5 ms·

This question is not being asked in good faith. Google's intent is not to improve health - it's to get their hands on as much data as possible to then turn arou

by voz_ 4y ago

This question is not being asked in good faith. Google's intent is not to improve health - it's to get their hands on as much data as possible to then turn around and sell ads.

spankalee 4y ago
You think their health group is trying to examine skin and biopsy samples to sell ads?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Skin care isn't a huge market? Health products aren't a huge market? Google would love to be able to personally target you with ads for your exact skin condition, and be the only company with the data to do so.
  - dontreact 4y ago
    Please explain how you could use pathology slides for ads? Does not seem possible.
    - dekhn 4y ago
      As a first thought, if you had a large enough labelled dataset, you could build predictive models that would identify skin conditions from path slides. Then, if a user accessed the site and you had their path data, you could show them an ad for melanoma removal, or whatever. Not that google is or will do that.
      - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
        They already have a huge settlement in my state for illegally using biometric identification on Google Photos data. Hundreds of millions of users are already uploading pictures that contain a significant amount of their skin! I read your (excellent) longer comment in here, but I think that we should recognize by now that the idea that Google is not doing it now will never equate to that they will not do it when they can. There's a great statement out there about how DoubleClick data wouldn't be connected with Google's existing targeting data... until, of course, it was. And since Google doesn't have the mindset to succeed in businesses other than ads, we should assume they will eventually pivot all data to selling ads eventually. If you can imagine a scenario where Google could use data for ad money, the only correct take is to act on the assumption they eventually will. And the fact that supposedly reputable organizations like hospitals and the military keep bending over backwards to hand them people's private medical data should be crisis-level alarming.
        dekhn 4y ago
        That was a settlement (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/technology/texas-google-privacy-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/technology/texas-google-p...), Google wasn't found to have done anything illegal. Ken Paxton is an ass and he does this repeatedly because it's easy for him to score political points fighting Google. You agreed to these features in the ToS. Personally I love the feature where I can search for people- that pre-existed, in Picasa, for a decade and it was very popular. I guess the only answer is: decouple from Google as much as you can if you don't like the terms.
        ocdtrekkie 4y ago
        That is not my settlement. I do not live in the Lone Star (by average reviews out of five) state. I'm Illinoisan, where Google illegally used facial recognition on people without their consent. And lines in a ToS about doing whatever they want with your data is not consent, especially because it isn't optional. Note that settlements do not mean they didn't do something illegal: It means they did something illegal, but are agreeing to pay out money in exchange for not having to admit they did something illegal. And yes, I've worked to minimize Google's access to my data since 2014. Unfortunately, they seem to like trying to get it from other sources. As mentioned in the article, they've appropriated personal medical data from hospitals without patient consent multiple times.
        dekhn 4y ago
        This one? https://www.googlebipasettlement.com/ https://www.googlebipasettlement.com/ No, you can't assume a settlement means guilt. In this case, Google likely decided that it wasn't worth fighting, cheaper to pay the fine. Google's change is to allow people to opt-out (not opt-in) while keeping the face grouping feature. I don't really think much of these cases.
        ocdtrekkie 4y ago
        I mean, I would agree the law could be stronger here. My face data primarily resides on other people's accounts. It's illegal for Google to have that under BIPA without my consent, but it looks like the settlement is allowing them to continue doing that without my consent (or even agreement to their ToS). The case may be poor, but only in the reason that it fails to actually force Google to comply with the law going forward. Facebook was more successfully forced to shut down their facial recognition technology and delete all of the data: https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/02/facebook-face-recognition-data-deleting/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/02/facebook-face-recognition-...
creato 4y ago
I don’t see how a small sample of a small demographic is possibly useful for advertising, even if they sell pharmaceuticals to every single service member it still won’t be a significant amount of money to Google. This is just some researchers trying to play with a health dataset. I think there’s a lot of real good that could come from such datasets, it’s unfortunate this effort is tied to Google somehow because it triggers the privacy zealotry brain off switch of HN.
dekhn 4y ago
This dataset is completely unrelated to ads targeting. I understand there's no way to convince external folks of that, however.

