Maybe I misunderstood the point of data, but I was making the point that they don’t need to perform complex tracking or rely on non-anonymized data. Invading privacy isn’t a very important part of their business model. People still freely feed them data either directly (captcha with OCR scan or Street View images; adding location reviews, photos, and details; YouTube likes and subscriptions) or indirectly (searches and links you click after; YouTube views; places you navigate to and what time; your location when you request navigation directions).
The tagging of data around specific people (privacy) which the EU is very concerned about, I feel, is grossly overemphasized. Just counters on what gets pinged and when on a transactional basis is very much good enough for Google’s business model.
Maybe I misunderstood the point of data, but I was making the point that they don’t need to perform complex tracking or rely on non-anonymized data. Invading privacy isn’t a very important part of their business model. People still freely feed them data either directly (captcha with OCR scan or Street View images; adding location reviews, photos, and details; YouTube likes and subscriptions) or indirectly (searches and links you click after; YouTube views; places you navigate to and what time; your location when you request navigation directions).
The tagging of data around specific people (privacy) which the EU is very concerned about, I feel, is grossly overemphasized. Just counters on what gets pinged and when on a transactional basis is very much good enough for Google’s business model.