6 ms·
Google are a deeply, deeply unethical company and all of their employees are complicit. On a more practical note, I live in apartment above a restaurant. My ph
by Mizza 9y ago
Google are a deeply, deeply unethical company and all of their employees are complicit.
On a more practical note, I live in apartment above a restaurant. My phone now asks me to review this restaurant every time I come home and wants me to post photos I take in my apartment to the restaurant's map page.
Now that OSM data is as good as Google and Maps.Me is a good enough client, my next phone will be completely de-Googled.
- cloudwalking 9y agoI'm sorry, what makes Google so "deeply unethical?"
- hateduser2 9y agoWell I feel like it’s kind of easy to guess what they mean. I’m sure it’s related to spying and data hoarding and tracking and privacy issues and their incentives are highly misaligned and encourage unethical anti consumer behavior.
- lakerz16 9y agoTheir incentive is to make money by providing goods or services to customers, which is the same as every business. Go buy something from the department store, give them your phone number when they ask for it, and tell me you don't receive spam calls afterward. Given all that Google knows about you, i'd say they're actually quite polite in how invasive they are. I'd much rather them have this data than 99% of the other companies out there. It sounds like you basically just hate businesses that collect data. I'm sorry to break it to you, but there are a ton of them.
- fixermark 9y ago... like having images and info on most of the restaurants in my town because the app bothers to ask and some people are happy to answer? I think there's a disconnect here.
- kajecounterhack 9y agoAs far as centralized companies go Google is one of the better ones. It's unfortunate that so much power accrues to only a few entities. But slamming Google is like slamming a side effect of a bigger problem: many markets are naturally winner takes all and vertical integration confers enormous benefits. I don't see much of a way around this but many feel stronger regulations to protect consumer data should be enacted to safeguard us against bad private actors. Saying "I'll use something else" isn't always a viable solution.
- rhizome 9y agoAs far as centralized companies go Google is one of the better ones. Gonna have to ask you to define your terms here, pal.
- kajecounterhack 9y agoSorry. I meant to express that Google represents a company that has been successful at centralizing a lot of data, wealth, and engineering ability. Others include Apple, Amazon, Facebook, etc.
- zzzcpan 9y ago> many markets are naturally winner takes all I don't think this is true. "Winner takes all" is a predatory behavior and it is only possible with enormous concentration of wealth. Otherwise markets become full of small players and fair competition.
- deong 9y agoSome markets do. There are many examples of markets that don't -- enough that there's a recognized term for it ("Natural Monopoly"). I would argue that the level of knowledge, talent, and engineering and scientific resources required to do what Google does forms a pretty effective natural barrier to a bunch of small players being able to compete.
- ehsankia 9y ago> spying [citation needed] > data hoarding Collecting data is "deeply unethical"? So then the census and hospital and anyone else who collects data are unethical too? > tracking You can disable location permission on everything. > privacy issues [citation needed] > their incentives are highly misaligned How is bringing you the most relevant data "misaligned"? That is their incentive as an ad company. Showing you things that you will like. > encourage unethical anti consumer behavior [citation needed]
- specialist 9y ago[citation needed] http://bfy.tw/G7Ox http://bfy.tw/G7Ox
- fenwick67 9y agoThey're an advertising company that gets most of its profits by collecting personal information about people and trying to manipulate them into buying things. Sounds pretty unethical to me.
- ehsankia 9y agoThat's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is: They're an advertisement company that profits from showing you the most relevant data and things that you will like. It's all about perspective. You can take anything and spin it to be nefarious if you try hard enough.
- specialist 9y agoIf google's personalization efforts actually created the filter bubble that I want, more more and less less, it'd be a fair trade. But they don't, so it isn't.
- ptasci67 9y agoAre billboards or radio stations or television channels unethical to you? Because they are also trying to "manipulate" you into buying things. Advertising is not inherently unethical. I want people to buy my product so I need to raise awareness of it, encourage people that it is the best, make them feel like they need it. I would even go so far as to say that Google's default anonymized model makes this far better. My preferences can be used to serve more meaningful ads to me which makes everyone happier. Eg, I was searching for tent reviews online. Saw an ad for a tent from a brand I had never heard of. Looked up their reviews and bought that tent. Unfortunately, they are a lot of bad actors in this space. Google is actively trying to weed them out. They are deeply incentivized to rid the internet of them because it means less ad blockers and less spam and more money for them. Any website you visit or app you use is going to collect some personal information about you. How many times have you questioned why you need to turn over your email to a stopwatch app. At least with Google's default-anonymized model, you are opting in to a fairly sweet deal. You volunteer things you are interested in so that Google can serve you better ads and keep the internet free (in the dollar sense) and the information you provide is not reversible back to you. Doesn't sound too unethical to me especially because it is all one big opt-in.
