this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
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Privacy Guides

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hahaha, why would Google need a VPN to spy on you? Google keyboard tracks everything you do.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I am not fan of Google but that's an enormous accusation. Do you have any evidence?

[–] Jax 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Willing to bet they meant in the context of whatever you search for with Google.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Or the default Gboard on Android phones.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

That is what I thought they meant.

Tracking the keyboard like they said would be extremely invasive and extremely illegal.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

(And yes some local tracking is needed to predict words but that's very different from collecting data)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Let's be real for a moment, when has legality stopped Google?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but until relatively recently countries have not been holding Google or other big tech companies to task beyond a measily small percentage of their annual revenue

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

beyond a measily small percentage of their annual revenue

If you are referring to the GDPR you should know that the penalty is actually really high. And it's not like they can't continue issuing fines if they don't stop.

Also you have to keep the PR impact in mind. Proved tracking of keyboard input like that would be very concerning for even the people that say "I have nothing to hide".

Google also doesn't need to track that when they know everything else about our life's.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Actually no, my statement "until recently" was referring to GDPR. I think GDPR is amazing and I'm glad we have it even if I'm an American.

The rest of your statement is fairly factual. The only point I could consider is someone would have to prove the keyboard is tracking us which unless someone at Google wants to whistleblower isn't the easiest task. Whistleblowers have their own issues to content with.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Then what were you referring to when you said fines based on annual revenue?

I can't recall any law that fines based on that except the GDPR and similar EU laws but for non privacy related stuff.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

As a general amount they were fined rather than any true letter of the law amount of a fine thing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Ah, I got you. Thanks for explaining further.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Many shiti keyboard got caught logging tho

So it is not unheard of

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes, you shouldn't download every random keyboard app on the app store or play store.

It's just that it would be insane for an even slightly well known company to do stuff like that. I would be happy (or concerned really) to be proven wrong but that would obviously require actual evidence.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I don't think it would be insane at all. I just think it's unlikely. Big well known companies do wildly illegal stuff all the time, for instance, Meta (Facebook) in the article posted here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

In evaluation of threats, that standard is way too high. The possibility is real even if unlikely. Unlikely things happen daily we just can't predict which ones, because they're each unlikely.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Does this include aosp keyboard too?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I was pointing out that the poster was likely referring to Gboard, not that I have knowledge about any data being collected by Gboard or any other keyboard software.