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While all these things help, I still think it's true that for 99.9% of people, nothing really bad will happen because of info that Google collects. I mean, as terrible as "getting on the radar of someone that wants to make [your] life miserable" is, it's a relatively rare occurrence, and I doubt that Google is really making it that much worse (if at all).

Disclaimer - would be happy to be proved wrong if you want to provide contrary evidence...



Disadvantages as a consequence of being spied on by the "googles" of the world are difficult to prove, because of information asymmetry:

* were you denied entry in a country because the agent had a bad day or because of something you wrote on twitter?

* did your insurance rates increase because of a market adjustment, or because of something your car mechanic or car manufacturer shared with the insurer?

* were you denied that job because they found a better candidate or because they found some thought crimes on your social media?

* were you stopped by the police for a random check or because the cameras matched your face to suspicios online purchases?

* did you lose your global entry access because you're a threat to national security or because you accidentally ordered a fake bag on Amazon that you never even received?

* were you passed for promotion because you're not good enough or because your employer found out through LinkedIn that you were looking for another job last year?

In a world increasingly controlled by algorithms and data, you won't even know when you are being harmed.


Look, I semi-agree in the abstract. It is difficult to prove in the individual case. In the aggregate, it's not impossible to prove, if still a bit hard - this is what economics/sociology research does, and a lot of governments have statistics/open access/FOIA/etc. So we can know how often these things happen.

Specifically to the things you list - again, I don't have statistics here, but based on my gut feeling - most of them barely affect anyone. Do you really think a large amount of people are barred entry into a country because they wrote something on Twitter? I'd imagine this almost never happens, at least today.

And btw, I kind of disagree with at least some of your items, like "were you passed for promotion because you're not good enough or because your employer found out through LinkedIn that you were looking for another job last year?". This is not what we were talking about, a case in which "Google" spies on you. This is your employer "spying" on you through your (supposedly public-enough) actions on social media. Changing the place you are looking for a job for from LinkedIn to "NewLinkedIn" won't make any difference for something like this, and is not the fault or responsibility of the company.


The negative consequences will never affect most people, just those that have bad luck or have upset someone in power. Kinda like how only some journalists commit suicide by shooting themselves 5 times in the head in Russia.

It's impossible for us to know what's happening, baring various leaks. Given the last decade my gut feeling is that if it's not happening, someone's at least thinking about how to implement it.

Re LinkedIn: I didn't mean good old social network stalking. There's nothing stopping LinkedIn from offering this as a sevice to companies. They already allow recruiters and paying members more privileges.


Am I really the only person who creates and uses new accounts for every online site/service every few months? Different email addresses (on my own domain) too or mailinator for the sign ups, using tor on occasion in case they want to note the country/IP I'm signing up from.


I've noticed that lot of websites nowadays don't allow mailinator. What do you use then?


Android has over 2 billion users. 0.01% of that is still 2 million humans.




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