For now. Google is clearly experimenting with baking ads into the delivered video streams, YT Premium members get served different endpoints already in preparation.

Sort of hard to exist without interacting with Google at all (lots of the material I'm given in courses is hosted on YouTube).

Your best bet is to use separate isolated/siloed accounts for their different services, never let your GCS account be attached to Gmail or one of their consumer facing products for example, lest it get nuked because some automated system went haywire and now you're scrambling to get the account back.

For now. Google is clearly experimenting with baking ads into the delivered video streams, YT Premium members get served different endpoints already in preparation.

"Some years ago, I provided my phone number to Google as part of an identity verification process, but didn’t consent to it being shared publicly."

That may have been the case at the time, but Google have a bad habit of updating legal documents and settings from time to time. Even if you didn't consent to it directly, you may have agreed to a contract you didn't read, which resulted in Google doing everything permitted in that contract. Chances are, the contract says that Google can legally screw around as much as they like, and you're powerless to do anything about it.

Those pesky "We have updated our privacy policy" emails. And "by ignoring this message you have signaled consent" (paraphrasing).

Guy uses phone number for business, shocked when it gets listed for that business. More at 11.

Except he provided it for identify verification, and if I was asked for this my assumption would be they need a mobile number to send a verification text message. If Google wanted a business number in order to publish it online they should state that clearly.

I understand the story is about google adding a guy's number to a business profile, which seems very odd. But I wonder if anybody here is old enough to remember phone books? I haven't seen one in a while, but in the landline era the phone company used to automatically deliver one to everybody who had a phone. A large physical book with the name, address and phone number of everybody in the local area, except people who paid extra to be unlisted. If you didn't want to look somebody up in the book you could dial a number and a helpful operator would tell you their phone number so you could call them. This was totally normal and didn't bother anybody - how do people feel about that whole concept now?

You can use YouTube without an account. And without even using their website, bypassing their ads and their tracking.

Android has Grayjay, Newpipe, Pipepipe, Vanced.
Windows has Grayjay, Newpipe, Freetube, yt-dl and others.
Linux has Red, Utube, Freetube.. You get the point.

You do still need a login for age-locked videos, but those are a small subset of YouTube.

Its weird how more people decided to use this information against people in the modern era than people in the past.

I understand the story is about google adding a guy's number to a business profile, which seems very odd. But I wonder if anybody here is old enough to remember phone books? I haven't seen one in a while, but in the landline era the phone company used to automatically deliver one to everybody who had a phone. A large physical book with the name, address and phone number of everybody in the local area, except people who paid extra to be unlisted. If you didn't want to look somebody up in the book you could dial a number and a helpful operator would tell you their phone number so you could call them. This was totally normal and didn't bother anybody - how do people feel about that whole concept now?

I understand the story is about google adding a guy's number to a business profile, which seems very odd. But I wonder if anybody here is old enough to remember phone books? I haven't seen one in a while, but in the landline era the phone company used to automatically deliver one to everybody who had a phone. A large physical book with the name, address and phone number of everybody in the local area, except people who paid extra to be unlisted. If you didn't want to look somebody up in the book you could dial a number and a helpful operator would tell you their phone number so you could call them. This was totally normal and didn't bother anybody - how do people feel about that whole concept now?

Yes, I remember these (they also send a map of the city with all the street and public transportation lines)

But the point is that you can be unlisted from these (and as far as I remember it was free). Not sure about the part where you can call an operator that tell you the number you are looking for.

Anyway, the problem is that Google seems to have shared the phone number even if the user declined to do so (and by the user account, the number was not listed for years). This just seems a move from Google that show a total disperect of the user decision.

Its weird how more people decided to use this information against people in the modern era than people in the past.

The author suggests it was added through people answering the "is this a business" prompts on their phones, not the identity verification.

"Some years ago, I provided my phone number to Google as part of an identity verification process, but didn’t consent to it being shared publicly."

That may have been the case at the time, but Google have a bad habit of updating legal documents and settings from time to time. Even if you didn't consent to it directly, you may have agreed to a contract you didn't read, which resulted in Google doing everything permitted in that contract. Chances are, the contract says that Google can legally screw around as much as they like, and you're powerless to do anything about it.

So, all you have to do to "out" anyone who ever talks to you on the phone is mis-inform Google that the number is a business and "boom" they're out there.

Makes one want to start using callerID spoofing as a regular practice. I am calling from 212-555-1212.