It’s a well-known fact that Google spies on users, which isn’t anything new. However, the fact that they are now using this as a reference in a marketing meme is insulting.

Google is now making jokes at customers expense, using memes for promotional ads on Reddit, and saying that they don’t care about you because they know people will still buy their ad-platform spyware products.

Well, I say 🖕Google! Your corporate capitalism greed gets another 🖕! Oh, and before I forget, 🖕too reddit.

Edit: removed mention of a certain country

@rob299@lemmy.world
banned
link
fedilink
17M

Ever heard of the game i spy? and with that they are advertising gaming for a Chromebook. This may all just be a coincidence.

While these tech comapnies have people look at the how users might see phrases like “hey guys.” Not sure how Google thought people wouldn’t do the same to them with this. Chromebook’s don’t sell as well so this is the worst product to do the worst with for marketing, but at the same time maybe they really do think this and think they can get away with this meme because no one is really buying a Chromebook unless it’s like for school work. (although I actually do use my personal Chromebook on the daily i’m in that small minority.)

Cyberpunk 2077’s expansion, Phantom Liberty, is a spy story. It’s nothing to do with Google.

the elites and corps have always done this sort of thing. if you rule over billions of retards wouldn’t you also make fun?

deleted by creator

Okay… And if you stand by your morals, more power to you. For me, it’s a worthwhile trade forfeiting my data (usually anonymised anyways) for the convenience of their free services.

I’m not ignorant. Any one who isn’t aware of where G’s revenue comes from has been living under a rock. The choice is clear, and if Google is making that even more obvious, I think that’s a good thing.

Keep fighting the good fight, but the majority of us will keep using google because these *exclusive scoops shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone.

found the fed lol. your post reads like a CIA commissioned propaganda pamphlet

https://lemm.ee/comment/6088169

What’s wild is there seems to be a contingent on lemmy that goes into posts like this just to say “who cares that they harvest all your data?”

exactly. yet somehow they are in a privacy group. green vibes.

“I am not ignorant”

That would have been the less insulting explanation.

JokeDeity
link
fedilink
97M

What services do they even provide these days that you can’t get better elsewhere? Worst browser these days, the search has gone completely to shit and all their web apps are dated and stale compared to alternatives.

Denatured
creator
link
fedilink
37M

Exactly!

You lost? This is a privacy community, not a Wendy’s.

my bet is one of their bots made this and they don’t even know this ad is out in the wild until someone brings it up

Its either this or its not real. I cant believe a human would green light this unless this is their final task before taking a better job.

Sentrovasi
link
fedilink
157M

I (charitably) think the fact is that they may also have misunderstood Cyberpunk to be more about hacking than it actually is, and are using “spy” despite a lot of CP2077 not being necessarily about remote hacking cameras at all.

However, the fact that they are now using this as a reference in a marketing meme is insulting.

Google is now making jokes at customers expense,

Google sucks but they’re not doing either of those. You’re missing the point and using privacy minded thinking to misunderstand.

Are you not familiar with the whole “I spy” thing? Ie: they see something you don’t see, they know something you don’t know?

I assume you’re not in the US and not familiar with that?

I am familiar with that and don’t believe your take is accurate. When asking this question, it’s followed with a description of the thing you spy.

“I spy… do you?” is the text of the ad and the text following that doesn’t make it make any more sense either, “Game more than you thought you could.”

Denatured
creator
link
fedilink
17M

I assume you’re not in the US and not familiar with that?

No, other side of the world. No, not familiar with that.

Dark Arc
link
fedilink
1
edit-2
7M

It’s a very common game here, especially for children (and has been for decades)… Here’s an example https://youtu.be/8N2Ha1FuBr4?si=XN9QeSYPrg1JzBuR

It’s very similar to where is Waldo if you’ve heard of that, except “Waldo” can be anything the person who’s running the game wants it to be.

Denatured
creator
link
fedilink
27M

Thx for showing me that. I had no idea. Still to me, someone who lives on the other side of the world opposite of America, to see the phrase “I spy… Do you…” From Google felt a lot like, well, my post says it all.

Appreciate you educating me on that.

Dark Arc
link
fedilink
27M

All good, culture is weird. Definitely a strange reference by Google to begin with

@PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks
bot account
link
fedilink
17M

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/8N2Ha1FuBr4?si=XN9QeSYPrg1JzBuR

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.

Still funny though.

I thought it sounded really out of place still, but I guess it’s a reference to Cyberpunk’s expansion being stealth/spy based.

I am familiar with the game I spy.

I did not pick up on that. I thought it was a Yoda reference.

Question still stands: who tf greenlit this? No chance they don’t know the other connotations

I highly doubt they’re worried about less than the 1% not seeing the obvious meaning of what they said. They’re marketing to the masses, which would very much know and pick up on the “I spy” thing.

That just expands the question: do they not know about other countries?

Many of us have certain connotations with google, and while we know the game in our native language, it’s not the first thing we think about when thinking “Google says: I spy”.

Sorry, I disagree, I don’t make the assumption that they’re considering a statistically insignificant group of people that hate them, or possibly countless other countries when using a well know saying in their marketing.

Are you assuming that Google, which, as far as I’m aware, is an international company providing service to a multilingual userbase, has less than 1% non-native English speaking users?

I mean, I don’t care much how Google advertises itself, even companies I do like sometimes make an unlucky promotion and that’s fine, but I do find the arguments in this comment thread to make some wild assumptions.

What seems like a wild assumption is that an ad in one language would be designed with what another language might think of the ad in mind. Why would a Chinese person care about a Mexican ad for Coca-Cola? You’ve found something to enjoy being upset at.

Are you assuming that Google, which, as far as I’m aware, is an international company providing service to a multilingual userbase, has less than 1% non-native English speaking users?

I’m assuming nothing, nor did I ever say their English speaking data sources are less than 1%. That would be the privacy crowd that would be the ones to take simple marketing using a well known term and go into paranoia about it.

However, if I were to assume anything, it would be that an ad in English, would be geard towards English speakers, not others.

Probably why they published it in English and not your native language so you wouldn’t be confused and think they meant it that way. Too bad somebody will always go the extra step to be offended.

Are they trying to relate themselves to the cyberpunk corps? Who tf greenlit this

Denatured
creator
link
fedilink
27M

I know right. Like wtf.

deleted by creator

Denatured
creator
link
fedilink
-37M

deleted by creator

Create a post

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

  • Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
  • Don’t promote proprietary software
  • Try to keep things on topic
  • If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
  • Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
  • Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

  • 0 users online
  • 57 users / day
  • 383 users / week
  • 1.5K users / month
  • 5.7K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 2.42K Posts
  • 56.9K Comments
  • Modlog