This is the problem with giving even reputable agencies and institutions your private data: They will give it to Google in secret: https://gcaptain.com/us-navy-opens-medical-vault-for-google/

@ocdtrekkie Implying Google isn't reputable. They're one of the safest vaults to put someone's data in.

@mtomczak Google is one of the most pervasively evil entities on the face of the globe. The biggest threat your privacy could ever face is in charge of that vault.

@ocdtrekkie I was just mentioning to someone earlier today: lost my insurance card. As you know, that can be a pretty significant risk to health in the US.

I'd taken a photo of it, but no idea when.

Google photo searched for "insurance card" and it was right there.

All that creep powers magic that keeps me sane, so I'm gonna be a hard sell on "most evil." I was there for the engineers revolting when management even considered AI for drones. I was there to see the internal fights on figuring out what ethics looks like in a tech space that never existed before. And yeah, I bore witness to a lot of less-than-perfect.

But dude... There are actual defense contractors out there. I have no idea where you put the "evil" bar, but it must encompass a pretty wide swath if Google is over it.

@mtomczak All of the people who protested or stood against Google's actions were fired or pushed out. At least most defense contractors support a cause, Google is just as happy to sell to Russia as the US, and only withdrew because they couldn't transfer the funds out.

@ocdtrekkie I literally know people currently at Google, so your "all of" assertions are falling on deaf ears here.

Google got hit with a fine by Russia for letting prohibited Ukraine news and information discrediting the Russian military on its services, particularly YouTube.

I follow your content and generally like it, but on the Google topic you're far off-base, no offense intended.

@mtomczak No offense intended, but give it a few more years free from the cult tactics they used on employees and see if you still hold the same position. And people working at Google today still are deeply unethical people who have put personal wealth ahead of ethics and human rights.

@ocdtrekkie It's already been years.

I think I'd have to get a better idea of what you define as unethical (besides, broadly, pursuing their mission statement "To organize the world's information and make it university accessible and useful") to have any thoughts on whether they're current staff is unethical. More often than not, ethics at their scale is hard to pin down (especially given how many mutually-exclusive templates there are at global scale).

I mean, if your assertion is simply "no company can be that big and ethical at the same time," agree to disagree.

@mtomczak I mean, it's generally true that for a company to be that profitable, it is almost certainly doing something wrong. But no, Google is still owned and run by it's sexually-harassing founders, a pile of executives who set a new bar for inappropriate workplace conduct, and a it has actually managed to act illegally in nearly every single business vertical in every jurisdiction it operates, and it pays off a wide variety of politicians and media outlets to spin otherwise.

@mtomczak If you work at Google, you have decided to help Sergey "the point of hiring female employees is ****ing them" Brin make more money for his yacht. And everyone who ever worked for him is going to have to square that with their conscience some day.

@ocdtrekkie We will.

Me, I take some solace in the fact that their computer is the only machine my older relatives have ever used that works for them, isn't trying to sell them something, isn't perpetually advertising at them, isn't perpetually broken, and is locked down enough that they can't install anything that breaks it.

There's obviously room for improvement and Brin's behavior (and the behavior of several execs) is indefensible. I'm not sure we're covering a lot of "special evil" ground by calling out American CEOs for being personally trash, but yes, room for improvement.

(Insert Summer Smith's rant about working for the devil here ;) ).

@mtomczak Google's leading ad vertical is scams and malware, and that convenience for *your* older relatives have cost everyone else's relatives hundreds of billions of dollars. Google is complicit and profits from pervasive malicious ads that they deceptively portray as the top search result. (Educating seniors on how to protect themselves from Google Ad scams is a top part of helping seniors recover from scams. I've been working in this area in particular for well over ten years.)

@mtomczak Nearly every scam or malware install I've ever dealt with has been traced back to a search ad. Google has reinstated malicious advertisers I've reported, using the same domain name. And of course, search ads are permitted to lie about the destination URL, leading to countless examples where the "top result" is an ad which says the URL is a reputable domain but goes to a scammer.

@ocdtrekkie (Incidentally, if you catch one of those scam ads, feel free to screenshot and send my way. I'm curious how they're beating the filters)

@mtomczak I will find you some examples when I'm at my desk. They're generally easy to find on any topic aimed at seniors, and I've even had Googlers internally get them blocked only for them to get reinstated, presumably because they're wildly profitable ads to run.

@ocdtrekkie I'd be interested. If you can pass the keywords my way I'll be happy to do my own research too.

Senior scams are *absolutely* insidious. I field phone calls for a relative, and it's all damn day with those people. Manage to get one cursing me out because he called back-to-back with his colleague in the same call center; that was a fun day. ;)

@mtomczak Here's a great example. If you want to see ads targeted at seniors, look for "mapquest" (nobody else would look for MapQuest on Google... instead of Google Maps).