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I don't think it's a deeply unpopular feature, I think it's deeply unethical the way it was presented to me as a user. And it's not the reminder that bothers me

I don't think it's a deeply unpopular feature, I think it's deeply unethical the way it was presented to me as a user. And it's not the reminder that bothers me. It's that I don't trust Google not to share the data they extract from my private communications. Financial information in particular can be used against you by a number of parties, and it's been used to discriminate against people in the past. When it comes to the collection of that data by scanning private communications, the ethical alarm bells should have been ringing, and the fact they collect that data should be disclosed and be opt-in (or opt-out). If it's a matter of "if you don't pay for the product you are the product" that's not true - I did pay a lot of money for their product (I own a Pixel device), and if they offered an email product that I could pay for with the solace that it wouldn't be reading my emails, I would.

kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
> deeply unethical the way it was presented to me as a user How was it presented to you in a way that you found deeply unethical? As I understand it shows up as a soft notification on your phone.
- mirkules 7y ago
  It is unethical, or at the very least, unsettling the way it is presented. I am actually in awe at how many folks - especially HN folks - are ok with this. Years ago, I looked at my Google dashboard. They knew when i filed for taxes, how much was owed/reimbursed, my medical history. NONE of which I consented to Google using. Google is constantly eroding the expectation of privacy we have wrt to our emails (and probably other things that are expected to stay private, if you are on android), and this bothers me on a fundamental level. And additionally, we have constructed a world for ourselves such that not using these services to not expose private information is practically not an option anymore. I am a mixture of shocked and saddened that the HN crowd (at least so far, hudging from the comments) thinks it is a-OK for this to happen.
  - gowld 7y ago
    Some people appreciate the convenience of an automated valet, and use opsec to have their sensitive conversations on secure channels. It's not any more secure to store all your data on a webmail server that doesn't provide the Assistant stuff -- they can still leak or sell that data.
  - nybble41 7y ago
    > NONE of which I consented to Google using. And that is where you are wrong. You DID consent to this use of the information in your email when you signed up with Google as your email provider. They don't exactly make any secret of the fact that the emails in your account will be data-mined, both for the various assistant features they offer and for their own business purposes, including marketing. It is not Google's fault that you failed to consider the obvious implications of that consent. > And additionally, we have constructed a world for ourselves such that not using these services to not expose private information is practically not an option anymore. You have plenty of options. There are email providers other than Google, and means of communication other than email. Encryption is also widely available for those motivated enough to use it.
    - notI 7y ago
      > You DID consent to this use of the information in your email when you signed up with Google as your email provider. No, I (not the original poster) didn't. I signed up with a Gmail account years before any of this existed, and I never would have guessed they would do what the original poster is concerned about. At no point was I informed that this type of stuff would start happening. I figured it out by reading a lot of tech news that the average person does not. As such, I've moved away from Gmail, but there are probably millions of people who aren't OK with it, but don't know it's happening.
      - mirkules 7y ago
        I signed up with gmail back when it was by invite only, around 2003. So you’re absolutely right.
      - 7y ago
TulliusCicero 7y ago
> I don't think it's a deeply unpopular feature And yet > just the fact that engineers at Google thought users would appreciate having their private financial information parsed and stored by Google services is absurd. > It should never have crossed anyone's mind to even do that, let alone advertise it as a feature. That was an awfully quick turnaround from "I can't believe anyone would ever think this would be useful" to "I don't think it's unpopular". Almost like your initial position was absurd on its face, so once challenged you had to immediately back up to a softer, more defensible one.
- holy_city 7y ago
  Apologies for poorly wording things. My point wasn't on the feature, but the culture that allowed the feature to be created. That's why I started by saying the disregard for privacy troubles me, and provided an example of a feature that was created out of that disregard, in my opinion. Maybe I shouldn't have said it's absurd that they would find people liking the feature, but that it's absurd they consider it ethical to scrape private financial information and then present it as a nifty notification, and even more absurd that users don't see an issue with it.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    Even many people who are aware of what's going on, who are having the thing done to them, are fine with it, which is a pretty good argument against, "I can't believe anyone would think this is ethical". Apparently a large portion of the target demographic thinks it is, indeed, ethical. > even more absurd that users don't see an issue with it I don't see it as absurd, for the same reasons I've elaborated on elsewhere in the thread: the benefits are concrete and current, while the harms are nebulous/potential/abstract.

kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago

> deeply unethical the way it was presented to me as a user How was it presented to you in a way that you found deeply unethical? As I understand it shows up as a soft notification on your phone.

mirkules 7y ago
It is unethical, or at the very least, unsettling the way it is presented. I am actually in awe at how many folks - especially HN folks - are ok with this. Years ago, I looked at my Google dashboard. They knew when i filed for taxes, how much was owed/reimbursed, my medical history. NONE of which I consented to Google using. Google is constantly eroding the expectation of privacy we have wrt to our emails (and probably other things that are expected to stay private, if you are on android), and this bothers me on a fundamental level. And additionally, we have constructed a world for ourselves such that not using these services to not expose private information is practically not an option anymore. I am a mixture of shocked and saddened that the HN crowd (at least so far, hudging from the comments) thinks it is a-OK for this to happen.
- gowld 7y ago
  Some people appreciate the convenience of an automated valet, and use opsec to have their sensitive conversations on secure channels. It's not any more secure to store all your data on a webmail server that doesn't provide the Assistant stuff -- they can still leak or sell that data.
- nybble41 7y ago
  > NONE of which I consented to Google using. And that is where you are wrong. You DID consent to this use of the information in your email when you signed up with Google as your email provider. They don't exactly make any secret of the fact that the emails in your account will be data-mined, both for the various assistant features they offer and for their own business purposes, including marketing. It is not Google's fault that you failed to consider the obvious implications of that consent. > And additionally, we have constructed a world for ourselves such that not using these services to not expose private information is practically not an option anymore. You have plenty of options. There are email providers other than Google, and means of communication other than email. Encryption is also widely available for those motivated enough to use it.
  - notI 7y ago
    > You DID consent to this use of the information in your email when you signed up with Google as your email provider. No, I (not the original poster) didn't. I signed up with a Gmail account years before any of this existed, and I never would have guessed they would do what the original poster is concerned about. At no point was I informed that this type of stuff would start happening. I figured it out by reading a lot of tech news that the average person does not. As such, I've moved away from Gmail, but there are probably millions of people who aren't OK with it, but don't know it's happening.
    - mirkules 7y ago
      I signed up with gmail back when it was by invite only, around 2003. So you’re absolutely right.
    - 7y ago

TulliusCicero 7y ago

> I don't think it's a deeply unpopular feature And yet > just the fact that engineers at Google thought users would appreciate having their private financial information parsed and stored by Google services is absurd. > It should never have crossed anyone's mind to even do that, let alone advertise it as a feature. That was an awfully quick turnaround from "I can't believe anyone would ever think this would be useful" to "I don't think it's unpopular". Almost like your initial position was absurd on its face, so once challenged you had to immediately back up to a softer, more defensible one.

holy_city 7y ago
Apologies for poorly wording things. My point wasn't on the feature, but the culture that allowed the feature to be created. That's why I started by saying the disregard for privacy troubles me, and provided an example of a feature that was created out of that disregard, in my opinion. Maybe I shouldn't have said it's absurd that they would find people liking the feature, but that it's absurd they consider it ethical to scrape private financial information and then present it as a nifty notification, and even more absurd that users don't see an issue with it.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  Even many people who are aware of what's going on, who are having the thing done to them, are fine with it, which is a pretty good argument against, "I can't believe anyone would think this is ethical". Apparently a large portion of the target demographic thinks it is, indeed, ethical. > even more absurd that users don't see an issue with it I don't see it as absurd, for the same reasons I've elaborated on elsewhere in the thread: the benefits are concrete and current, while the harms are nebulous/potential/abstract.