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> I don't believe for a moment that Google isn't collecting massive amounts of data about young people and categorizing them by their intellect while taking car

> I don't believe for a moment that Google isn't collecting massive amounts of data about young people and categorizing them by their intellect while taking careful note of their test scores, conversations with friends, and their struggles. Maybe they are. But Google is a big company, and that's a lot of people who have to go along with a conspiracy and not break ranks. The only way for three to keep a secret is if two of them are dead. And at least their ToS claim that they aren't using the information for advertising. That's far better than my kids using some other random service that other kids use where there's zero accountability and they had to lie about their age, which means that they're *definitely* mining my kids' data for advertising and selling it to everyone they can. I've managed a Google Workspace domain and it's pretty turnkey and simple. I agree that there needs to be more resource in school IT, but I'd rather them put the money into staff that knows not to do things like this, rather than into basic tasks like managing the domain.

autoexec 3y ago
From what I've heard Google is extremely protective of the data they collect and the assumptions and conclusions derived from that data. Very few employees could look up everything google knows (or thinks that they know) about me, or even about themselves for that matter. I doubt very many would be able to tell what has been collected on kids. (if any google employee here can provide me with a complete list of what google has inferred about me using all of the data they've collected from me over the last 25 years please reach out!) It's comforting to think that people can't keep secrets, but history is filled with examples of large organizations including governments which have successfully done so for decades. Tuskegee was kept secret for over 40 years! That's a lot longer than the amount of time Google has existed. The truth is that whistleblowers are extremely rare and not a sufficient check against abuse and corruption.
- shaftway 3y ago
  I was a Google engineer, team lead on the Play Store. I know what data we collected, but I also know controls around accessing it were very strict (rumor is in the early days of GMail an employee was caught accessing his girlfriend's email, so they went full lockdown). There were tables we could access for reporting and analytics that were aggregated heavily for anonymity. Anything that needed deeper metrics required sign offs from a pretty high level. VP if it was unique and sensitive enough. Yeah, other business areas may operate differently, but every area I worked in took this stuff pretty seriously.

autoexec 3y ago

From what I've heard Google is extremely protective of the data they collect and the assumptions and conclusions derived from that data. Very few employees could look up everything google knows (or thinks that they know) about me, or even about themselves for that matter. I doubt very many would be able to tell what has been collected on kids. (if any google employee here can provide me with a complete list of what google has inferred about me using all of the data they've collected from me over the last 25 years please reach out!) It's comforting to think that people can't keep secrets, but history is filled with examples of large organizations including governments which have successfully done so for decades. Tuskegee was kept secret for over 40 years! That's a lot longer than the amount of time Google has existed. The truth is that whistleblowers are extremely rare and not a sufficient check against abuse and corruption.

shaftway 3y ago
I was a Google engineer, team lead on the Play Store. I know what data we collected, but I also know controls around accessing it were very strict (rumor is in the early days of GMail an employee was caught accessing his girlfriend's email, so they went full lockdown). There were tables we could access for reporting and analytics that were aggregated heavily for anonymity. Anything that needed deeper metrics required sign offs from a pretty high level. VP if it was unique and sensitive enough. Yeah, other business areas may operate differently, but every area I worked in took this stuff pretty seriously.