What if Google was evil?

[Walton_Firm]

@Daddypants

So could Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, other social networks, Yahoo, and any number of other companies we choose to give personal information to. Why single out Google?

All of the others are relatively easy to avoid using.

That’s not the same thing as to avoid giving them any information about you. For example, any time you see one of those little Facebook “like” icons on a page, it means Facebook knows you visited that page, even if you don’t have a Facebook account. But that’s relatively innocuous, and not every website has such an icon. Oh yeah, and Facebook owns Whatsapp, but there are alternatives for that as well.

But Google gets notified of pretty much every single webpage you visit, via AdSense and Google Analytics and Google APIs, plus they own the Blogger platform and a bunch of other stuff. And of course it is the default search engine for the vast majority of people, even if they run Safari.

If you have an Android phone, then Google knows about every move you make and every breath you take, and they probably have all your passwords as well. (Because even when you decline to let them helpfully back those up in their cloud for you, it periodically comes out that they “accidentally” uploaded them anyway. Oops, our apologies, we fixed the bug, lather rinse repeat.)

If you have an iPhone, you might be slightly better off because at least your private data will be divided across the servers of two different companies, so it’s slightly harder for a single entity to combine all that information together. But even then, you’re probably still using Safari and you may still have a gmail address – and even if you don’t use gmail, undoubtedly a large percentage of the people you correspond with do, so Google has your side of the conversation anyway.

Google may not be more evil than the other companies you listed. They’re just the one which is in a position to do the most damage.

[QUOTE=aceplace57]
It would require legislation to ensure actual privacy online.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but how likely is that, given that all the secret services of every country’s government are all competing with each other about who can most obsessively invade their own citizens’ privacy, just in case one of those citizens might turn out to be a terrorist or a child molester some day? The best you can hope for is legislation which says that the government is allowed to spy on you, but nobody else is.

[Grrr]

Forgive me for being incredibly naive, but what nefarious things could an unscrupulous company do with this information? I get that they can manipulate us into buying consumer products, but beyond that, what else could they do?

[JRDelirious]

@Amateur_Barbarian

So as to keep the inquiry from being too terrifying?

I’ve been raising this question and its corollaries, professionally and here (and there) for almost five years. It’s taken the naked (and possibly justified) paranoia of the Trump dynasty for people to start taking the issue(s) seriously.

We have been handing over mountains of the most personal data to these aggregators for a long time, long after it evolved past moldering “marketing surveys” in warehouses that couldn’t be processed efficiently enough to be very meaningful. Go back and read any of the threads, mine or anyone else’s; for every person who got what I was saying, even if they thought I was being over the top, there were a dozen who completely blew it off as a problem for the most fantastically naive reasons and rationalizations.

So, yup, we have a (picks figure from hat) dozen organizations who have a truly massive amount of data about our lives, choices, private acts and even “secrecy” - and as long as mumbling “Do No Evil” made us feel all warm and safe it was okay.

Now a growing number are realizing just how much data has been collected, what vast daily amounts have become routine for continual collection, what analysis using big data tools can see and infer from these massive data sets, and what uses that data is just starting to be put to. And are starting to say things like the OP - “Hey, wait a minute… is this a good thing [any more]?”

Nope. And never was. I predict this decade, more or less, will become seen as a watershed moment in social/economic/political terms, and attached to verities like “They never had a fucking clue until it was too late.”

Yup. Oh, many people thought they understood, but they believed that all that data was going to be used merely to target-advertise a new brand of SUV/shampoo/beer/medication/smartphone and of course, WE can see through the marketing… right? It wouldn’t be used for engineering a campaing for the Most Obnoxious Candidate Ever, *and win *… right? And nothing in our online history is evidence of any crime or something to be used against us in a lawsuit… right? And eventually so many people will let it all hang out that it will all be “normalized” … right?

Of course, that information about us may STILL lead to things like social shunning and employment/economic blackballing did begin getting noticed… and then some people were just shocked, shocked, that well, there is no law that prevents someone being fired or boycotted as a result of internet shaming. Or that punishes use of available information for doxxing purposes until *after *there’s some sort of credible threat made.

