alt Hacker NewsFrom a factual standpoint it's good to acknowledge that pro-privacy work. From a standpoint of overall evaluating the actions, goals, incentives, and impacts of the company, they mean basically nothing. They are a surveillance advertising company, they will never, and can never, have a positive impact on privacy or human rights. To do so would destroy them.
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Cider9986 • yesterday at 7:52 PM
>they will never, and can never, have a positive impact on privacy or human rights. To do so would destroy them.
I dislike Google as much as the next guy, but, regardless of its intentions in making Chrome and Android open source and secure, it has a huge positive impact on privacy and human rights.
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No - they are an advertising company. It is to their advantage to be ahead of the game with something like federated ML if that is where society is headed. To say Google has no positive impact is absurd - engineers there generally care about protecting user data. There is probably better access controls at Google than anywhere else. Sure there are pressures like you said but a gross misplace of user trust is what would destroy them.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.