• danc4498@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The lesson to be learned here is to be careful with which VPN you trust on your phone.

    Google offers a VPN as part of their Google subscription. Makes me wonder if they’re going the same thing.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      There is zero doubt in my mind that Google VPN is a honey pot for ad mining.

      You’d have to be a complete fucking moron to get your VPN from any surveillance capitalism corporation.

    • anon987@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

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

      • lud@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

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

            • lud@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              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)

              • pmmeyourtits@ani.social
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                7 months ago

                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

                • lud@lemm.ee
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                  7 months ago

                  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.

                  • pmmeyourtits@ani.social
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                    7 months ago

                    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.

                • lud@lemm.ee
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                  7 months ago

                  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.

                  • ericjmorey@discuss.online
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                    7 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.

              • ericjmorey@discuss.online
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                7 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.

              • ericjmorey@discuss.online
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                7 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.

    • FriendBesto@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      You think? How many times does Google getting sued for questionable or anti-Trust behaviour do you need?

      By now, no one should be using them if they can do so. Or at least in an extremely limitedl fashion. For their and our sake. Since Google’s harm can reach societal levels.

      Remember, they themselves are the ones who stopped using their own mantra of Don’t be Evil.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Honestly, I never considered the packet being decrypted by the vpn. I assumed it was encrypted til it gets to the app I’m using.