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<< Google and Meta had no agency in these matters. I take issue with this statement. agency is defined as -- via google - as action or intervention, especial
by A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
<< Google and Meta had no agency in these matters.
I take issue with this statement.
agency is defined as -- via google - as action or intervention, especially such as to produce a particular effect
If google/meta creates a product like google analytics that is then used by third parties ( even if it is misused -- for various values of misused ), in itself, it is an action. You can say they were not actively involved ( and I do wonder about that, but I have no definitive proof one way or another ), but it is hard to argue they have no agency.
It is an equivalent of 'look, we are only selling the thing that we also happen to completely control online and we have no control over how it is used'. It is not a great defense ( and it is very easy to portray negatively ).
- waynesonfire 3y agoYes, if they have no agency then I would expect them to ban customers violating privacy laws. Doubt that happened. More than likely, the entire ad industry end to end, is a actively searching for and excuting on opportunities to generate revenue by raping user privacy.
- emodendroket 3y agoAccording to the spokesperson quoted they do attempt to scrub the data they receive to remove sensitive items.
- hedora 3y agoRelevant paragraph about Google: > Taxpayer data was also shared with Google, through its own tracking tools — though the firm told lawmakers that it never used the information to track users on the internet, according to the report. So, they only store a unique id in their user tracking system, but they put the sensitive information in their ad targeting system, then join the data at impression time. I guess it is good that they don’t stick PII in tracking cookies that they use to interoperate with third parties, but that is an extremely low bar.