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Richard Stallman's personal site.
https://stallman.org
For current political commentary, see the daily political notes.
RMS's Bio | The GNU Project
__________________________________________________________________
What's bad about: Airbnb | Amazon | Amtrak | Ancestry | Apple | Discord
| Ebooks | Eventbrite | Evernote | Facebook | Frito-Lay | Google |
Gofundme | Grubhub | Intel | LinkedIn | Lyft | Meetup | Microsoft |
Netflix | Patreon | Pay Toilets | Skype | Slack | Spotify | Tesla |
Ticketmaster | Twitter | Uber | Wendy's | WhatsApp | Zoom
Reasons not to use Google
Nonfree software required
Surveillance
Terms of Service
Censorship
Miscellaneous
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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.
__________________________________________________________________
Copyright (c) 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire page are permitted
provided this notice is preserved.
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