file names.

• Vox lawyers got Youtube to take down criticisms of a video published by Vox, and threaten the critics with punishment, too.

  The videos were almost surely fair use, but Youtube decided against the critics anyway. This shows how Youtube's general submission to the copyright industry constrict's people's rights.

Miscellaneous

• Google is a tax dodger. Of course, it's not the only one, but that is no excuse.
• Google supports the TPP because of three mostly-evil provisions that would benefit Google.
• Google has made it so that Chrome now automatically installs the DRM module. This makes it dangerous for security researchers in the US to investigate possible insecurity in Chrome. More information.

• Support is growing for reverting US antitrust law to what it was before Reagan weakened it. That is why Google is using its influence to weaken those that campaign against this.

  How I Got Fired From a D.C. Think Tank for Fighting Against the Power of Google.

• Google told a reporter in 2011 that web sites without "+1" buttons would be punished with lower search rankings. When she published a story in Forbes about that, Google pressured Forbes to take it down. Google is being sued for "deceptive" suggestions that users can disconnect themselves from old location data

simply by making a new account and changing settings.

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