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Alphabet uses this information to expand its influence, be it soft power, political power, or economic power. For strong democracies to flourish, you can't hav

Alphabet uses this information to expand its influence, be it soft power, political power, or economic power. For strong democracies to flourish, you can't have one corporation control the way its citizens access all information, from sea cables to browsers to proxying all the web through AMP. The impact of these things on your life are major, disproportionately so according to your privilege and station, but the causality can sometimes be subtle, so we just shrug and carry on. Right now, you're getting your needs met. But eventually, your needs, or the needs of someone you care for will be at a cross-roads with Alphabets best interest. Feeding them the information and critical mass they need to continue to exist now is what will allow them to take advantage of you in the future. This is the classic "well, MY house isn't on fire yet" kind of thinking that gets us all burned in the end. All because the browser with the pinwheel logo is more familiar than the one with the fox on it. I can only urge you to try to inform yourself, the information is unequivocally there for anyone to see, mass data collection by massive multinational corporations are limiting your civil liberties every day. https://globalnews.ca/news/3983626/google-alphabet-washington-lobbyists-spend/ https://globalnews.ca/news/3983626/google-alphabet-washingto... https://whyprivacymatters.org/ https://whyprivacymatters.org/ https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matter...

nickelpro 6y ago
> Alphabet uses this information to expand its influence, be it soft power, political power, or economic power. All companies do this, not just Alphabet, all large companies have PR guys, all large companies have lobbyists. >For strong democracies to flourish, you can't have one corporation control the way its citizens access all information, from sea cables to browsers to proxying all the web through AMP. AMP and all of the other Google servies don't control access to information, they just collect it. You can find every political view under the sun on Google, and if you don't like that for some reason you can use Bing or DDG or whatever floats your boat. But with the exceptions of platforms with explicit moral agendas like DDG, all those other service options are collecting your data too. >But eventually, your needs, or the needs of someone you care for will be at a cross-roads with Alphabets best interest. Feeding them the information and critical mass they need to continue to exist now is what will allow them to take advantage of you in the future. I'm deeply unconvinced of this, corporations are made up of regular ol folk just like you and me. I've worked for the government and corporations, and underneath the politics and the branding they're all just people. I would need someone to demonstrate a clear motivation and mechanism for why and how the people at Google are going to start harming others.

nickelpro 6y ago

> Alphabet uses this information to expand its influence, be it soft power, political power, or economic power. All companies do this, not just Alphabet, all large companies have PR guys, all large companies have lobbyists. >For strong democracies to flourish, you can't have one corporation control the way its citizens access all information, from sea cables to browsers to proxying all the web through AMP. AMP and all of the other Google servies don't control access to information, they just collect it. You can find every political view under the sun on Google, and if you don't like that for some reason you can use Bing or DDG or whatever floats your boat. But with the exceptions of platforms with explicit moral agendas like DDG, all those other service options are collecting your data too. >But eventually, your needs, or the needs of someone you care for will be at a cross-roads with Alphabets best interest. Feeding them the information and critical mass they need to continue to exist now is what will allow them to take advantage of you in the future. I'm deeply unconvinced of this, corporations are made up of regular ol folk just like you and me. I've worked for the government and corporations, and underneath the politics and the branding they're all just people. I would need someone to demonstrate a clear motivation and mechanism for why and how the people at Google are going to start harming others.