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Comment by commiebob | Hacker News Reader

Honestly though, what about any of Google's behavior in the past several years should make us give them the benefit of the doubt?

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The fact that it is an immense and heterogeneous organization with many different decision-makers at all levels with varying priorities and intentions. Essentializing Google as a singular agent obscures this perspective and gives no credence to those who are trying to push it in better directions from the inside.

Anything like a major PR campaign is approved at the highest levels.

EDIT: I'd also note that in the book Surveillance Capitalism, Zuboff discusses how Pokemon Go was seen in investor circles as a successful demonstration of manipulating masses of people to go to commercial spaces by luring them with imaginary characters. This sent market caps soaring. When I saw this headline, I immediately thought that this is them doing that with maps, but in a PR friendly way.

And how is any of this a new concern? This issue existed long before these new features and will continue to be a threat long after. I really don't see how this is comparable considering they could just as easily have done the same without greenwashing.

> Essentializing Google as a singular

Google themselves do this with their shared branding under the google umbrella.

Companies that want the upside of this branding need to accept the downsides too.

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