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Remember kids, there's a pernicious reason why #Google redirects "http://maps.google.com" to "http://google.com/maps".
Because of this redirect, the location permission that you grant to Google Maps also automatically becomes available to Google Search - making your search queries more valuable to advertisers.
@nilesh as an ex-Google privacy person it makes us very happy that people who aren't under NDAs talk about this (you're the second we've seen to mention it, the first was several years ago. might have also been you actually, can't remember)
@nilesh Delete Analphabet Incorporated!
Now And Then.
@nilesh They could have accomplished this anyway with browser fingerprinting and such; this just makes it easier and cheaper for them. I only mention this to point out that the problem is not domain names, the problem is that Google is a trash company.
@ferralcat @jwz @nilesh in case you are really using chrome, I recommend to try out Firefox (again). I'm really happy with it and all my extensions are compatible.
@calmeilles @jwz @nilesh This is the thing which seems to have passed everybody by: when Google dropped the 'Do no evil' bye-line, that was a direct indication that they were now going to do evil (otherwise they wouldn't have dropped it), and nobody cared about that.
We pointed that out at the time. 
@khleedril @calmeilles @nilesh It was always bullshit. (Actually the term-of-art is "bluster".) They always defined "evil" as "lack of fiduciary duty to shareholders". Certainly the term wasn't defined in the TOS or articles of incorporation. I'm sure the only reason they scrubbed it was merely the lawyerly instinct to delete anything that reflects personality or humor.
Blanc Bunny Bandit 
@calmeilles @jwz @nilesh Yes, they become demon.
@Paul_Harts @jwz @nilesh But even if it were true, they would charge you and still sell your data which would double their profits. It's win win! (where Google wins twice)
@PossiblyMax @jwz @nilesh I see your point. And to answer your question I distrust them less than I used to do but still avoid them when I can. Unfortunately Maps of Apple is no use at all in the Emirates.
You can't trust any word they say. Their business is to spy you. Nothing else.
@Paul_Harts @jwz @nilesh Is that that YouTube thing? They'll still be scraping & selling your data, they just won't show you ads (most of the time, I still got ads when I had it).
@jackemled @jwz @nilesh indeed, I do pay for YouTube Premium, but YouTube never promised to give me more privacy. Only no ads. Which so far works fine for me, that is the no ads part.
@Paul_Harts @jwz @nilesh Maybe it's better about keeping up the promise of no ads now. When I had it it was still called "YouTube Red".
@jackemled @jwz @nilesh Clear. I have Premium. Pretty expensive though. Roughly €200 per year incl. streaming Music. Then again: if that would protect my privacy (which it doesn’t) I’d gladly pay that amount.
@Paul_Harts @jwz @nilesh Me too, but it doesn't, so I use YouTube Revanced, NewPipe, & Invidious depending on what device I'm using. Invidious does enforce privacy, but I can't use my Google account with it. There's no private way to use a Google account, & I do want to be able to comment sometimes. I think NewPipe is just like incognito mode, it's like watching YouTube while signed out, so not much privacy.
I think it's fair, I'm not seeing ads & I'm paying for the service with a miniscule amount of data, even though advertisers can't use that data to serve ads to me & I lie in that data alot to poison it. I guess it's not fair, maybe I'm scamming Google, but I'm not seeing weird adult toy ads on family friendly videos anymore, so I don't give a shit. They asked for unfair when they started showing me that crap.
@Paul_Harts @jwz @nilesh Then they take your 8,50 € and monetize you aswell! Double Profit!! 
@Paul_Harts @jwz @nilesh
Shouldn't they be paying you?
@LordCaramac @jwz @nilesh If they do neither they still endlessly struggle
@nilesh The concept of Holy See has become muddied with business of limit of understanding using mind and language.
The seed of privacy is another imperial exploration of emerging human needs.
It's rare to see holy see but it's fair to see curiosity of what makes an electron?
Plato still dominates religions. The technology is being exploited for the immense business of inner privacy of each individual.
I feel strange why Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann committed suicide on 5 September 1906?
@nilesh The actual reason has nothing to do with this and everything to do with the Maps Frontend moving from its own binary to a plugin in the Google.com webserver.
There's no reason you couldn't have just pointed maps.google.com to the same servers on the DNS level, so.... 
