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Read in a different language:

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Translations in languages other than English are machine translated and are not yet accurate. No errors have been fixed yet as of February 20th 2021. Please report translation errors here look for the correct language translation thread. Make sure to backup your correction with sources and guide me, as I don't know languages other than English well (I plan on getting a translator eventually) please cite wiktionary and other sources in your report. Failing to do so will result in a rejection of the correction being published.


Why you should stop using Google Books and Google Play Books

Google_Play_Books_icon_(2016).svg

This is an article on why you should stop using Google Books/Google Play Books and find a more efficient, privacy-focused, and open alternative.


Index

01.0 - Overview

02.0 - Privacy

03.0 - Alternative solutions

03.0.1 - Privacy focused

03.0.2 - Other

04.0 - Anti-competitive behavior

05.0 - Other things to check out

06.0 - Article info

06.0.1 - Software status

07.0 - File history

08.0 - Footer


Google_Drive_logo.svg

Overview

Like other Google products, Google Drive has a history of privacy and performance issues.

General description from Wikipedia: Google Maps - Data from Februry 22nd 2021 at 9:11:11 pm (PT: Pacific Time)

Google Play Books, formerly Google eBooks, is an ebook digital distribution service operated by Google, part of its Google Play product line. Users can purchase and download ebooks and audiobooks from Google Play, which offers over five million titles, with Google claiming it to be the "largest ebooks collection in the world". Books can be read on a dedicated Books section on the Google Play website, through the use of a mobile app available for Android and iOS, through the use of select e-readers that offer support for Adobe Digital Editions, through a web browser and reading via Google Home. Users may also upload up to 2,000 ebooks in the PDF or EPUB file formats. Google Play Books is available in 75 countries.

Google Play Books was launched in December 2010, with a reseller program letting independent booksellers sell Google ebooks on their websites for a cut of sales. It also launched an affiliate program in June 2011, allowing website owners to earn a commission by referring sales to the then-named Google eBookstore. However, the reseller program ended in April 2012, with Google stating that it had "not gained the traction that we hoped it would" and "not met the needs of many readers or booksellers". The affiliate program closed for new signups in February 2012, with Google announcing that it would scale down the initiative, making it private and invitation-only.

The mobile Android app has seen several significant updates since its introduction, including different reading modes with color contrasts, support for text highlighting and note-taking, a zoomed-out view with easy page sliding in an effort to improve reading experiences for books not read cover-to-cover, a vertical scrolling mode for comic books, a "Night Light" feature that gradually filters blue light to reduce eye strain after sunset, using machine learning imaging technologies to expand speech bubbles in comics, and listening to audiobooks.

As the Play Books store had been noted to hold much pirated content, Google discontinued new sign-ups to its publisher program in 2015. The program was reopened only in 2018 when it incorporated an automated process to decline books found to contain extensive text copied from other books already in the store.


Privacy

Google has a very very bad record when it comes to user privacy. (I could go on and on with evidence of this, but it took a long time to find and go through all these articles)

Privacy on Google products is always bad, due to all Google products containing spyware.

No matter what you do, when you are using Google, all of your sensitive personal data is being sent to Google and others. Google has also been spotted going through open programs. For example, from personal experience (on Firefox) with a YouTube tab open that I didn't visit, I watched several videos offline (VLC Media Player) Later when I went to check the recommendations, it was nearly everything that I had watched. There is no doubt they are spying on other programs too.

In Chrome (and many other browsers) an incognito mode is present. In Chrome, this mode is pointless, as Google will still mine your data. Even if you turn data mining/tracking off, and enable the "do not track" signal, surprise suprise, Google is still mining your data.

If you think you have nothing to hide, you are absolutely wrong. This argument has been debunked many times over:

Via Wikipedia

  1. Edward Snowden remarked "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say. "When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights."

