I hope this gets more attention. Not because I think what Google did breaks HIPAA laws - there are many sub-threads below that can explain that better than I

I hope this gets more attention. Not because I think what Google did breaks HIPAA laws - there are many sub-threads below that can explain that better than I that this doesn't violate HIPAA - but rather the question helps highlight where we should truly be upset. What Google did was legal; because of that, we should be upset that the government / regulatory bodies created an environment such that this was legal. Rallying against a publicly traded company of 100's of 1000's of employees for doing something "immoral" is not a productive use of your energy. (The irony here is I usually am _against_ more regulation!) It's a similar argument I made with the whole martin shkreli debacle: senators & congressmen/women got their picture day grilling him with the whole "how could you price gouge these poor, sick people?" But his consistent response was, essentially, the inverse: "How could you create an environment where this is totally 100% legal?"