What is the problem again?
You used google while signed in and now the world knows you like barbies?
Serious question, because I do not feel violated.
You used google while signed in and now the world knows you like barbies?
Serious question, because I do not feel violated.
Assume furthermore that a future hypothetical company is equally not good and the two collude to do not good things together.
Now assume you’re motivated to do something about it. Sucks for you, they have already predicted that and cleansed you because they know everything you’ve ever read and it was a high probability that you’d be against them.
Consider another situation where hypothetical evil overlords know exactly what buttons press in order to influence you to act a certain way. They press them regularly. You dance as expected.
Both circumstances undermine your personal autonomy and right to self determination. Furthermore they undermine the humanity that we share where our society is no longer controlled by the needs of humans, but instead arbitrary algorithms coded for whatever mundanely evil purpose.
And that’s the point (that you’ve more or less hit on), this is evil, but also so boring that it is actually a threat to society because no one will care enough to do anything.
It's not about step 1, which is to sell you more barbies. It's about step 4, step 5 where suddenly a bad actor has access to all this data and can see that people who make this search have a 10% chance of opposing the current leader/president/ruling party etc.
[1] https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/21/russias-sovereign-...
Doing something about a bad government is called terrorism. Rooting out such people before they act is called preventing radicalization, stemming the flow of hatred and bigotry (the #1 talking point in calls to regulate tech).
Knowing what buttons to press to influence populations to act a certain way is called called campaigning. Belief in democracy is exactly equal to belief that whoever is best at that each election cycle should have the most power.
Creating laws to prevent the population from being abused and manipulated via big data is somewhat orthogonal to that, as it would be a separate set of laws. we can’t not do something just because it might be abused by those implementing it. We have to include reasonable limits to the powers we grant.
We don’t do away with all rule of law because it is occasionally abused, we prosecute the abusers under said laws and create new laws when loopholes are inevitably found.
Why punish google?
You might trust your government enough to be okay with this, but don't forget that government is made up of humans, with there own personal whims and idiocricies. Do you really want to live in a world where people around you might have power to completely end you? Will you be able to speak freely in such a world?
This level of power is a very new thing, and the people on higher order (wrongly) think that it's all good and they can keep going about there business as before.
Something has to change.
2) you quit the browser
3) three days later you open the browser to search for a new job
4) Depending on your works settings, they now know that you are looking for a new job.
-or-
1) you have work gmail on your phone (stupid idea, but hey)
2) Work now has admin control over your phone, with the ability to remote wipe, backup and inspect.
3) fatfinger/perv/abusive admin can now do what ever they will to your personal life.