
Google Exec's Internal Email On Its Data Leak Policy Has Rattled Employees - gumby
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/google-execs-internal-email-on-data-leak-policy-rattles
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duxup
This seems like a common policy, and any connection to employee advocacy, or
anything else going on at Google seem like speculation.

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deogeo
> Walker sent an update Tuesday in the company’s daily newsletter, clarifying
> that employees were typically only terminated when intentional violations
> resulted in [..] risks to user privacy

Brilliant framing - that privacy is only compromised if entities _other_ than
those authorized by Google get the data. That one might not trust Google
itself is never considered.

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mehrdadn
How did you read it that way? I don't see how the sentence implies Google
employees getting user data would not be considered a privacy risk.

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deogeo
That's not how I meant it. I edited the post, hopefully the meaning is clearer
now.

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mehrdadn
You still seem to be saying the same thing? You're worked up that the sentence
is saying that unauthorized employees getting user data is not something they
would consider a leak, and I'm trying to figure out how that sentence implied
that conclusion, because I don't see how it implies that.

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deogeo
I re-phrased it yet again. I did assume that they counted unauthorized
internal access as a leak as well. Their PR cleverly draws focus away from
whether Google should have that data in the first place. That, somehow, if a
multinational corporation knows everything about me, my privacy is not
compromised, so long as a dreaded _unauthorized employee_ doesn't get the
data.

Unauthorized by Google, not by the person being spied upon...

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mehrdadn
Oh THAT's what you mean? That you don't want Google to have your data? The
sentence is talking about the conditions under which employees are fired. Why
would Google fire its employees as a result of you not wanting Google to have
your data? Heck, the entire article is about access to unauthorized internal
documents. How is your point even relevant to the whole topic at all?

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deogeo
My point is a comment on Google's carefully crafted PR.

Edit: That it might be off-topic when viewed narrowly in the context of firing
employees, does not mean that the frame of debate should be left unexamined.
When _every other action_ of Google increases 'risk to privacy', it's
difficult for me to swallow their phrasing.

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mehrdadn
What? Their response is carefully crafted PR because they didn't say something
totally unreasonable about a completely irrelevant issue to the topic under
discussion?

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mc32
So instituting a policy reminiscent of HIPAA policies in order to plug a leaky
system they fostered in the first place.

It’s a fortune 50. They make money on ads. All the rest is smoke and mirrors
to distract and entice young prospects to the firm.

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techslave
this is why we can’t have nice things

