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Removing the “firewall” between Google and Google Health will prove to have been a big mistake. They should have stayed separate under Alphabet.
by numbsafari 7y ago
Removing the “firewall” between Google and Google Health will prove to have been a big mistake. They should have stayed separate under Alphabet.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- headmelted 7y agoYup. Congress is already whispering about the Ascension deal and how it affects the Fitbit buyout with regards to them intervening.
- partingshots 7y agoWhat “Ascension deal” are you talking about? Also, do you have a source for what you’re saying?
- headmelted 7y agohttps://theconversation.com/the-tricky-ethics-of-googles-project-nightingale-an-effort-to-learn-from-millions-of-health-records-127219 https://theconversation.com/the-tricky-ethics-of-googles-pro...
- davidwihl 7y agokeeping it as separate entities meant that useful data could not be shared. Under one org, more data can be safely shared while respecting user privacy.
- zaarn 7y agoExcept Google doesn't respect privacy.
- linza 7y agoI doubt think this is accurate. Google might not respect the desire for an open internet without ads and no single large player. But i believe they fully respect their users privacy, comply with most of the law around privacy already, and have the strong desire to fully comply with it in the future. Maybe I'm naive that way. But painting them as not respecting privacy at all is a bit blunt and not nuanced enough.
- sbarre 7y agoSaying "they fully respect their users privacy" is also blunt and not nuanced. They are a huge company with thousands of teams pursuing their own agendas and made up of people of varying degree of scruples and viewpoints with regards to privacy. I've worked for large companies that handle sensitive user data, and they all have at least some teams of people trying to figure out how they can respect the letter of privacy laws just enough, while ignoring the spirit of those laws, in order to profit from the personal data they hold, regardless of the potential side effects or long-term impact on the data subject. Google is probably no different.
- linza 7y agoWhat i meant was that i believe they try to follow the law around privacy. The law might not be "good enough", but that's in us not them (modulo the lobbying). I'm not trying to say larger companies are innocent. Saying they don't respect privacy insinuates to me that they intentionally violate the law, and i don't think that that's true.
- sbarre 7y agoIf you only base good/bad actions around the law (which I understand is really the only _real_ reference point we have), then that's part of the problem. Technology moves faster than the law, we all know this.. What we need are ethical companies who not only respect the law but also respect the data owners. We need a company with a motto like "don't be evil" or something like that.. if only, right? ;-)
- beerandt 7y agoI don't understand how being under Google vs being under Alphabet changes that. They're still fundamentally one org sharing data with itself. If anything, I would think the company segregation would make it more complicated and difficult, wrt logistics, legality, and internal politics.
- davidwihl 7y agoNo they are separate corporations. Verily has received two rounds of non-Alphabet funding. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/verily-2 https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/verily-2
- whattheasdf 7y agoIt seems rather naive to think that just because Verily has received outside funding it is somehow separate. It makes no sense whatsoever for google not to keep that in house and allow others to invest in it unless they just don’t believe in the entity. At which point you have a clear signal that you’re just throwing bad money after bad money, and one would expect Google to totally scuttle their involvement altogether. Far more likely is that this “outside investment” is just smoke and mirrors deception and games of money and politics to manipulate. You simply cannot have separation when motivations are inherently intertwined, codependent, and fungible just like the money. It’s like saying when the “CIA”, MI5/6 and Mossad Fund and supply ISIS they’re really just funding their humanitarian white hat efforts.
- beerandt 7y agoWhich is why it doesn't seem to simplify anything. There is still data crossing some form of corporate boundary, just a different one.