Within Google, data's collected primarily to build better products. Or at least that's what the majority of the rank & file believe, and personally I believe the executives believe it too. This has the effect of widening the moat between them and competitors, but it also has real, tangible convenience benefits for users. I can guarantee that the majority of folks are thinking of those benefits, not the additional ad revenue, when building new products. I worked in Search for 5 years and was explicitly told by executives to ignore Ads when making decisions; they have plenty of their own engineers whose job is to optimize revenue.
This may seem hard to believe for someone who's never worked at a place that improved a product based on data, but it's a really fundamental part of the culture. You see the headlines about the NSA or Google's threat to privacy; you rarely see any news story about the A/B test they're running or the new feature in Android/Gmail/Chrome/Search that you get to use because usage logs showed that it took you too long to accomplish your task and some engineer decided to fix it.
That's may be true today, but one of features that distinguishes modern forms of surveillance from what was possible in the past is that truly massive amounts of data can now be stored "forever"[1].
Google itself may change what it wants to do with its data in the future. Worse, the fact that data was captured at all means it will be available for a subpoena or "national security letter" and Google will have little say in what happens to the data.
[1] the value of "forever" generally varies by the size of the available budget, which is "large enough" in the case of nation-states and companies the size of Google (or Apple)
The original question posed, though, was "Why do people at Google/Facebook/NSA continue to collect all this data? What's their purpose?", which I think I answered. While it may not be true in 10 years, it's true now.
Also, I think that the sheer pace of change today may insulate a lot of people from the consequences of having data available on them. The data may be out there - but by the time it gets into the wrong hands, it no longer reflects reality, which makes it largely useless. That guy who talks about having his dick sucked by sororisluts [1] may, in a couple years, be the guy with 200 million users whose company you desperately want to invest in.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/28/confirmed-snapchats-evan-sp...
It's not about why you collect the data. It's that a massive database of such information exists. The intent in mind when building a system has no jurisdiction over the potential uses later.
If the NSA wants the data and it's inside of a US-jurisdiction entity, they will get it. Period. Maybe they NSL some people with legitimate access and make sure they know they go to federal if they let their boss find out. Maybe they recruit some SREs. Maybe they blackmail the night watchman in the building that holds the equipment that has the dark fiber L2 encryption keys so that they can get the inter-datacenter link monitoring going again.
It doesn't matter what people intended when they built it. The fact is that it exists and the men with guns and a money printing press want it. Game over.
And then I recall about Prism. And I think about how a secret program like that costs money and significant technical involvement from the host to run. Google took public money to help run Prism, and Google techs actively supported the dragnet. Pretty shameful, IMO.
As an ex-Googler who apparently can speak out, I ask you: if Google has competitors that are privacy focused, isn't it in everyone's best interest to select the competitors' products over Google's despite Google's excellence? And, can you report if anything has been done at Google to lift this stink of surveillance from its products?
Is Google still a willing participant in Prism-style data collection of its users?
Then the news about MUSCULAR [3] broke, and people were very, very pissed [4]. I saw the internal reports where people put together what must have happened; I'm not sure what sort of details I'm allowed to say, but it basically amounted to the U.S. (well, technically the UK, acting on behalf of the NSA) conducting military operations against the property of its own citizens. Google ended up encrypting all inter-datacenter traffic soon after. [5]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillan...
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSCULAR_%28surveillance_progra...
[4] https://plus.google.com/108799184931623330498/posts/SfYy8xbD...
[5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-enc...
This news item you reminded me of - "Google ended up encrypting all inter-datacenter traffic soon after" - makes sense as a response that the government can't argue with (yet).
Looking over the MUSCULAR wikipedia article, I wonder if the NSA could still capture the user's and enterprise's unencrypted data at the Google Front End Servers like they had been before the inter-datacenter traffic was encrypted?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2903192/safari-users-in-the-u...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/15/us-privacy-google-...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/technology/google-pays-fin...
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/01/hamburg-google/
Please understand, I'm not saying your wrong...I'm just saying from the outside [even as someone who works in IT and relies on data to make decisions] that I've never worked at a company that had any of these issues. It could be a question of scale and the fact Google is an easy target to make a headline with.
When they'd found out what evil thing they have collectively assembled, piece by piece, each of them blinded by his inexperience and enthusiasm for pure science, it would be too late.
And I'd finally have to replace them with expensive hired guns, or more clueless people, like some SV 20-something startup kids who would kill for 20 minutes of techcrunch fame.
Google and Facebook, as contentious as some of us feel about them, produce products people like, and are voted into power by our direct and continued usage. You can't opt out of the NSA.
In the end, you're comparing an organization with a world-destroying military that regularly murders and imprisons people at all ends of the earth, to another that displays diaper ads that follow you around the internet. Not quite the same.
A subculture, yes. An "entire generation", absolutely not, this is hyperbole. You can't "opt out" of the NSA, but certainly if you wanted to, the very first step is to get as far away from Facebook as possible. Yet there is no large gap in ages amongst those gleefully participating in Facebook all day which would indicate "an entire generation" seeking to avoid government surveillance.
If you're not just being pedantic:
http://www.businessinsider.com/poll-millenials-have-historic...
The millennials are distrustful of everyone, and why shouldn't they be?
The idea that distrust of the government has suddenly leaped on generational lines implies that millennials are savvy, informed, and active in comparison to demographics over 30 who are assumed to be complacent and naive in comparison. But the reality is that most people right now will gladly answer on a poll that they don't like the government as much as they used to, and that most people are still almost entirely complacent in any case; there are no millions marching in the streets in protest, voter turnouts remain terribly low across all demographics, and everyone freely donates datapoints to Facebook all day which is one of the NSA's most bountiful conduits for information.
