[luser001]

> sometimes programmers don't consider the ramifications of their actions. Google doesn't want to know who your friends and family are to sell your information to credit reporting agencies

I bet the execs and product managers realize the ramifications. If all of them profess to not realizing the ramifications, the following old quote probably applies.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23510.Upton_Sinclair