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I don't fault Google for following the law, rather for creating information about their users that can then be used against them. I saw this quote on Hacker Ne
by notaddicted 16y ago
I don't fault Google for following the law, rather for creating information about their users that can then be used against them.
I saw this quote on Hacker News a while back: "If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer, you're the product."
The customer of Google is the advertiser -- not the user. As part of Google's buisness of selling advertisements they are creating information about their users and turning it over to law enforcement ... presumably to be used against the users.
- ErrantX 16y agoThey are in a bind over such things though; because storing historical search data helps them offer an improved service to search users. So what do they do? Delete logs instantly and provide no you search history etc. or..? It is a balance.
- omouse 16y agoCan't they simply encrypt much of the data or obfuscate in such a way that it never points directly to a user?
- bch 16y agoAnonymize the data? that's what we did when I worked in telecomm and we needed "good data" to run tests.
- BCM43 16y agoDuck Duck Go improves searches this way while also not keeping logs.
- hugh3 16y agoUltimately, do you think more harm or good has been done by revealing these search histories under court order? Good: some criminals have presumably been convicted, some innocent people have probably been exonerated. Some crimes have probably been prevented. Harm: jaded FBI agents have got an occasional giggle from looking through the search history of folks under suspicion.
- oconnore 16y agoYou left out: some innocents may be convicted for unpopular but innocent searches, some guilty may be exonerated for being smart enough to search at the library instead of at home, some of those FBI agents may hold onto that information long after it is relevant to use in personal attacks or blackmail, etc, etc, etc.
- hugh3 16y agoOK, add those possibilities to the ledger. Do they push us from "overall good" into "overall harm" territory?
- oconnore 16y agoI don't think you can frame civil rights issues as strict utilitarian propositions. Or, if it is possible, it requires a more in depth analysis than you are giving it. For example, restrictions on freedom of press are usually for the greater good, in the short term. 99 times out of 100, the people you are defending with civil rights issues are total crackpots. But 1/100 times, maybe they are Thomas Jefferson writing the declaration of independence. The rare case is so critical that it is worth our time to waste our time with the remaining 99.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]