[LordDragonfang]

Genuinely curious, could you provide an example of Google "doing things they swore they never would" with consumer data? Because I know they do plenty of things with data that people think are creepy, but I don't recall ever seeing a story about them doing things they swore they wouldn't (besides the nebulous "don't be evil") or even lying about what they were actually doing with consumer data.

If it's happened time and time again, it should be easy to pull up a source, right?

[GeekyBear]

>Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

When Google bought the advertising network DoubleClick in 2007, Google founder Sergey Brin said that privacy would be the company’s “number one priority when we contemplate new kinds of advertising products.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/google-has-quietly-droppe...

[close04]

Random example: when Chrome logged you in the browser without any warning, because you logged in to Gmail it also swiftly synced your local data (like browsing history) to your Google profile. That’s akin to stealing your data and I think at some point they must have promised not to do it...

[GeekyBear]

>Google has been accused of breaking promises to patients, after the company announced it would be moving a healthcare-focused subsidiary, DeepMind Health, into the main arm of the organisation. The restructure, critics argue, breaks a pledge DeepMind made when it started working with the NHS that “data will never be connected to Google accounts or services”.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/14/google-be...

[belltaco]

They claimed multiple times publicly that they weren't scanning emails of students of schools that forced students to use Google email and Chromebooks, when in fact they were using them to build ad profiles.

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.h...

"While the allegations by the plaintiffs are explosive, it’s the sworn declarations of Google representatives in response to their claims that have truly raised the eyebrows of observers and privacy experts. Contrary to the company’s earlier public statements, Google representatives acknowledged in a September motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ request for class certification that the company’s consumer-privacy policy applies to Apps for Education users. Thus, Google argues, it has students’ (and other Apps for Education users’) consent to scan and process their emails."

"In November, Kyle C. Wong, a lawyer representing Google, also argued in a formal declaration submitted to the court in opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification that the company’s data-mining practices are widely known, and that the plaintiffs’ complaints that the scanning and processing of their emails was done secretly are thus invalid. Mr. Wong cited extensive media coverage about Google’s data mining of Gmail consumer users’

>Mr. Wong’s inclusion of the following reference to the disclosure provided to students at the University of Alaska particularly caught the attention of privacy advocates: The University of Alaska (“UA”) has a “Google Mail FAQs,” which asks, “I hear that Google reads my email. Is this true?” The answer states, “They do not ‘read’ your email per se. For use in targeted advertising on their other sites, if your email is not encrypted, software (not a person) does scan your email and compile keywords for advertising. For example, if the software looks at 100 emails and identifies the word ‘Doritos’ or ‘camping’ 50 times, they will use that data for advertising on their other sites.” “The fact that Google put this in their declaration means we take it as true,” said Ms. Barnes of the privacy watchdog group EPIC. Google’s sworn court statements reveal that the company has violated student trust by using students’ education records for profit.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/02/0...

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/google-deceptively-tracks...