Selling Secrets of Phone Users to Advertisers

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/technology/selling-secrets-of-phone-users-to-advertisers.html?ref=technology&_r=0

by danso • 13 years ago

31 25 13 years ago

nytimes.com

gibwell5• 13 years ago

It's a shame that they don't mention that the purpose of Android is to safeguard Google's access to this information.

YOSPOS• 13 years ago

People will slowly realize it once Google starts monetizing it more. Ads in Gmail are the start.

DannyBee6• 13 years ago

Uh, no it's not. I'm not even sure where people get this stuff.

The purpose of android was twofold, AFAIK

1. Andy thought the mobile experience of most users was a lot shittier than it needed to be. While the sidekick was a success, Google was able to provide a vastly larger amount of resources to bear on the problem than his startup could (and well, his startup was running out of money :P). The main goal of android, believe it or not, was to fix this shitty experience.

2. Also, one of the strategies was to keep the carrier's walled garden app models that were becoming popular (this was before apple) from eating Google alive by demanding cuts of ad/other revenue from Google's inevitable mobile apps. Actually, back in these days, the most worrying people on these fronts were the carriers, not Nokia/BlackBerry/whoever. Android and the iPhone essentially commoditized carriers. Before, they essentially controlled what apps got to run on their network. Now they fight it out to be "the best iphone experience".

Nobody was sitting around thinking about how they were going to get and use personal info from phones into ads.

r0h1n• 13 years ago

Nobody was sitting around thinking about how they were going to get and use personal info from phones into ads.

And how do you know this? Google is one of the smartest and richest technology companies out there. Is it inconceivable that they could foresee and plan 5-10 years into the future?

huxley2• 13 years ago

Not sure I understand your #2 point, Google basically gives most of its share of app sales to carriers (70% developers/25% carriers/5% Google) and also an undisclosed share of all mobile ad revenue.

Edit: as to your point about Google wanting to fix the bad experience in mobile, that doesn't contradict the idea that they wanted to monetize the platform, 96% (2011) of all of Google's revenue came from advertising. You'd have to be delusional to imagine that has no impact on their decision making and strategies.

bowlofpetunias3• 13 years ago

After so many years of betrayal, lies, manipulation and even downright illegal activities, it should be pretty obvious what the goal of anything Google does is: get to know as much private information as possible, by any means possible, and monetize it.

I could understand the confusion a up to a few years ago, but hell, these days they're barely hiding it anymore.

You're not sure where people get this stuff?

Maybe because when someone uses every tool they build to hit people over the head, at some point the logical conclusion may be that hitting people over the head is the goal of developing those tools, regardless of what the PR says?

code_duck• 13 years ago

Google makes money from ads, and the y have products that are designed to help them do so. Let me know when I should start being alarmed.

nl• 13 years ago

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/25/search-googles-castle-moat/

Android's purpose was to make sure Apple didn't get a mobile monopoly, and then freeze Google out of the Mobile search biz.

You comment is a bit unclear - you may well have meant this yourself.

greenyoda• 13 years ago

“We’re observing your behaviors and connecting your profile to mobile devices,” said Eric Rosenblum, chief operating officer at Drawbridge. But don’t call it tracking. “Tracking is a dirty word,” he said.

If you don't want to call it "tracking", I suppose "observing your behaviors" could also be called "spying".

bowlofpetunias3• 13 years ago

I think the word you're looking for is "stalking".

Selling Secrets of Phone Users to Advertisers

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