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TBH, I think this is the wrong situation to trot out "Don't be evil." Law enforcement has always been able to subpoena this type of information. From phone co

TBH, I think this is the wrong situation to trot out "Don't be evil." Law enforcement has always been able to subpoena this type of information. From phone companies, credit card companies, ISPs, etc. If Google wants to legally operate in the United States then they don't have any choice but to comply. The bigger issue, IMO, is that nobody has any idea who else has access to this information. Google can share this information with anybody. It's entirely on good faith that people trust them not to.

sneak 6y ago
That’s exactly my point: it’s entirely naive and insufficient for Google alone to promote “Don’t be evil” if, at any time, known-racist and known-politicized “law enforcement” in the US can do whatever evil they wish with the data they’ve collected. When PRISM came along, they had no choice but to comply or suffer the same fate as Joseph Nacchio. One would have to be a total fool to think that an internal prohibition on evil would be at all meaningful, even if somehow it were strictly adhered to. Literally nobody at Google is willing to be imprisoned to defy the orders of the nation in which its situated. (Before you point out that it requires judicial oversight: please read a dozen federal search warrants. The standard for search warrants is hilaribad, and feds suffer no consequences whatsoever for putting whatever fantasies they want into their applications for same.)
- jlarocco 6y ago
  Oh yeah, that I agree with. "Don't be evil," was always a gimmick, IMO. Not sure there's any real solution, though. As long as there's a government, there's going to be somebody who thinks it's evil.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    >"Don't be evil," was always a gimmick, IMO. // Always? It struck me that it was a genuine creed for a burgeoning tech company who recognised established tech companies were evil, and so were themselves endeavouring to be "not evil".
    - jstarfish 6y ago
      The worst people you'll ever meet are always very forthcoming with insisting that they aren't monsters-- well before you've had any cause to question their integrity. Consider their business model from day 1. It didn't take long before the allegations of email data mining started to surface.
      - cromwellian 6y ago
        People who constantly status-signal over absolutes also raise concerns over hypocrisy and situational ethics.
        XMPPwocky 6y ago
        What do you mean by this?
    - jlarocco 6y ago
      Yes, always. No company is explicitly, purposefully doing evil. Also, "evil" is such a subjective word that it's almost meaningless with no context.
analyte123 6y ago
Here’s what non-evil thing to do with this information is: don’t collect it. If you collect, don’t store it. If you store it, try to de-identify it.
- nuker 6y ago
  > Here’s what non-evil thing to do with this information You do remember that Google is an Ad company, and information is the product, right?
- cromwellian 6y ago
  And when the government finds out that they can't conduct investigations, they'll just pass regulations that require collection of data. Take private owner gun sales. You have to collect the information of the person you're selling it to. You can't not collect it, and if you take the attitude that you won't, you yourself can be held criminally liable. If we had cryptoanarchy -- unbreakable encryption, with everything on device, anonymous, and any server services using some future form of fully homomorphic encryption, and with financial transactions done with pseudo-anonymous cryptocoin, you'd find this to be a very unstable situation, and most world governments, even European governments, would quickly pass laws to require the ability to track identity, de-anonymize, and subpoena logs. There is no way any of the Western democracies are going to move to a system where all records of activity are ephemeral and un-subpoenable.
  - sjy 6y ago
    You’re right – but at least when the government passes regulations that require collection of data, there is a public debate and a public record of precisely what must be collected and why.
- tbodt 6y ago
  They zeroed out the last octet of the IP addresses, which is technically de-identification.

sneak 6y ago

That’s exactly my point: it’s entirely naive and insufficient for Google alone to promote “Don’t be evil” if, at any time, known-racist and known-politicized “law enforcement” in the US can do whatever evil they wish with the data they’ve collected. When PRISM came along, they had no choice but to comply or suffer the same fate as Joseph Nacchio. One would have to be a total fool to think that an internal prohibition on evil would be at all meaningful, even if somehow it were strictly adhered to. Literally nobody at Google is willing to be imprisoned to defy the orders of the nation in which its situated. (Before you point out that it requires judicial oversight: please read a dozen federal search warrants. The standard for search warrants is hilaribad, and feds suffer no consequences whatsoever for putting whatever fantasies they want into their applications for same.)

jlarocco 6y ago
Oh yeah, that I agree with. "Don't be evil," was always a gimmick, IMO. Not sure there's any real solution, though. As long as there's a government, there's going to be somebody who thinks it's evil.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  >"Don't be evil," was always a gimmick, IMO. // Always? It struck me that it was a genuine creed for a burgeoning tech company who recognised established tech companies were evil, and so were themselves endeavouring to be "not evil".
  - jstarfish 6y ago
    The worst people you'll ever meet are always very forthcoming with insisting that they aren't monsters-- well before you've had any cause to question their integrity. Consider their business model from day 1. It didn't take long before the allegations of email data mining started to surface.
    - cromwellian 6y ago
      People who constantly status-signal over absolutes also raise concerns over hypocrisy and situational ethics.
      - XMPPwocky 6y ago
        What do you mean by this?
  - jlarocco 6y ago
    Yes, always. No company is explicitly, purposefully doing evil. Also, "evil" is such a subjective word that it's almost meaningless with no context.

analyte123 6y ago

Here’s what non-evil thing to do with this information is: don’t collect it. If you collect, don’t store it. If you store it, try to de-identify it.

nuker 6y ago
> Here’s what non-evil thing to do with this information You do remember that Google is an Ad company, and information is the product, right?
cromwellian 6y ago
And when the government finds out that they can't conduct investigations, they'll just pass regulations that require collection of data. Take private owner gun sales. You have to collect the information of the person you're selling it to. You can't not collect it, and if you take the attitude that you won't, you yourself can be held criminally liable. If we had cryptoanarchy -- unbreakable encryption, with everything on device, anonymous, and any server services using some future form of fully homomorphic encryption, and with financial transactions done with pseudo-anonymous cryptocoin, you'd find this to be a very unstable situation, and most world governments, even European governments, would quickly pass laws to require the ability to track identity, de-anonymize, and subpoena logs. There is no way any of the Western democracies are going to move to a system where all records of activity are ephemeral and un-subpoenable.
- sjy 6y ago
  You’re right – but at least when the government passes regulations that require collection of data, there is a public debate and a public record of precisely what must be collected and why.
tbodt 6y ago
They zeroed out the last octet of the IP addresses, which is technically de-identification.