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Remember "Don't be evil?" what the hell happened at Google? They appear more and more like supervillain company yet they used to be somewhat fair.
by po1nt 5y ago
Remember "Don't be evil?" what the hell happened at Google? They appear more and more like supervillain company yet they used to be somewhat fair.
- baremetal 5y agoif they started out overtly evil no one would have trusted them. maybe this was the plan all along.
- tomjen3 5y agoThey drank of the poisoned chalice of ad money. It is bad enough for most, but terrible for them because ads are worse information and search is about getting great information and making it useful. If google is to be rescued, it must do so by removing it from ads.
- pm90 5y ago> They drank of the poisoned chalice of ad money. Lol, I’m going to steal this one. That’s indeed what happened. If you’ve worked in any ad tech company, you will know that the people in charge are some of the most unethical sleaze bags you will ever know. It’s all about scooping up as much data as you can: most adtech tech companies operate out of the public eye and many of them barely comply with regulations designed to protect consumer data. I was surprised that Google was so different. But then they drank from the poisoned chalice. So did Facebook, Snap, TikTok … and Reddit is trying hard tooo.
- tomjen3 5y agoI meant to say that they drank of that chalice the moment they started adwords. The rest was always going to happen, though the exact timing might be up for debate. It does not matter that they are ethical sleeze bags, that is just what was eventually going to happen. Maybe the poised chalice is a bad metaphore, perhaps it would be better to say that advertising was Googles original sin, and one that will eventually undo them.
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoAds gain value the more you can target them. This erodes privacy. I remember a time when we actually called companies and asked them if they wanted to place a banner on our site. We didn't know anything about are visitors.
- ModernMech 5y agoEver hear the saying “you either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain”? Seems to apply to darling startups more than anything.