Eric Schmidt said, you may have things you don’t want known about you. But really, is the answer “don’t do it”? Basically he’s surrendering to the vision that “victimless sins” nonetheless must bear real-world consequences beyond just between you and your conscience/god(s), vs the view that not everything you don’t want known widely is evil, often it’s just none of anyone’s danm business.

Maybe you searched for “3D printing AR15 receivers” on Google. Or for specifics of the age of consent in the different states and the text of the Mann Act. Maybe you are a member of a Survivalist Yahoo Group, or an AnarchoSyndicalist board forum. Maybe you ordered David Hamilton photo books on Amazon, or you are on a mailing list for a Feminist Bookstore. Maybe you ordered 5000 MAGA hats or gave thumbs-up and retweeted every Occupy or Black Lives Matter event in your city. Maybe you had heated debates on either side in a (choose: parenting/vaccination/evolution/circumcision/vegan/sexmongering) chatgroup.

None of those things are crimes or torts themselves but they can be used against you for social shaming, employment blackballing, to derail a political aspiration, etc. Heck, even if it becomes known that you prefer to do all your buying at local shops using only cash that will be cast in a suspicious light.

[Walton_Firm]

@Grrr

Forgive me for being incredibly naive, but what nefarious things could an unscrupulous company do with this information? I get that they can manipulate us into buying consumer products, but beyond that, what else could they do?

Well, for starters, some of us value privacy for its own sake. I wouldn’t let a stranger read my private conversations (including very private ones with current or potential lovers), tell him all the details of my financial situation, or give him an exhaustive overview of how I spend every minute of my life. Heck, even my closest friends don’t need to know everything about me. I don’t have any particularly horrible secrets but I like to have a little bit of choice in which parts of my private life I present to the public.

And that doesn’t change when the stranger happens to be an employee of an advertising company, a tech company, or the government.

Next to that, this isn’t just about manipulating you into buying stuff. You may be denied a loan because some algorithm running on your Facebook profile determined that you are a bad credit risk. You may be given the rubber glove treatment at an airport because you have an acquaintance who has a friend whose brother has been to Iran several times in the past year. You may miss out on a job because of some red flags in your profile which you don’t know about and will never be given a chance to explain.

But if you really want a dystopian vision of the future, look at what China is doing with their “social credit system”. Everything you do, from reading the wrong social media posts to spending too much time on video games or just being friends with someone who does those things, goes into a score which is publicly accessible. Get a low score and you may be denied loans, jobs and housing; get a high score and you will get extra perks from the government.

Imagine if Google were to compute an “upstanding citizen” score for everybody, and if that score was accessible to employers, mortgage providers, and anybody willing to pay for it. Better control your behaviour, you never know exactly which actions might affect the score. (And better be very nice to any Google employee you meet!) Heck, better be careful about what you say even in private verbal conversations with your most trusted friends, because how certain are you that anything you say in front of your television won’t be used against you later?

[JRDelirious]

@Amateur_Barbarian

But we’re probably in the last years of being able to change it for the better; it’s already become so entrenched that one or two more college generations indoctrinated to Google’s world will make it all permanent. Because, you know, that’s how it is, and we can’t even do our jobs without all of Big G’s (or Big A’s) free tools and stuff.

I’m already having to fight this – the expectation that everyone is a user of Google tools as a matter of course, so even when the “official” company mail/calendar/organizer system is Outlook-based it’s easier to do it all via our *personal *Google accounts instead. I suppose they believe that way they avoid pulling a Hillary. (Of course, MS would love to instead have us in THEIR cloud 24/7/365, and the bosses are too enamored of the notion that we cannot just walk away from work at 6 pm… so the expectation IS that I’ll always be in the cloud).

[octopus]

@Walton_Firm

Well, for starters, some of us value privacy for its own sake. I wouldn’t let a stranger read my private conversations (including very private ones with current or potential lovers), tell him all the details of my financial situation, or give him an exhaustive overview of how I spend every minute of my life. Heck, even my closest friends don’t need to know everything about me. I don’t have any particularly horrible secrets but I like to have a little bit of choice in which parts of my private life I present to the public.

And that doesn’t change when the stranger happens to be an employee of an advertising company, a tech company, or the government.

