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Comment by missedthecue | Hacker News Reader

What about Google photos is evil? I don't get it.

Okay it's easy to downvote, but I'll elaborate instead. First of all Google is trainihg AI models on your data and also able to create shadow profiles for people including those who decide against using Google services.

They also used dark pattern on Android for years by enabling cloud sync by default for everything. So a lot of people got all their photos uploaded while they had no idea about feature.

So it's not any different from Facebook that constantly tried to collect as much data on you as possible. Do you know what is evil about facebook?

I don't really get what's evil about AI models and cloud sync.

And I don't think anything is wrong about Facebook's business model. I think most people are uninformed about it and believe that they sell personal data, but if you understand the way they make money, it's very difficult to say that there is any particular issue with it.

Ah, what you really meant was "what's evil about selling my data?" which is a much larger question. And it sounds like you already have your answer.

They actually don't "sell".

They take your data and turn it into something that has value to them. With actual selling, that something is money. In this case it could be something else, but saying it that way will not help the general discourse of this problem at all. Much like being pedantic over terminology.

Ouch. This post reminds me of that one about GoogleSpeak: how Google limits thought about antitrust https://zyppy.com/googlespeak/

The other day I sent out a link made with Google Photos' "create link" function. That's not a share to another user, just a link that anyone can open, no Google account required. But one person showed me that hitting that link on her phone, Google wanted to authenticate her before showing the picture.

That is utterly unacceptable.

Genuinely curious - could you elaborate on why that is so unacceptable? What does requiring authentication imply, or lead to in the future?

Prevents sharing with friends who don't have a Google account. It breaks what could be a general purpose sharing mechanism.

This sounds like mild inconvenience.

What's evil about that?

Mild inconveniences can become problematic at scale. One person taking a crap in a lake is typically not a big deal. 1,000,000 people doing the same is a serious health risk. Scale matters.

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