I haven’t seen this written anywhere (perhaps I haven’t looked hard enough) but I’m starting to think that perhaps Google and Facebook are reaching out to and paying companies like Wacom to capture these analytics.
It makes little real sense for Wacom, a manufacturer of tablets, to capture this amount of data, and doing so has a cost. But it makes heaps of sense for Google to do it since they can infer all sorts of stuff from the applications you install.
It also explains why this crap is so pervasive, why the privacy policy is so vague (Wacom may not even know the extent of the exfiltration - don’t ask don’t tell), and why the quality of the data collection is so good.
I mean I’m guessing there a google product called something like “Google Analytics for OSX Drivers” and google would want that in popular products.
These sort of back room deals and outreach programs are pretty common in general, but if I’m right, then Wacom, while certainly an accomplice, is not the root cause of this.
It makes little real sense for Wacom, a manufacturer of tablets, to capture this amount of data, and doing so has a cost. But it makes heaps of sense for Google to do it since they can infer all sorts of stuff from the applications you install.
It also explains why this crap is so pervasive, why the privacy policy is so vague (Wacom may not even know the extent of the exfiltration - don’t ask don’t tell), and why the quality of the data collection is so good.
I mean I’m guessing there a google product called something like “Google Analytics for OSX Drivers” and google would want that in popular products.
These sort of back room deals and outreach programs are pretty common in general, but if I’m right, then Wacom, while certainly an accomplice, is not the root cause of this.