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Comment by hnthrowaway2 | Hacker News Reader

A lot of comments are suggesting workarounds. This behaviour by Google is atrocious. They are causing massive inconvenience to some people (albeit a very small number) just because they want to show off their nice knowledge panel.

Even one person's life inconvenienced is one too many. People working at Google: where is your conscience? If one of your family member was affected like this by a service provider who you have no control over, how would you feel?

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Data grabbing for the general public, "intensely private" for others:

https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/tracking-the-googl...

I don't exactly disagree with you, especially since from a quick search the name as mentioned by OP seems to be really common but the Googlebot is apparently fishing for info all over the web in a way that's guaranteed to create conflations. I don't think this is a nice thing to show off for them, it seems really amateurish.

Its kind of like google kicking puppies in a lot of ways. There's no good reason for it.

But the robots can't help. The humans acting as robots can't help either.

Need a human involved. But they're too busy doing... other things.

They're too busy designing even bigger puppy-kicking machines.

> Even one person's life inconvenienced is one too many. People working at Google: where is your conscience? If one of your family member was affected like this by a service provider who you have no control over, how would you feel?

This is an over-reaction. Someone being inconvienced is something you think should affect people's conscience? And it seems like OP could take control here and do something. They allow people to claim a knowledge panel however OP seems to only ask for things to be changed in a knowledge panel. It seems to me they provide the tools for OP to solve the issue but OP refuses to do so. I also wonder if OP choose to flag a problem or issue a legal removal request.

I doubt very much that you sit there and feel shame and contemplate how you have inconvienced others and even when you've done so in a more purposeful way.

but what if you don't want to be identified? Because to claim panel you most probably have to provide some evidence it is you. on the other hand, what if you don't know/don't care about some google panel about you. But other people get harmed by it? If someone really lost their job just because his photo was attached. Who should be blamed and how this person should fix this if there is no tools to remove panel? So I don't see this as overreaction. If you make something that can do mistakes that can cost someone their job or harm significantly, you should provide some ways it can be fixed fast. And not via months of talking with a wall.

Yes of course. If the actions of a collective group are causing harm to others, I expect members of the collective to feel responsible. This is how we build a caring society.

If my actions have caused pain and suffering to others, whether deliberate or not, it does distress me until I have alleviated that somehow. If I do not have a way to alleviate their pain, the guilt of having inconvenienced them stays with me for a long time. That is how I stop myself from doing such things again in the future.

Do you not care?

If Google employees, blinded by their big compensation cannot understand how this can go bad and how nearly impossible it is to navigate the cracks these algorithm are leaving behind then I agree, the google collective they're part of is causing a lot of harm and they should feel responsible.

> Someone being inconvienced is something you think should affect people's conscience?

"Inconvienced"? "Inconvienced"?!?

People have been threatened, physically attacked, and sometimes even killed for books they've written. OP seems to be claiming to have written a fairly controversial book, which so far has generated at least threats. And now Google is associating that book with other people, because their fucking algorithm has more of a hard-on to get a picture, any picture, onto their "knowledge" card than to get shit right.

People could DIE here... And you come blithering about "inconvienced". Are you for fucking real?

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