  2. Daniel J. Solove stated in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education that he opposes the argument; he stated that a government can leak information about a person and cause damage to that person, or use information about a person to deny access to services even if a person did not actually engage in wrongdoing, and that a government can cause damage to one's personal life through making errors. Solove wrote "When engaged directly, the nothing-to-hide argument can ensnare, for it forces the debate to focus on its narrow understanding of privacy. But when confronted with the plurality of privacy problems implicated by government data collection and use beyond surveillance and disclosure, the nothing-to-hide argument, in the end, has nothing to say."

  3. Adam D. Moore, author of Privacy Rights: Moral and Legal Foundations, argued, "it is the view that rights are resistant to cost/benefit or consequentialist sort of arguments. Here we are rejecting the view that privacy interests are the sorts of things that can be traded for security." He also stated that surveillance can disproportionately affect certain groups in society based on appearance, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion.

  4. Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and cryptographer, expressed opposition, citing Cardinal Richelieu's statement "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged", referring to how a state government can find aspects in a person's life in order to prosecute or blackmail that individual. Schneier also argued "Too many wrongly characterize the debate as 'security versus privacy.' The real choice is liberty versus control."

  5. Harvey A. Silverglate estimated that the common person, on average, unknowingly commits three felonies a day in the US.

  6. Emilio Mordini, philosopher and psychoanalyst, argued that the "nothing to hide" argument is inherently paradoxical. People do not need to have "something to hide" in order to hide "something". What is hidden is not necessarily relevant, claims Mordini. Instead, he argues an intimate area which can be both hidden and access-restricted is necessary since, psychologically speaking, we become individuals through the discovery that we could hide something to others.

  7. Julian Assange stated "There is no killer answer yet. Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror) has a clever response, asking people who say this to then hand him their phone unlocked and pull down their pants. My version of that is to say, 'well, if you're so boring then we shouldn't be talking to you, and neither should anyone else', but philosophically, the real answer is this: Mass surveillance is a mass structural change. When society goes bad, it's going to take you with it, even if you are the blandest person on earth."

  8. Ignacio Cofone, law professor, argues that the argument is mistaken in its own terms because, whenever people disclose relevant information to others, they also disclose irrelevant information. This irrelevant information has privacy costs and can lead to other harms, such as discrimination.

Google Books/Play Books is the same as all other Google products, it contains spyware, as Google is not just a search company, they are a user data company, and you are the product. To Google, you are only worth about $700.00 (unless you are making them ad revenue)


Alternative solutions

Google Play Books is an online book hosting service. It is extremely easy to move away from it.

Privacy focused

Archive.org - Archive.org archives various types of software, but also has a great selection of books to rent and download, with over 1 million books (as of 2015)

This list is incomplete

Other

This list is incomplete


Anti-competitive behavior

Section subject for removal


Other things to check out

The Google Graveyard (killedbygoogle.com) - a sorted list of the 224+ products Google has killed

GitHub link

Alphabet worker union - The new workers union at Google with over 800 members

Don't want to part with the dinosaur easter egg? This website has you covered

There are other alternates, just search for them.


Some fact checking is needed for this article. This article was rushed, and more info needs to be added.


Article info

File type: Markdown (*.md)

File version: 1 (Monday, February 22nd 2021 at 9:15 pm)

Line count (including blank lines and compiler line): 209

Software status

All of my works are free from restrictions. DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) is not present in any of my works. This project does not contain any DRM

DRM-free_label.en.svg

This sticker is supported by the Free Software Foundation. I never intend to include DRM in my works.

File history

Version 1 (Monday, February 22nd 2021 at 9:15 pm)

Changes:

  • Started the file/article
  • Added the title section
  • Referenced 2 images
  • Added a section about privacy
  • Added a section about the overview
  • Added the article info section
  • Referenced the DRM Free icon
  • Added the file history section
  • Added the alternative solutions section
  • Added the privacy focused subsection
  • Added the other subsection
  • Added the Anti-competitive behavior section
  • Added the other things to check out section
  • Added the index
  • Added the footer
  • No other changes in version 1

Version 2 (Coming soon)

Changes:

  • Coming soon
  • No other changes in version 2

Footer

You have reached the end of this file!

EOF