(I worked at GDS until two years ago.)
> a stronghold of common sense and decency
I get that OP was going for something else but…
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those things when in the right hands.
Not to be too gushing or naive, I am quite aware that in the UK we recently "sold" big chunks of GCHQ to Amazon, so I'm not all wide eyed that parts of our government IT aren't idiots.
https://www.ft.com/content/74782def-1046-4ea5-b796-0802cfb90...
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/amazon-signs-deal-with-brit...
I despise Google and what they became and so should you.
Maybe my 10 visits a day webpage is an anomaly, and I’m truly the only one not using Google analytics - Still, don’t pretend Google analytics is used by everyone.
It's a bit laughable to talk about despising a company over this stuff. We're not talking about an evil regime, or even Nestle for what they did with breast milk in Africa. It's so over the top.
But you can never be sure: very recently, I'm seeing (unnecessary) popups coming up informing me about the site not using cookies! To make up for the phantom pain of not having one in EU where "real" sites do have cookie dialogs? The web and its self-referential UI idioms have become a strange place indeed.
If you could tell, why did you leave?
