Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/14/organize-the-worlds-informatio.html
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Google does this in the USA too. If you are logged into Google anything, gmail, photos, etc and type in a search query, at the very bottom of the search results you will see your user info tagged on the page.
I personally haven’t linked a phone number to my Gmail account (despite how often Google begs me to), but there are plenty of clues in my family-shared Google photos drive that would make my identity plain as day to any investigator.
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Privacy is an illusion.
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What ever happened to Don’t Be Evil? It’s not hard to see THIS IS EVIL, Google.
I hope more Google engineers rebel. How about a strike? Time we software engineers finally organized.
Also, we should resurrect Joe Hill as an AI, distributed on the net, of course.
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You are Eric Schmidt, and I claim my £5!
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Sources familiar with the project said that prototypes of the search engine linked the search app on a user’s Android smartphone with their phone number.
For all practical purposes, that’s already a feature of the Android system as we know it and love it (or somehthing) in the West.
Google links all searches to your Google account, and your Google account on Android phones to the phone numbers on said phones. So, sic ibi cis. (Horrible there, horrible here.)
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The difference seems to be that they’re forcing the users in China to link to a phone number, which will make it a lot easier for the secret police to track and pick up those who do too many “offensive” searches. I’m sure it also makes it easier for those running the social credit system to punish those guilty of phone-based thoughtcrimes.
That said, Americans shouldn’t be complacent. This is a warning about our future: the personal data that unsophisticated people voluntarily give to the search engine and and social network accounts today may be requirements for participation in civil society in the future.
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How do you say, “May I use your phone for a minute or two?” in Chinese?
As for Google’s relationship with evil:
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Those kinds of small courtesies quickly go out the window in an authoritarian surveillance state.
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True, true.
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Hey Google, track this-
GO FUCK YOURSELVES.
You guys can use street view to look in my window right now and see me flipping you off.
People and companies that lead themselves to shit like this go beyond making me embarrassed to be an American, they enrage and disgust me for being one, same as Trump
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i dislike living under google , and yet , i used it to find the exact url ( i usually insert spaces in the
url if i do not look it up ! , or it is a drop down from the firefox searchbar )
i do not know if duckduckgo is available in china ( cnet seems to indicate that it is indeed blocked )
WEB 3 (Decentralized web) can’t come soon enough.
Is no one else a little terrified that China will still be the No.1 Super power in the world? I doubt taking away human rights will stop at their borders once no on can oppose them.
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Google is playing with fire…The Chinese will build their own servers and dump Google when the time comes.
They are under the impression they are entering a partnership. They don’t realize they are simply conducting a tutorial.
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Illusions such as privacy should be carefully maintained and made as real as they can be, for all that they remain illusory. No good comes of destroying this type of illusion. Revolutions have take place based on less provocation. On the other hand, we could do with a good revolution around now…
(NB: Life is an illusion too. My brain sees what it wants to see, or what it thinks it needs to see, not what is.)
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As @Pensketch said below your post, phones are easy to borrow.
Would any freedom-loving philanthropist care to buy a few million PAYG phones in their name and arrange for them to be left unlocked in various Chinese public places?
ETA @ChuckV implies not unless one is prepared to have the statge also register that that many phones are in one’s own name. Damn cunning, these authoritarians.
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And as I noted (and he agreed) such niceties go by the wayside in an authoritarian surveillance state.
Being caught picking one up and using one will impact your social credit score. They have that covered, too, just in case someone gets around the registration requirement.
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As I said (with added sighs):
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Although, @anothernewbbaccount made me think of another thing to consider. Pickpockets / purse snatchers / burglars lifting your phone while you are unaware, or someone finding the time to clone your phone. The criminals can be pretty cunning as well. Or does stuff like that not happen in China?
How do you prove you’re innocent in a society that treats you as if you are always guilty?
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