Google and all of its employees who make products like this are on the absolute wrong side of history. Society will only take so much before breaking; they need to figure out their business model, and fast.
It'd probably reveal a lot of hidden data links that aren't obvious (or which companies promise doesn't exist).
The analysis service could work by watching the traffic of real people who download a browser extension, but then privacy from _them_ becomes an issue.
Perhaps some kind of distributed data-collection system could be created, where an extension will analyze your own traffic, strip out as much personally identifiable information (PII) as possible / as you'd like, and then submit that to a central repository for aggregation or further collective analysis.
A few things:
1. It takes a fairly high throne to look down on people for their employers issues.
2. You assume a great deal about what people are willing to put up with for free services.
I think you're probably going to be wrong. Most people will whore themselves out for convenience because they don't care if they get targeted ads in order to get those free services.
Never underestimate the power of convenience.
> Corporation: an ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility - Bierce
Obviously Googlers are not Nazis. I guess the subjective part ends up being where you draw the line.
Not really.
You are thoroughly misusing Godwin's law, and Godwin himself stated that he never intended people like yourself to stifle conversation on a subject by chanting his name.
Godwin stated that references and comparisons to Hitler or the Nazis are perfectly reasonable in a conversation, as long as the person shows sufficient understanding of history, which the posters you are arguing with seem to have.
Are my rights as beneath your family as my ideals? And how does the fact that you’re not self employed absolve you of this, exactly?
You live in a society. Your actions have consequences, and if you can ignore that to get your fat paycheck then I can certainly judge the shit out of you, without a very high chair.
The fact that you claim rational discourse has ended when people invoke the lessons of Nuremberg - “because Godwin’s law” - is a stain on, and reflection of your own character.
Godwin compares people to Nazis sometime himself you know, when there’s a call for it. When this many people are calling you on it, maybe you should be listening a little better..
My actions don't involve the harm of others, outside of their fragile egos and obsession with what they think should be their rights. I couldn't possibly care less about your judgement.
> The fact that you claim rational discourse has ended when people invoke the lessons of Nuremberg - “because Godwin’s law” - is a stain on, and reflection of your own character.
The fact that you think an argument about a subject with a variety of opinions deserves comparison to one of the most horrible events in human history is a reflection on your character.
> Godwin compares people to Nazis sometime himself you know, when there’s a call for it. When this many people are calling you on it, maybe you should be listening a little better..
It's valid when their behavior is something akin to Nazism. Not very many people are calling me on it... on the contrary, my post is getting upvoted. Because the reality of the situation is, targeted advertising is a topic that needs discussion but it has no place in a comparison with the death of millions of people because of their heritage/religion.
It's pathetic hyperbole people use when they can't win an argument on its merits.
Some countries had census data containing the religion of every family. People proudly declared themselves Jewish. When the Nazis invaded the countries, they grabbed the available data and instantly knew who to send to the camps. One reason why so many Jews died was the speed with which the situation evolved. Sometimes there were 2 weeks between 'nothing to wory' and the deportation.
The same principle holds for every big list of intrusive data. Yes, you are grabbing all the data you can only to target ads. Today. But that same data in other hands can block people's access to loan, deny them healthcare or make them look like terrorists.
The US democracy is eroding, fast. It is not that far fetched to see the data ending up with the government: 1) How many data has ended up in a FOIA request? You don't know, as you don't see them. 2) Snowden proved that Google already leaked data to the government without even realizing it 3) An executive order from the US president will give him any access to the data.
And that's just the US government. Businesses sell data to each other whenever they want. Today Google seems not to do it, but one CxO change or bad financial quarter can change a lot here, fast.
Basically, Google is playing with fire, in a political situation equivalent to a big gas leak. Be very carefull.
However, you are stating that ads for massage techniques could "break society."
That just doesn't add up to me.
What is not being stated here? How does this connect? (These are not rhetorical questions!)
A slower moving but potentially more insiduous effect on society might be the slow cracking down of any semblance of privacy and the use of all this data to discriminate whether intentional or not.
And indeed there have already been studies showing that a lot of these AI programs trained over large data sets are discriminating against minorities and the poor. I doubt it's intentionally built into the system but it appears to be a side effect of some systems.
Google, and companies like them, are built on practices which only exist because their users don't fully comprehend the depth of discovery, correlation, and export Google is making on their data. Maybe deeper, users don't fully realize the value of their data.
If you build a business on the ignorance of your customers, you will fail. Period. Society always gets smarter. Google has so much amazing technology and legitimate value (G-Suite, Cloud, etc) to fall back on that they'll be alright, but companies like Facebook don't have that same level of breadth.
That was my wake up moment.
If not, maybe one of the pages I landed on was able to see my info and has a marketing deal with the bank.