by voz_ 4y ago

This question is not being asked in good faith. Google's intent is not to improve health - it's to get their hands on as much data as possible to then turn around and sell ads.

spankalee 4y ago

You think their health group is trying to examine skin and biopsy samples to sell ads?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
Skin care isn't a huge market? Health products aren't a huge market? Google would love to be able to personally target you with ads for your exact skin condition, and be the only company with the data to do so.
- dontreact 4y ago
  Please explain how you could use pathology slides for ads? Does not seem possible.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    As a first thought, if you had a large enough labelled dataset, you could build predictive models that would identify skin conditions from path slides. Then, if a user accessed the site and you had their path data, you could show them an ad for melanoma removal, or whatever. Not that google is or will do that.
    - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
      They already have a huge settlement in my state for illegally using biometric identification on Google Photos data. Hundreds of millions of users are already uploading pictures that contain a significant amount of their skin! I read your (excellent) longer comment in here, but I think that we should recognize by now that the idea that Google is not doing it now will never equate to that they will not do it when they can. There's a great statement out there about how DoubleClick data wouldn't be connected with Google's existing targeting data... until, of course, it was. And since Google doesn't have the mindset to succeed in businesses other than ads, we should assume they will eventually pivot all data to selling ads eventually. If you can imagine a scenario where Google could use data for ad money, the only correct take is to act on the assumption they eventually will. And the fact that supposedly reputable organizations like hospitals and the military keep bending over backwards to hand them people's private medical data should be crisis-level alarming.
      - dekhn 4y ago
        That was a settlement (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/technology/texas-google-privacy-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/technology/texas-google-p...), Google wasn't found to have done anything illegal. Ken Paxton is an ass and he does this repeatedly because it's easy for him to score political points fighting Google. You agreed to these features in the ToS. Personally I love the feature where I can search for people- that pre-existed, in Picasa, for a decade and it was very popular. I guess the only answer is: decouple from Google as much as you can if you don't like the terms.
        ocdtrekkie 4y ago
        That is not my settlement. I do not live in the Lone Star (by average reviews out of five) state. I'm Illinoisan, where Google illegally used facial recognition on people without their consent. And lines in a ToS about doing whatever they want with your data is not consent, especially because it isn't optional. Note that settlements do not mean they didn't do something illegal: It means they did something illegal, but are agreeing to pay out money in exchange for not having to admit they did something illegal. And yes, I've worked to minimize Google's access to my data since 2014. Unfortunately, they seem to like trying to get it from other sources. As mentioned in the article, they've appropriated personal medical data from hospitals without patient consent multiple times.
        dekhn 4y ago
        This one? https://www.googlebipasettlement.com/ https://www.googlebipasettlement.com/ No, you can't assume a settlement means guilt. In this case, Google likely decided that it wasn't worth fighting, cheaper to pay the fine. Google's change is to allow people to opt-out (not opt-in) while keeping the face grouping feature. I don't really think much of these cases.
        ocdtrekkie 4y ago
        I mean, I would agree the law could be stronger here. My face data primarily resides on other people's accounts. It's illegal for Google to have that under BIPA without my consent, but it looks like the settlement is allowing them to continue doing that without my consent (or even agreement to their ToS). The case may be poor, but only in the reason that it fails to actually force Google to comply with the law going forward. Facebook was more successfully forced to shut down their facial recognition technology and delete all of the data: https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/02/facebook-face-recognition-data-deleting/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/02/facebook-face-recognition-...

creato 4y ago

I don’t see how a small sample of a small demographic is possibly useful for advertising, even if they sell pharmaceuticals to every single service member it still won’t be a significant amount of money to Google. This is just some researchers trying to play with a health dataset. I think there’s a lot of real good that could come from such datasets, it’s unfortunate this effort is tied to Google somehow because it triggers the privacy zealotry brain off switch of HN.

dekhn 4y ago

This dataset is completely unrelated to ads targeting. I understand there's no way to convince external folks of that, however.