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I do not feel bad for Google here and they are at fault. If they are in a tight bind now it is only because they have eroded the privacy safety buffer so thin over the past few decades that they are finally having a hard time walking the line. If they had been fighting for strong, clear, boundaries then this wouldn't be an issue. Instead they have pushed automatic TOS changes that let them do what they want when they want and ignoring privacy settings and selling info to anyone with no consequences. Yes, they are likely in a 'tight bind' right now but it is one that they set up for themselves.

by microtonal8 hours ago|

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I feel bad for both sides in this. Google can be put under so much pressure by the government, they are basically forced to do what they says; yes they can fight it, but if the government wants something badly, they will get it, they have powers

Or they could implement end-to-end encryption for many of their products and they wouldn't be able to give the government the data, even if they wanted to. But that would hamper them to analyze data for ad targeting.

by lm4117 hours ago|

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How does one feel bad for a corporation, especially of this size? Double so for one that quite literally removed "Don't be Evil" as its motto and from its code of conduct.

The corporation has no feelings and I don't imagine the board members or shareholders are feeling bad about this.

by Ardren6 hours ago|

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> removed "Don't be Evil" as its motto and from its code of conduct

It's still in the code of conduct

https://abc.xyz/investor/board-and-governance/google-code-of...

And it still doesn't mean a damn thing.

by convolvatron8 hours ago|

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Google's sin here is not in obeying a warrant, it's by pressuring a strategy of extreme concentration of power and intermediation. Google wants to know who you talk to, where you are, where you work, how much money you make, what kind of jobs you are interested in, whether or not you've searched for recipes to make controlled substances, etc. etc. We can be happy that they failed, or at least are only weakly succeeding. They almost completely dominate email services, which were supposed to be distributed and run by whomever. This is hugely anticompetitive practice, right in the middle of our relatively new ubiquitous information infrastructure. One side effect of this is that they are one-stop shop for governments to get extremely detailed profiles of..to be honest, almost of all of us. But that's just one of the unfortunate side effects.

by pessimizer5 hours ago|

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> Google can be put under so much pressure by the government, they are basically forced to do what they says

This is true, but only because Google is a horrific monopoly and is allowed to continue to be (and to grow) only by the grace of government. If they don't do what they're told, they won't be allowed to steal in the way that they are accustomed to doing.

I don't think that anybody who controls Google misses a moment of sleep over it, though. They're being "forced" to do it like a kid is being "forced" not to do their homework if you offer them candy. It's easy and lucrative to be passive.

by wat100006 hours ago|

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I don't! For one thing, Google is not a person and has no feelings. Individuals within Google decided to comply. And none of those individuals would face any significant consequences for not complying. The US government, even now, has an extremely good track record of treating companies separate from their employees.

The US is not in a full blown authoritarian regime. Big companies aren't failing to resist because they fear dire consequences. They're doing it because they don't care. If they think caving to the administration will result in $1 in additional profit compared to fighting it, that's what they'll do.

Big corporations are paperclip maximizers but for money. Treat them like you'd treat an AI that's single-mindedly focused on making number go up.

by platevoltage2 hours ago|

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Utter nonsense. All it would take is for all of these trillion dollar companies to stand up to fascism. Yes, corporations don't have a conscience, but this would be good for their bottom line. They chose not to.