<story><title>maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps</title><url>https://garrit.xyz/posts/2022-11-24-smart-move-google</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>__michaelg</author><text>This is a fantastic example of motivated reasoning. This &amp;quot;change&amp;quot; (which apparently isn&amp;#x27;t even new) can have so many different reasons, some of which are less harmful and some of which are probably worse (privacy-wise) than the one mentioned here. There is no indication that re&amp;#x2F;mis-using permissions is specifically what they wanted to do here, there is also no example of them doing it right now. Don&amp;#x27;t get me wrong, there is also no evidence that this isn&amp;#x27;t the real reason and that they wouldn&amp;#x27;t do that in the future. But the blog post basically list a single symptom and jumps right to the one conclusion that fits what the author expects.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hooby</author><text>1. The change does exist (although it apparently has been live for quite some time in some regions at least)&lt;p&gt;2. The change does have the effect of Google gaining more permissions (and subsequently more data) than previously&lt;p&gt;3. The author assumes that (2) is the (main) reason why (1) was done in the first place&lt;p&gt;Regardless of whether (3) is correct or completely wrong - and regardless of whether the author truly believes (3), or only uses it as a rhetorical trick to increase the controversy (and therefore the reach) of their post - both (1) and (2) remain fact.&lt;p&gt;And (2) is the actual problem here - regardless of whether it was done intentionally by Google or not.</text></comment>
<story><title>maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps</title><url>https://garrit.xyz/posts/2022-11-24-smart-move-google</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>__michaelg</author><text>This is a fantastic example of motivated reasoning. This &amp;quot;change&amp;quot; (which apparently isn&amp;#x27;t even new) can have so many different reasons, some of which are less harmful and some of which are probably worse (privacy-wise) than the one mentioned here. There is no indication that re&amp;#x2F;mis-using permissions is specifically what they wanted to do here, there is also no example of them doing it right now. Don&amp;#x27;t get me wrong, there is also no evidence that this isn&amp;#x27;t the real reason and that they wouldn&amp;#x27;t do that in the future. But the blog post basically list a single symptom and jumps right to the one conclusion that fits what the author expects.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stingraycharles</author><text>It may not be the only reason, but you’re being too generous if you don’t think this was at least one of the reasons they did it.&lt;p&gt;Other than some abstract “branding” campaign, I cannot really see many other reasons why they would be doing this.&lt;p&gt;And as someone who worked in adtech in the past, it was very well known that Google used their domain as their tracking cookie domain as it’s nearly impossible for adblockers to just block without crippling other functionality. So they even have a history of using precisely these types of techniques.</text></comment>