That's not to disagree with the very original comment here. The original comment refers to the interaction of subcultures as well, namely the "builder" subcultures who can direct their efforts towards pro-privacy or anti-privacy efforts. That is of course an important conduit.
People who were doing silly work making video games pushed the boundaries of parallel processing, created the GPU industry, and now that is relied on for serious scientific research. People making social networks so college freshman could date made tools to help those fighting authoritarian governments connect and created infrastructure technology to work on big data problems the governments might face on social issues.
Who did more to help the Asian Tigers raise from poverty to economic superpowers? Peace Corps people distorting local economies with their help, or people investing in local infrastructure because it was good value for them to make money??
What's better for the world, besides your conscious, working for a soup kitchen for work that can be done for $10/hr, or freelancing for $50/hr and donating that to the soup kitchen to give someone with less skills a job and the soup kitchen $40 remaining to buy supplies they need?
Finally, a lot of really smart people end up going in to law or finance because that's where the money is. Even if making consumer ad-tech doesn't sound quiet as noble as researching novel energy, if it encourages people to start entering fields where they are building things rather than creating more regulation for things, it's probably a net-positive. I really doubt that this idea that engineers should be this monastic underclass is so great for society. I constantly hear programmer say their salary is "inflated", to which I respond "if you feel overpaid, give your money to a good charity, don't roll over for the uber rich tech-exec/VC in charge."
If you want to make a positive impact on the world, respecting market efficiency is underrated.
It's sad that so many of The Onion's attempts at over-the-top parody have turned out to be prescient.
A VC arm that's part of the government seems like a monstrous hybrid of private and public. What is the profit for? For the same reason that it gives one pause regarding what the CIA is doing investing in social media. If it's totally OK, why not have the government invest in private prison companies?
Let alone how SV was in large part funded and formed by Military Contracts
This is only half the story. Thanks to Snowden, we now know that these same databases are being used by NSA and GCHQ, enabling authoritarian governments to suppress and attack these same people.
The problem is that advertising is inherently unethical, so that reasoning doesn't hold up.
> What's better for the world, besides your conscious, working for a soup kitchen for work that can be done for $10/hr, or freelancing for $50/hr and donating that to the soup kitchen to give someone with less skills a job and the soup kitchen $40 remaining to buy supplies they need?
That only holds up if those other $40 were to spontaneously appear from thin air - but it doesn't, and that difference is coming from somewhere. It means that somewhere, some group of people had to collectively pay $40 more for something, to pay for your salary.
> Even if making consumer ad-tech doesn't sound quiet as noble as researching novel energy, if it encourages people to start entering fields where they are building things rather than creating more regulation for things, it's probably a net-positive.
No, it's really not. "Going out and creating something" is not automatically something desirable, if the "something" being created is unethical.
I don't dispute that advertising can be unethical, or that many of these big tech companies have faced some difficult decisions and debatably have made the wrongs ones. But you can do unethical things in any industry, and advertising is not fundamentally unethical.
Taking them away from those things? I doubt it - the top talent will always be sold to the highest bidder and its unlikely "climate change research" is a segment that can support thousands of of mid-high six figure salaries.
Next while these companies do collect a large amount of personal data - their purpose is clear and as is their boundaries. There is a strong effort to keep adopt data secure - if a user was found using private facebook data to stalk loved ones[1] I don't doubt thats activity that would (1) noticed by their systems they have in place to prevent data from ending up in the wrong place and (2) they would be fired for.
Lastly with Google and Facebook you have a choice - its still in your control - if you want to use these services or not and it doesn't require a secret court to challenge them.
[1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/23/bloomberg...
Sure, it's a choice. Just like using the Internet is a choice. Like using phones is a choice. Like choosing automobiles over walking is a choice. But not all choices are equal.
So what do you expect to see here? Are you expecting Facebook subsidize the cost of getting the users online to any destination, or do you wish to remove the choice to use facebook for anyone who couldn't pay $10?
This is more like "Like choosing taking the bus to city centre over walking directly to my office 300ft outside the city centre is a choice." Bus or no, at the end of the day I still can't afford a full fledged automobile.
Even if they paid me to use Facebook, that wouldn't affect my decision on whether or not I want them to have access to information. If the US government decides to subsidize community college and make it free, they aren't taking away my choice to go to a private school.
The NSA is not transparent and I cannot opt out of being monitored. Therefore, I do no romanticize about the free service facebook provides, but cannot agree with how the NSA conducts itself.
That's like saying that you oppose a sales tax, and you consider a retail store equivalent to the tax collectors because the retail store provides a fruitful tree for the collection of sales tax.
VS
Being part of a business (that may or may not be making any serious contribution to the common good)
Both segments violate privacy. And in both cases there are ways to correct this from within.
- The cost of ads are far greater than the loss of privacy: the opportunity cost of using products optimized for ad revenue rather than user revenue, the cost of collateral damage, such as the tremendous amount of link-bait and other garbage that advertising perversely incentivizes, and perhaps the greatest cost of all, the social cost of all the manipulation and deceit inherent in advertising.
- Even the "free" part is a lie. Advertisers pass the full costs back to us via the things we buy. So we are still paying, and we're paying the overhead of indirectness on top.
Further, they're not collecting this data for any purpose – vague, questionable, and slippery though it may be – of doing "good" or "protecting our country." They're doing it, solely and without an attempt at justification, for ad revenues. And they're taking tens of thousands (if not hundreds?) of some of the brightest minds in tech away from things like drug discovery, climate change, energy research, etc.
Not trying to start a flame war, nor am I drawing equivalencies between Facebook and the NSA. I'm actually just legitimately curious how you think we can segment this spectrum.