As weak as privacy Google usually has, they are well-known for their top-notch security. Even folks critical of Google for lacking privacy give reasonable credit for the cybersecurity leadership Google has, like with their Pixel phones.
And while Facebook is burning money through their metaverse (which is being panned and mocked left and right), Google missed their Q3 2022 earnings and revenue, but beat expected Cloud revenue. Some believe that Cloud (including Google Cloud and paid Workspace) might overtake advertising for Google in the future, similar to how AWS and Azure are Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cash cows.
And Apple is also well-known for top-notch security. Microsoft and Amazon, I am not too sure about. But while two of the five big tech enjoy leadership in cybersecurity, why does Facebook have glaringly worse security than the other four Big Tech companies? Is it due to neglect? The problems of Centralized social media? Something else?
Something I remark when talking about the potential service-related concern when using a messenger by Big Tech is it is vulnerable to being yanked anytime.
Like, Wickr Me will be pretty much unusable after December 2022, as Amazon will focus it to be an enterprise product.
I capitalized the “C” in Centralized to emphasize over-centralization. But it is an interesting disparity. I wonder where Amazon and Microsoft stand on security.
Google also takes security to a annoying level for devs. For example you will have to use a minimum of API level 30 to get your app published in the store. Granted it will enhance the security but it’s a pain in the ass migration for developers of older apps. They constantly keep revamping the API levels each year.
Google also allows access to Sensitive Scopes(Mail,Calendar etc.) only to apps that undergo a Google OAuth Security assessment. It can also cost an annoying amount of money for certain app devs.
Facebook gives away your data to advertisers. Most data brokers collect data about people from Meta’s platforms, like Facebook. And hackers can obtain user data from data brokers. Therefore, hackers can already get user data from data brokers who are supplied by Facebook. Meta is putting all of their money into the Metaverse, and has no care for security
Google, on the other hand, their advertising system works a little differently. Google collects data on you to build a profile on you. That profile is shown to advertisers to bid to show you their ad, based on how interested you might be in their ad, given the profile Google has built on you. The data is never directly transferred to the advertisers.
Also, Google’s platforms are used to host large scale applications. Many businesses and schools rely on Google’s services, and Google Cloud hosts many huge apps that people rely on. Lots of huge corporations across the world rely on Google Cloud hosting, and rely on Google’s services for business needs. And now schools also use Google’s platform.
Google just has more of an incentive to improve their security, whereas for Facebook, they really don’t have any reason to improve security. Google needs to improve their security because of how much trust companies put in their services, and that they’re paid by clients for their business/education services.
If you watch the Youtube Series, “Hacking Google” its quite interesting but it talks about all of the security incidents Google has dealt with, how they dealt with it, and what the cybersecurity team does to ensure security for everyone using Google’s services.