Next to that, this isn’t just about manipulating you into buying stuff. You may be denied a loan because some algorithm running on your Facebook profile determined that you are a bad credit risk. You may be given the rubber glove treatment at an airport because you have an acquaintance who has a friend whose brother has been to Iran several times in the past year. You may miss out on a job because of some red flags in your profile which you don’t know about and will never be given a chance to explain.

But if you really want a dystopian vision of the future, look at what China is doing with their “social credit system”. Everything you do, from reading the wrong social media posts to spending too much time on video games or just being friends with someone who does those things, goes into a score which is publicly accessible. Get a low score and you may be denied loans, jobs and housing; get a high score and you will get extra perks from the government.

Imagine if Google were to compute an “upstanding citizen” score for everybody, and if that score was accessible to employers, mortgage providers, and anybody willing to pay for it. Better control your behaviour, you never know exactly which actions might affect the score. (And better be very nice to any Google employee you meet!) Heck, better be careful about what you say even in private verbal conversations with your most trusted friends, because how certain are you that anything you say in front of your television won’t be used against you later?

Hmm. I think many would like a public upstanding citizen rating. Would encourage people to behave and think in a socially accepted manner.

[usedtobe]

As amusing as it might be, the introduction of Web 2.0 did solve an ancient problem:

How can we be 100% certain that the information/knowledge/revealed wisdom/Emperor’s Orders will be faithfully recorded and remembered forever?

Simple: Just upload it to a “cloud” operated by any of a number of private (nominally) organizations.

Just as, for centuries, only the wealthiest could get food and entertainment at command. and the ability to read and write was restricted to a tiny sub-class, now just about anyone can access the contents of all the world’s greatest libraries and record their thought for all eternity.

I’m guessing another 3-4 generations before we figure out how to effectively deal with the resulting overload of crap.

[Walton_Firm]

@octopus

Hmm. I think many would like a public upstanding citizen rating. Would encourage people to behave and think in a socially accepted manner.

And who gets to decide the criteria for upstanding-citizenhood?

The government? Right now in the US that would be the Trump administration. Still sounds like a good idea? (Whether you say yes or no, roughly half the country is going to vehemently disagree with you.)

Or Google itself? Remember, the premise of this thread is “what if Google turns evil”. They might make the score just reliable enough that people will use it for judging others (e.g. if you hire a cashier with a high upstandingness score, they are less likely to steal money from the till) while secretly tweaking people’s scores for all kinds of nefarious purposes.

Or maybe Google isn’t actually evil and will just tune the algorithm based on what a typical Google employee (i.e. your basic Silicon Valley liberal) would consider proper social behavior. If you didn’t have a problem with the idea of the Trump administration setting the criteria, this will probably scare the hell out of you, and vice-versa.

Also, keep in mind that all this data could get stored for decades. How certain are you that nothing out of all the things you’ve said in private e-mail conversations with trusted friends, or in message board conversations under an alias which you thought couldn’t be linked to your real-world identity, will be considered improper according to the mores of 30 years from now?

[JRDelirious]

Also, up until now, social respectability was judged by the society you lived in and interacted with in a, well, social context. How you carried yourself towards and among others in the whole frame of community and family. Why exactly should I get to judge you on what you read about or what you watched at 2 am … ten years ago?

[kayaker]

What if Bing was flirtatious?

What if Yahoo was petulant?

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@octopus

Hmm. I think many would like a public upstanding citizen rating. Would encourage people to behave and think in a socially accepted manner.

Read “The Circle” and missed that it was dystopian satire, didn’t you?

[Musicat]

@JRDelirious

…Maybe you searched for “3D printing** AR15 receivers**” on Google. Or for specifics of the age of consent in the different states and the text of the Mann Act. Maybe you are a member of a Survivalist Yahoo Group, or an AnarchoSyndicalist board forum…

The other day, I searched for replacement parts for a vintage 1968 Heathkit AR15 Receiver.

If the FBI surrounds my house and starts shooting, I’ll know why.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@Musicat

The other day, I searched for replacement parts for a vintage 1968 Heathkit AR15 Receiver.

If the FBI surrounds my house and starts shooting, I’ll know why.

You’ll only know that they require… in-for-ma-tion.