Hey guys. I've been lurking for a while. It seems to me there's a few different demographics that post to HN. A significant minority seems to be FAAMG employees.
With all the controversy surrounding these companies (TPM for W11, Apple's CSAM, Google's everything), I often wonder what recourse anyone has. The arguments made by these companies seems to be that they collect information consensually given to them in exchange for access to their services.
My question is, would it be ethical to scour HN and collect a list of profiles which have (of their own volition) claimed employment at FAAMG? I don't think a FAAMG employee could claim otherwise, but I would love to see everyone's opinions.
If the explicit aggregation of this data was ethical, at what point would acting on that data become unethical?
Spamming email addresses that you find on HN would be annoying and obnoxious, but is it unethical?
How about recruiting individuals into a game by which you give them the rule that liberates them from the law?
What about finding proof that people are doing the same?