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Ask HN: Is what Google doing truly unethical?

4 points by Octokat ↗ HN
The past few years have seen a rise in chants against Google's practices and its violation of privacy. But the way I see it, no company dealing with large amounts of data ever wants to let go of any data they can capture. That's how systems learn. More data = more context (usually). I do agree that algorithms can be more efficient and steps should be taken to plug hacks and data leaks, but here's mt question to you: Is it hoarding data that is considered wrong (even though it's used to improve one's digital experience)? If yes, how else would a company like Google create what they have now? If no, what is?

3 comments

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mimixco
For me, what's unethical about Google's behavior is that they have mislead people about what they do with it. They've used dark patterns in their UI to keep people from opting out. And they've turned over data to police and governments voluntarily without warrants.
jason_zig
It's tough to say for sure what they are currently manipulating about your experience because they have so many vectors they can use. But I think the issue is that the amount of data they are collecting goes beyond the "lets improve the experience" argument. For example google "reads" all of your gmail[0]. They might want to do this for better targeted advertising which isn't nefarious (though it does exchange your privacy for the sake of their bottom line), but I think you or me would prefer they didn't in favor of less precise advertising. Same goes for your search results.

True they have the right to use your data since you used their apps, but as far as search/email goes I don't think it's too far off to suggest you don't have that many alternatives- and you probably don't have any reasonable alternatives that don't read your emails or track your search. In situations like this I think a lot of people would prefer their government step in and have a large amount of oversight into their business practices so thats probably where all the sentiment is coming from.

[0] https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/google-third-party-apps-read-g...

user87109
There is NO anonymity online. That's a fact. Data hoarding leads to behavioral profiling and centralizing behavioral profiles side by side leads to profile scoring. It's inevitable. Will it be abused for profit? Without laws, yes. Will laws be there in time to prevent the unethical abuse? We will see.