The change from maps.google.com to google.com/maps matters because browser permission for the use of the gelocation API is scoped per (sub)domain. Now it is not possible any longer to give permission to Google Maps, but not to Search, because they share the same domain.
@bentsukun @nilesh Yay for simping for Google and ignoring *why* decision makers would push for such an expensive rearchitecturing (if it's even true). 
@bentsukun @nilesh I know that people within orgs whose leadership is doing evil things are prone to explaining away those motives with the slightest technical reason.
Was the impact on permission gating of this move even discussed when your team made that change? If not, why not? Did nobody think of it? Or were you worried about pushback if you did?
@bentsukun @nilesh Even if there were no evil intent, the *appearance* of evil intent should have been at the forefront of any such change and should have been a showstopper for it.
@nilesh I would also like it if the Google Maps app would stop attempting to sign me in on mobile.
I'm still using Google Authenticator which means I think I'm stuck with cached Google credentials on my phone, and big G has a way of insinuating itself into fucking everything once you give it a toehold.
@klausfiend @nilesh Do you have a requirement to use a specific authenticator app? If not, you could get an open source one from F-Droid https://search.f-droid.org/?q=authenticator&lang=en
@gunchleoc @nilesh Not especially. Inertia is a thing, though, and the usual anxieties about migration/recovery (Google Authenticator to its credit makes it easy to transfer 2FA info between devices)
@klausfiend @gunchleoc @nilesh
Aegis is really great as 2FA, with automatic backups and biometric security.
@gunchleoc @klausfiend @nilesh There's seven here. Which one do you use?
@AnCaoladoir @klausfiend @nilesh I sort of picked FreeOTP at random.
I guess I should look around for one that has password protection, but I was being lazy at the time. I'm only using it for my social media accounts, so it's not that critical.
@klausfiend @nilesh in many cases you don’t need an Authenticator at all. It’s built in in iOS under passwords. Select the appropriate service and there it is: verification cordes.
@klausfiend @nilesh yup. I love it. Get out of my way, #Google spythenticator and #Microsoft #authenticator. It came somewhere in 2021 already as you can read here: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/ipha6173c19f/15.0/ios/15.0 #totp
@nilesh oh thats a VERY interesting point, I haven't considered that until now
Bravo for noticing/knowing about it 
@nilesh wonder if Apple could / would allow “path” based permissions? ie only give location under /maps?
@nilesh I don't use Google search anymore, unfortunately I haven't yet found an acceptable replacement for Google maps, particularly the mobile app. At least I can limit it to only tracking me when I actively use it.
@StarkRG @nilesh Try Magic Earth, I use it since a few weeks, and I am very happy with it.
https://www.magicearth.com/
@pasqualeberesti I'll give it a look, thanks.
@nilesh can you recommend an article explaining the downside to advertisers showing me products I’m interested in? Isn’t serving non-personalized ads a waste of everyone’s time?
@nilesh I'd almost live with that, if the URL told me what I wanted to know, but they've somehow managed to simultaneously make it worse.
The more you know... 
Now, where did I put that extra large Rand McNally road atlas?
@nilesh and this is why I no longer use google maps.
@nilesh
I just tried in a WWW browser with a few EU ccTLDs and got:
maps.google.fr -> consent.google.fr -> "REJECT ALL" -> google.fr/maps/(lat,lon)
But the map is always centred over close to where I am now (by IP address).
Location permission is off.
Exactly the same redirect URLs with ie,it,de,es.
In the good old days, browsing to maps.google.ie was a shortcut for "Maps, but centred over the island of Ireland" (or the equivalent for whatever ccTLD I typed in).
@nilesh Good thing I don’t use Google Search since it’s kind of turned into complete hot garbage.
@nilesh too bad you can’t nckude parts of the path in the permissions specifications
@nilesh
This is why I choose to slum it with OSM
Edit: I previously claimed this couldn't be true because Google couldn't check if you granted geolocation permission or not, but I later discovered the Permissions API where a website can in fact check if they have geolocation permissions. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Permissions/query
@nilesh arrrg. Thanks for this!!!
I'm feeling really stupid that I haven't ever thought about that. I was wondering what the reason was many times.
@nilesh What about going to that URL incognito?
I just tried and there's a slight change: it asks for consent and then it asks if it can open the app.
So the moral of the story is never go to Google without a cloak?