A nice fat paycheck will often be enough to quiet a lot of people's doubts. And if it still bothers them, they can make themselves feel better by donating some of the money to charity.
Also, people who do things they know are wrong can mollify their consciences by comparing themselves to people who do even worse, and then patting themselves on the back for not being as bad.
They think things like, "at least I'm not literally robbing anyone", and the robbers think, "at least I'm not physically hurting anyone", and those that hurt people think "at least I'm not killing anyone", and then killers think, "at least I'm not torturing anyone to death," and the torturers tend to have some excuse too, like doing it for the greater good.
Unless you are literally the worst of the worst there'll always be someone worse you could compare yourself to and think that at least you're better than them.
There are already some examples of this kind of justification in this very thread.
I see your point, and I agree. "In the end, it's better for the consumer this way, we're just giving the process the tiniest of nudges." has fueled a lot of anti-consumer hogwash over the years, I'm sure.
For an engineer the end justifies the means when it involves putting food on the table and ensuring there's a roof over your families head - whistle-blowing is not an option, and quitting mid-project is never a good look either.
Every time I hear this ... no. Google engineers could get a job elsewhere easily. It is not like software engineers would be like miners in dying industry struggling to survive. We are well paid and can get jobs easily.
I am not saying that everyone should leave Google. I am saying that if your company demands something unethical from you, rationalizing it through "ensuring there's a roof over your families head" is just lie for most of us.
I completely disagree. Have you noticed how much targeted advertising has sold out our world and affected peoples ability to rationally think?
No, it's the same as any other industry. A single company or negative behavior doesn't define everyone.
It's a race to the bottom, and someone has to code them there. It's bad.
It's a hill I'd be happy to die on. I feel like 6/10 engineers wouldn't care to have that fight, let alone risk their job over it. I'm lucky to be in a position that I am even able to. So many are not. Yet another example for the banality of evil.
In this case they are using the same approach for HTML/JS ads on AMP pages, but if they know it's AMP they don't need to.
So I dunno - from an engineering point of view it seems pretty well justified to me.
I always wonder this with things like the Volkswagen emissions cheating - how do those engineers rationalise it?