- jrochkind1 9y agoIs there really no way to turn this off? (I don't have an Android phone).
- koyote 9y agoThere is of course, but I guess the question remains whether the data is being logged even if you turn it off (you just don't get the annoying notifications anymore).
- lern_too_spel 9y agoYes, there is. You explicitly have to turn it on the first time you turn on the phone, which makes the author's complaint even more ridiculous. There are maybe three checkboxes total of privacy settings when you set up your phone, so this is hard to miss.
- Zhenya 9y agoEthics? What are they doing? Showing you ads for things you're most likely interested in while giving you useful service? Don't like it? Don't use them and block their JavaScript trackers.
- rsync 9y ago"Google are a deeply, deeply unethical company and all of their employees are complicit." ... "My phone now asks me to review this restaurant every time I come home ..." Why are you using their products (specifically, their phones with their ecosystem built-in) if they are "deeply, deeply unethical") ? Every single step you take while your phone on is giving them more data and building their resource base.
- mudil 9y agoGoogle is deeply unethical company because it follows you from the restaurant to your bedroom, literally. Google knows your sexual orientation, your friends, your hobbies, your political orientation. And they do it so they can show you an ad! Image any other multinational doing this, and there would be riots on the streets!
- thg 9y agoThen where are the riots about Facebook, who are arguably even worse than Google? With 1/3rd of the global population on Facebook, I don't think people care as much as you think they do.
- rburhum 9y agobecause in the world we live in there are only two practical options; Android or iOS. Yes, you can do your homework and spend serious time customizing either one through the numerous amounts of gotchas to increase your privacy. At the end it boils down to "do you want Internet, email and maps that work in your phone? Good, deal with all this then!". If there was a single option that offered all of this at a reasonable price, you would see a lot of people moving to this. It is a sad frustrating state of affairs that could only be fixed with laws that would be impossible to pass with the current US lobbying system.
- ucaetano 9y ago> If there was a single option that offered all of this at a reasonable price, you would see a lot of people moving to this. No, people would still go for the free product, killing the other option. If Google charges $1 per month for no tracking whatsoever, I'd bet that the vast, vast majority of the population wouldn't pay.
- ovao 9y agoWhy did you purchase a phone with an OS provided by what you believe to be a deeply unethical company?
- amelius 9y agoLack of affordable options? My banking app supports only two platforms, one of which is too expensive, and the other is made by Google.
- Chaebixi 9y agoAlso Android is a more open platform. I can't reasonably side-load personal apps in iOS.
- jonathankoren 9y agoBecause there’s only two options, and only one at the low end of the price range.
- mrweasel 9y agoI get your point, but what else would you buy? I have an iPhone, but only because my employer pay for it, it's simply to expensive. The alternative is that most of us wouldn't have a smartphone. But you're right of cause, people should boycott Android phones that track them to the extend Googles currently is.
- ovao 9y agoIf you're on a budget, Apple still offers a revamped iPhone 5S as the iPhone SE, which starts at $349 off-contract. Despite being a pretty low-end phone, that's not a low-end smartphone price point by any measure, but it's certainly much less expensive than Apple's higher-end options. The used market is also a possibility if you're on a tighter budget.
- mda 9y agoDeeply unethical because it asks you to leave a review?
- Retra 9y agoClearly the worst thing in the world is for anybody to know you exist without your explicit approval. It's a very special kind of ethics.
- Raphmedia 9y ago> I live in apartment above a restaurant. My phone now asks me to review this restaurant every time I come home You think that's bad? I live above a head shop and google keeps trying to sell me bongs in ads because of it.
- mrguyorama 9y agoI live a quarter mile from McDonalds. Google is convinced I sleep there every night. I MIGHT be significantly less bothered by Google's incessant stalking if literally any of it turned out to work. As it is, Google asks me about places I've never been, doesn't pick up on package notifications in emails, and warns me about an "upcoming" bill after I get the "Thanks for paying" email. What the hell are you doing with all my free data google?
- codingdave 9y ago> Google are a deeply, deeply unethical company and all of their employees are complicit. Your comment would have been equally relevant without including this statement at all. But as you did include it, you need to support it. What exactly are the ethical problems, and how do you justify carrying them over onto every employee? If you have a solid backing for those statements, by all means share it, as it would also be relevant, and probably a good discussion.
- oh_sigh 9y agoJust swipe on the notification and tell google not to show it any more. Yes it's annoying it is the default but you could literally end your annoyance within 3 seconds.