[ImPostingOnHN]

> That's the thing, the benefits immensely outweigh the small negatives

that's the thing: they don't. both co-exist, and you must address the negative externalities individually, vs. saying "well we think we do more good so suck it, too bad" to the people you harm.

> You do understand that the alternative would be most phishing sites remaining active for days, if not months, if this service didn't exist?

the alternative could be a meteor hitting the planet, that doesn't justify your creating new negative externalities and unleashing them on the world with no reasonable recourse for the people you harm

indeed, your stated excuse for wrongdoing is a case study in letting the ends justify the means

you also neglect the many other alternatives, one of which is properly staffing and funding enough humans to deal with the harm you're inflicting on other people, and providing easy access to them from the people you've harmed, and scaling your service up only so long as you can support that proper level of staffing

[Avamander]

> the alternative could be a meteor hitting the planet, that doesn't justify your creating new negative externalities and unleashing them on the world with no reasonable recourse for the people you harm

Either you have no clue how much phish there really is or you know exactly. In both cases it sucks to be you.

> you also neglect the many other alternatives, one of which is properly staffing and funding enough humans to deal with the harm you're inflicting on other people, and providing easy access to them from the people you've harmed, and scaling your service up only so long as you can support that proper level of staffing

Sure, you're free to pay for an antivirus product that does the same and you can contact them.

It's thankfully not up to you to decide if people want to be inconvenienced or protected by what Google offers for free.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> Sure, you're free to pay for an antivirus product that does the same and you can contact them.

this is disingenuous: sure, you could, but no amount of antivirus can stop google from blocking customers or potential customers from seeing you without either of your informed, affirmative consent

in any case, thankfully your opinions that the ends justify the means (and also justify easily avoidable negative externalities), and that the lack of recourse available to the people you harm is somehow justified (unspecified how), seems to be the exception among people, rather than the norm

one wishes google actually cared what people thought, rather than professing to know better than them what's best, and directing them through the service without their informed, affirmative consent

[Avamander]

> this is disingenuous: sure, you could, but no amount of antivirus can stop google from blocking customers or potential customers from seeing you without either of your informed, affirmative consent

No amount of Google will stop an antivirus from doing the same without your consent. What's your point? Anti-phish solutions must have the site owners' consent? Don't be ridiculous.

[ImPostingOnHN]

based on your non-response to them, it sounds like you're conceding the following points:

- google could harm people less by providing recourse to the people they harm, but instead chooses not to;

- your suggestion that those harmed by google "just use another antivirus software" is irrelevant and doesn't apply here;

- market forces would not, in fact, be involved here;

- disabling Google's opt-out-only service is more than trivial for the average user; and

- google exploits this non-triviality by making the service opt-out, vs opt-in with informed consent.

> No amount of Google will stop an antivirus from doing the same without your consent.

I wish this didn't need to be explicitly specified, but "someone else could harm people" isn't a defense for google actively harming people

if that happened, and the antivirus company was in google's place, and they also failed to provide recourse to the people they were harming with their negative externalities, that would also be bad, just like it is now bad that google is actually doing it

so, what exactly is your point here in trying to justify google harming people via negative externalities while at the same time totally failing to offer proper recourse to them, when google has the option of harming people less, and chooses to avoid that option?

[Avamander]

> I wish this didn't need to be explicitly specified, but "someone else could harm people" isn't a defense for you actively harming people

A statistical inevitability is a defense for something. The world doesn't have perfect things.

Stop trying to frame something bad just because it isn't perfect. If you manage to stop that, then it would be possible to have a constructive discussion.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> A statistical inevitability is a defense for something

no it isn't, and also being screwed over by the leading search provider isn't a statistical inevitably anyways

> Stop trying to frame something bad just because it isn't perfect. If you manage to stop that, then it would be possible to have a constructive discussion.

stop trying to justify the means with the ends, more specifically trying to justify google actively harming people (sorry to break the news to you, but harming people IS bad), just because they also happened to do a good thing, when they have the non-mutually-exclusive option to harm people less, and instead choose to avoid that option

if you manage to stop that, then it would be possible to have a constructive discussion about how google can harm people less, since currently it seems like you're okay with google actively harming people any amount less than or equal to the amount of "good" they claim to do (with the determination made by you personally, natch), even when they could choose not to