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We the users want Google to delete our intimate data. Our rights depend on it.:
This is a moment I've long worried would arrive. The way tens of millions of Americans use everyday Google products has suddenly become dangerous. Following the Supreme Court decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, anything Google knows about you could be acquired by police in states where abortion is now illegal. A search for "Plan B," a ping to Google Maps at an abortion clinic or even a message you send about taking a pregnancy test could all become criminal evidence.
There is something Google could do about this: Stop collecting — and start deleting — data that could be used to prosecute abortions. Yet so far, Google and other Big Tech companies have committed to few product changes that might endanger their ability to profit off our personal lives. Nor have they publicly committed to how they might fight legal demands related to prosecuting abortions.
[...] Most of us understand on some level that Google and other tech companies invade our privacy. But Silicon Valley has made us think the stakes are quite low. Google provides useful products, and in exchange we might be targeted with annoying ads. Big whoop.
Until now. The danger of all that data feels different after the end of Roe, said Shoshana Zuboff, an emerita Harvard Business School professor who popularized the term "surveillance capitalism" to describe Google's business. "Every device becomes our potential enemy," she told me.
Zuboff, whose writings are like the "Silent Spring" of the digital age, is very concerned about where our surveillance society goes from here. "The harsh reality is that while we're now worried about women who seek abortions being targeted, the same apparatus could be used to target any group or any subset of our population — or our entire population — at any moment, for any reason that it chooses," she said. "No one is safe from this."
Of course, Google isn't alone in collecting intimate information. In the past week, many concerned patients have focused on the privacy practices of period-tracking apps, which store reproductive health data. Other Big Tech companies facilitate data grabs, too: Facebook watches you even when you're not using it, Amazon's products record you, and Apple makes it too easy for iPhone apps to track you.
[...] The sheer volume of Google's surveillance also makes it likely the most attractive police target. Across all topics, it received more than 40,000 subpoenas and search warrants in the United States in the first half of 2021 alone.
That means whatever Google does next, it can't remain neutral — and will set the tone for how the entire industry balances our rights with the business imperative to grab more data.
The author continues on with four things that Google can do and how it would help: delete search queries and web-browsing history, stop saving individual location information, make Chrome's 'Incognito mode' actually incognito, and better protect texts and messages. And of course, this isn't an issue only for Google.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2022, @09:51AM (4 children)
But they do NOT have a problem in violating your privacy - they already solved all the technical and business problems which impeded their ability to do so.
The problem is yours and you have at least two ways towards solving it:
- stop giving away your privacy by agreeing to their contracts of adhesion. This is a thing you can do
- make it their problem by increasing the cost of pursuing their business of violating your privacy. This is a thing that the people you elect could do (eg GDPR), if only they'd value your vote more than the money the lobbies pour on them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Monday July 25 2022, @10:18AM (3 children)
They solved the technical and business problems, but this is neither. This is a PR problem.
They wanted to give themselves a progressive image. And that requires them to support women's rights. So what are they going to do, drop the progressive charade or forgot profit?
Ok, wrong question. The actual question is, how will they justify dropping the progressive charade.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 25 2022, @10:48AM (2 children)
Which will be solved by PR countermeasures - you are not the customer, you are the merchandise.
They dropped the charade quite [gizmodo.com] a good [theguardian.com] while [eff.org] ago [forbes.com] - in regards with privacy, they started to drop it since 2012 [wikipedia.org].
Either you slept for the last 10 years, you are naive or you have an agenda.
PS: as for your use of the "progressive" term, what meaning you intend for it in the context?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday July 25 2022, @06:39PM (1 child)
Google still wants a nice, progressive image. First, of course, to attract the matching workforce. Then because the majority of their customers also wants to present that image. And of course the portion of their product that actually gives a fuck about that also would like to see that. So yes, there is a good incentive for Google to appear progressive.
"Progressive", in this context, is pretty much what most of Europe (with the exception of Poland and Hungary) would consider normal. You know, that people should be treated the same no matter of race, gender, sexual orientation and so on, and that laws should be rooted in reality instead of the sensibilities of an imaginary OCD patient.
That this is "progressive" instead of "normal" in the US also says a lot...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 25 2022, @11:53PM
Good point. There's a continuous tension there, going all the way back to the moment Google started to drop the "don't be evil" facade.
Even before that period, Google wasn't as a saint as it tried to pose, the employee anti-poaching collusion [wikipedia.org] goes back to 2005.
I doubt tho the advertising scums (who make the bulk of the customers) care much about it.
Thanks, clear now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford